Have you ever wondered why people who sign-up for your Free Trial don’t turn into customers?
Well, I got an email from the CEO of a SaaS document management company the other day and she was at her wits’ end wondering the same thing!
She wrote me to vent her frustrations about her Free Trial process and to get some guidance on how to fix it.
Below is part of my response to her – I put my answers after excerpts from her initial email – because I want you to see my answers in context.
I changed her name and took out her company info because this isn’t about her anymore… it’s about you… I want to wake you up and snap you out of your Free Trial Frustration, too!
Here we go…
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Sarah, here are some thoughts, and I might be a little too honest here, but it seems like you’re having some big issues so I want to help:
> We have web leads that come in but go nowhere i.e. trial signups,
> whitepaper downloads, demo signups, newsletter signups etc. They may engage
> initially but most of the leads from the web do not close.
I think you probably need to redefine “engage” as filling out a form and going away is hardly “engagement.” And most of the time this is your fault as the vendor, not theirs! So we need to figure out what is causing them to not become more engaged.
From what I saw after looking at your site, signing up for a free trial, and downloading a White Paper, there doesn’t seem to be a cohesive strategy to move someone from a visitor, to a lead, to a customer.
Obviously I haven’t seen all of the emails in whatever sequences I was added to, but the initial emails I got do not really pull me in.
The Free Trial process is also likely quite off-putting because of the mis-managed expectations for the person signing-up and a lack of understanding about the psychology involved in getting them engaged on your part.
> We stopped the auto set up of their trial signups until they engage
> with us to qualify
Was this a reaction to the fact that most who started the Free Trial didn’t convert? How has this helped? I’d guess it probably hasn’t helped much and if that’s the case, it points to a lack of an overall strategy.
SaaS & Web App vendors routinely put up “qualification barriers” – like what you did, requiring a Credit Card to get started, etc. – because they think that makes up for lacking a cohesive strategy to convert prospects.
It rarely does.
> We changed from a 30 day to a 14 day Free Trial
Why? From the customer prospective it would seem that with a product that is more complex and “enterprise” than Dropbox or Box.net that they’d need longer to properly evaluate it (regardless of whether they do or not).
Length of a trial is just a marketing tool and the length should be based on customer expectations and how you want to position your product. A 14 day trial might turn people off who think they need more time.
BTW, did this do anything positive? [it didn't]
> Regarding our application; as you know we have an application that
> can be a simple or a complex solution depending on the prospects needs. As
> it stands if the prospect is in a trial situation the app does not reach out
> and grab them telling them what to do.
It should reach out and grab them, telling them what to do. If it is complex, look for ways to simplify the process of becoming engaged in the product.
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There were some pretty valuable points in there that I hope she – and you – picked up on.
My goal in my response to her was to very clearly point out that she made decisions that weren’t based on anything except her current mindset and that if she didn’t snap out of that, nothing was going to get better; in fact, it could get much worse!
Her mindset was getting in the way of creating – and executing on – a real and effective Free Trial strategy.
I want Sarah – and you – to be as successful as possible and that is going to take getting out of this mindset that causes Free Trial Frustration.
Just offering a Free Trial isn’t enough; you need to know how they work, why they work when they do, how to take advantage of the opportunity a Free Trial offers you, how to incorporate the Free Trial into your overall marketing and sales strategy, what tactics to use and when, what metrics to measure and what metrics don’t matter, etc…
… in other words, you need to take your Free Trial as seriously as you do the rest of your SaaS business.
If you’ve been in-market at least 6 months and are curious how we could Accelerate your Profitable Growth – perhaps by optimizing your Free Trial – contact me and we’ll setup a time to discuss your options for improving and accelerating customer acquisition.
- Lincoln
(972) 200-9317
About Lincoln Murphy
Thanks. Interesting article. I’m not a big fan of free limited-time trials in any case. I like the fremium model where you have a basic free level and then upgrade paths to levels that require a monthly service fee or subscription. A limited-time trial for software makes sense, theoretically, but in practice, I’ve seen that it doesn’t help engagement and sometimes hurts it.
Thanks for the comments Doug… Interesting perspective to say the least.
Yes, most of the time the Free Trial process does hurt engagement… but that isn’t the fault of the “Free Trial”… it’s the fault of the vendor and how they implemented it.
I have actually seen myself that many Freemium (or seemingly 100% Free) offerings do a much better job at engaging the user than Premium offerings with Free Trials…
…the big question is whether “engaging users” leads to “acquiring customers” and in my experience that isn’t the case… conversions from free to paid in a Freemium offering in B2B are still quite low, while I’ve seen – and helped – many SaaS and Web App vendors implement their Free Trial strategy the right way and get a massive boost in free-to-paid conversions.
Free-forever still comes with a lot of psychological baggage that the vendor has to work around… so be sure to consider the difference between user and customer engagement.
Great points though, Doug… thanks for commenting.
Agree with Doug and you. The problem isn’t the trial but the engagement of the prospect to make a decisions. The fact that they completed a call to action doesn’t meant the are qualified or ‘engaged’.
Regarding the trial period. I can’t get a meeting with a senior executive in 14 days…let alone try out software. I am pretty sure that I personally have not purchased any complex software with simply a 14 day trial. A simple…use it once and I get it tool. Yes. But nothing significant from a business or process stand point.
Good point, Michael… remember, a Free Trial can be used as part of a higher-touch/human-touch-required sales process.
So if you offer a 14 day trial (probably considered too short of a trial in your prospect’s mind for a complex product anyway), that would be something you offer after you’ve had some outreach and connection with the senior exec.
The great thing is, because you’ve already connected with them before they start the trial, you can do some very interesting things if you design and engineer the trial itself as a real part of the sales process.
For instance, if you take advantage of the technologies available to hook the prospect’s actions into your CRM, you don’t have to wait 14 or 30 or 60 days until the end of the trial to close the sale; you can see that they’ve reached certain milestones in real-enough time and reach out to close the deal immediately; right when they’ve said their ready with their actions.
Good stuff… thanks for being part of the conversation.