I do what I do for one reason... to help SaaS & Web App vendors be more successful. Period. If I'm not doing that, I'm not doing my job. Some I will help be more successful by working with them 1-on-1 or through programs like the Free Trial Dominator (which is awesome, IMHO). But others - like you - I will help through my blog posts. So... what's the biggest issue you're dealing with [...]

When your sales process fails to convert customers, it's probably doing exactly what it was designed to do. Which is why even though you offer an amazing SaaS or Web App that meets a real market need, you're not making sales. Even though you worked hard, created amazing content, made a bunch of cold calls, and used strategic advertising to get plenty of traffic to your site, you're not making [...]

I had a SaaS vendor ask me the following question when I mentioned "average" Free Trial conversion rates: When we look at broad Free Trial conversion ratios, I would assume some of the variances may depend on how much information is required to sign up for a free trial. For example, there are a number of sites that require very little, if any, prospect information (i.e., just an email). Others [...]

I got another detailed response to my question "What's Your Biggest Challenge for 2012?" from a SaaS vendor and wanted to share my response to him with you. Our current app has two pricing tiers - free and paid. Simple pricing has its advantages! We're coming out with a major redesign of the product (plus new features) in early 2012 and need to decide how many pricing levels to have. So far, [...]

Late last year  (way back in December) I asked you what your biggest challenges going into 2012 were and I got a lot of answers from SaaS and Web App vendors around the world. But almost everything boiled down to these two things: Convert Leads & Reduce Churn. I didn't just get terse answers to my query, some folks sent me very detailed challenges and I - in turn - responded in detail. And [...]

I believe in moving forward, not looking back. So my question as we go into 2012 is this: What's Your Biggest Challenge as a SaaS or Web App Vendor in 2012? Is it making your Free Trials more effective at creating customers? Coming up with the right Pricing? How to handle Competition? Whether to go Freemium? Overall Business Model issues? How to handle Accounting? How to Manage Recurring Revenue? [...]

I get asked what the average Free Trial conversion rate is or "what's a good conversion rate" all the time. But since I'm not an analyst or researcher I don't have industry-wide datas, but even if I did, well... you'll see. Softletter (the SaaS University folks) on the other hand collects and publishes this type of information, so we'll look at their stuff. A brief disclaimer: I don't like [...]

So, what's the ideal free trial period is for SaaS and Web Apps? I get asked that a lot. Sure, the 30-day Free Trial is common among B2B SaaS & Web App vendors, but there aren't any rules. And with everything from 14-day to 60-day (and longer) trials appearing frequently I understand why this the question persists. So, the short answer to what the ideal Free Trial period is "there isn't [...]

Today is December 26, 2011. You have 6 days - including today - until the year 2011 is over and done with. So what are you doing to convert those currently in your Free Trial to customers in 2011? It isn't too late to convert them! I'm willing to bet that you have some users in your Free Trial that signed-up at a point in December 2011 who, if they convert on the last day of their trial, [...]

I just posted the video from the 12/21 Group Coaching call to the Free Trial Dominator site. I started by showing an email sent by 37Signals to former trialists as a way to get them to come back. It used the "updated feature" method. I reviewed the marketing sites - from the marketing site, to the Free Trial sign-up process, and first in-app experience - of these five Free Trial Dominator members: https://crowd.fm/ http://www.myclientspot.com/ http://www.freeagent.com/ http://www.groupquality.com/ http://worketc.com/ We [...]