How do you determine whether a self-service SaaS Free Trial is appropriate for your otherwise high-touch sales process? A SaaS Free Trial is an integral part of the sales process and not something separate… never forget that. So, whether you have a 100% automated, self-service sales model, a high-touch sales process, or a hybrid (many […]
SaaS Free Trial: How Self-Service fits with a High-Touch Sales Process
August 22, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Simply Offering a SaaS Free Trial Increases Conversions
August 14, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
For those companies who’ve offered a SaaS Free Trial and had it fail, it is hard to see how it could ever work. For those who’ve never offered a Free Trial, the idea of adding an extra 30 or 60 days to the sales cycle seems like a bad idea; they’re doing just fine, thank […]
SaaS Free Trial: Your Customer Qualification Machine
August 14, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
I believe in the saying “high-tech allows for high-touch” and that we can use the self-service nature of the web – including your SaaS Free Trial – to not eliminate the human-powered sales force, but to scale it efficiently to let each salesperson work better leads and close more sales. In my experience, SaaS Free […]
SaaS Free Trial Optimization: When to start?
August 3, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Before you start Optimizing your SaaS Free Trial to improve free-to-paid Conversions, learn the 5 things that must be done first… Here are five things that are required before optimization really makes a lot of sense. You don’t want to spend a lot of time optimizing your Free Trial if these aren’t already in place. On […]
7 Tips for Software Vendors Moving to the Cloud
July 26, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
As a Strategic Consultant, I have worked with the Executive Teams of many Enterprise Software and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) to develop strategies for becoming Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Services vendors. …and I must say that I’ve come to what I consider to be a shocking conclusion: Far too many people think the Cloud is […]
How to keep App-generated Email from Being Marked Spam
July 26, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
The most concise definition of Transactional Email I could find (after a 7 second Google search) is: Email primarily containing information about current or prior business dealings, such as confirmation of a sale, a registration number, an invoice, or an opt-in or opt-out confirmation. Contrast this with “marketing email.” UPDATED FOR 2014! Transactional emails are those […]
SaaS Free Trial: Confused Minds Don’t Buy
July 25, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
When it comes to your SaaS free trial, complicated isn’t cool…it kills conversions! Confused minds don’t buy… they bounce, and take the money that you spent to get them to your site and their lifetime value as a customer with ’em! Look at your SaaS sales funnel, your Free Trial sign-up process, their first in-app […]
SaaS Free Trial Users are a Vanity Metric
July 6, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
There is no such thing as an “inactive user” in a SaaS free trial. You can’t be a “user” if you aren’t “using,” right? Makes sense. I think we get confused because in software the “user” connotation comes from the fact that a user is literally someone for whom an access account has been created. […]
SaaS Pricing Page Design: Highest Price on the Left?
May 20, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS pricing page design is always evolving, and when I created the Pricing Page Success Formula for SaaS and Web Apps in 2009, the jury (me) was still out on whether placing the high priced version of your product on the left and moving lower to the right really mattered.
SaaS Conversion Rate: A Simple Trick to DOUBLE Your Revenue
April 15, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
When your Free Trial fails to convert customers, it drives down your SaaS conversion rate by doing exactly what it was designed to do. Think about that for a second. There I was working on a ‘Optimizing SaaS Conversions’ presentation and I wrote this statement: For many SaaS & Web App vendors, 100% of sales […]
9 Ways to Instantly Improve Your PPC Results
March 25, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
The success of your Free Trial in converting customers is directly tied to the quality of prospects that enter the trial in the first place. That’s something I tell the Free Trial Dominator Premium Members all the time…. you’re success depends on your ability to attract the right audience. So this means that the Attention […]
Why SaaS Free Trial Optimization is So Important
March 20, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Over the years I’ve been called on by the CEOs and Executive Leadership of several hundred SaaS and Web App companies around the world to help them achieve Profitable Growth. In that time, I’ve learned a thing or two about the importance of Free Trials. For instance, I know that if you offer a Free […]
SaaS Free Trial: The #1 Reason You Fail to Convert Customers
March 19, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
The #1 reason your SaaS free trial is failing to convert customers is simple… Right after a prospective customer signs-up for your Free Trial, you fail to engage them. Data shows that prospects active in the first 3 days of a SaaS Free Trial – regardless of trial length – convert at a significantly higher […]
Switch from a Reactive to Proactive SaaS Free Trial
March 13, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
There are two types of SaaS Free Trials: Reactive and Proactive; you want to be one of the latter because they will convert more prospects to customers. Period. Reactive SaaS Free Trials Most SaaS & Web App vendors fall into this category, and their mindset about Free Trials is something like this: Get them to […]
SaaS Free Trials: The Shorter the Better?
March 12, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Most people don’t realize that the length of a SaaS Free Trial is just a marketing gimmick designed to get prospects into the trial. Sure, 30-day Free Trials are the de facto standard for SaaS apps, but whether it’s 7, 14, 15, or 30-days, few providers can say WHY they came up with that length. […]
SaaS Pricing: The Advanced Stuff
February 27, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Let’s Improve your SaaS Pricing For immediate consultation and advice on all things SaaS, schedule a 60-minute meeting with me via Clarity. If you feel a more involved engagement is required for me to help you, email me with the specifics of your situation (as much detail as you’re comfortable giving) and we’ll setup a meeting to work […]
SaaS Pricing: The Basics
February 27, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Let’s Improve your SaaS Pricing For immediate consultation and advice on all things SaaS, schedule a 60-minute meeting with me via Clarity. If you feel a more involved engagement is required for me to help you, email me with the specifics of your situation (as much detail as you’re comfortable giving) and we’ll setup a meeting to work […]
Where is Your Ideal Customer on the Awareness Ladder?
February 3, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
I recently gave my clients some interesting questions to ask themselves… and I thought you might want to ask yourself these questions, too. If someone looks at your marketing site – main page, pricing page, sign-up page, whatever – for 5 seconds, what will they think your app does? If your ideal customer looks at […]
What’s the biggest issue you’re dealing with right now?
January 26, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
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 […]
Your Signup Form is Hurting Your Free Trial Conversions!
January 10, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
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 […]
How to Offer Both Freemium and Free Trials
January 9, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
I got this question from a SaaS vendor about offering both Freemium and Free Trial options and I wanted to share my response to him with you. UPDATED FOR 2015! 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 […]
SaaS Customer Retention: The Secret to Reducing your Churn Rate
January 4, 2012 Article by Lincoln Murphy
When it comes to SaaS Customer Retention, I get questions like this frequently: Hi Lincoln, I’d like to hear your perspective on minimizing churn, especially in an industry with steadily declining prices, Adding more value with a better customer experience and more product functionality to mitigate price erosion and churn helps. Better segmentation. What else? Churn […]
What’s Your Biggest Challenge in 2012?
December 30, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
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 […]
Average Free Trial Conversion Rates… and why they don’t matter
December 28, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
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 data, but even if I did, well… you’ll see. Softletter (the SaaS University folks) on the other hand collects and publishes this type […]
What’s the Ideal SaaS Free Trial Length?
December 27, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
So, what’s the ideal Free Trial period is for SaaS and Web Apps? As you can imagine, 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 […]
Classical Freemium Doesn’t Exist At Scale
December 25, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
“Classical Freemium” is the marketing tactic where a SaaS or Web App vendor offers a Free-in-Perpetuity version of a product or service, often feature- or usage-limited, as well as a version of the same product or service with less limitations to which the vendor will attempt to up-sell the user. NOTE: I originally published this […]
SaaS Free Trials: Common Problems with Sign-up Forms
December 22, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
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 prospects 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 […]
Focus on People, not Features, in 2012 (Happy Holidays!)
December 21, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
For a lot of us, the holidays are a time of reflection. Looking back on 2011, I’d say this has been one wild and crazy year! I’ve spent a ton of time working with the best SaaS & Web App companies on the planet to get them more customers. Save for the occasional social network […]
SaaS & Web Apps: Optimize Your Pricing Page for 2012
December 18, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Your Pricing Page is the most important marketing page on your site. Don’t believe me? Think about this… if 100% of your sales come from the Pricing Page, then you better believe that it’s the most important page on your site! And it better be designed to convert! There are some very specific things that […]
The 7 Secrets to DOMINATING Your Free Trials
November 11, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
In addition to the years I’ve been working with SaaS & Web App vendors, I’ve spent 2011 totally immersed in the business of free and have helped dozens of companies – from super early startups to MASSIVE $B/year companies – completely DOMINATE their free trials. Nothing else I’ve done has produced such AWESOME results – […]
Web App Pricing: How To Avoid the Commodity Trap
October 10, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS vendors who know their customers know what they don’t value and avoid building a pricing strategy around those elements. A client of mine – an established SaaS company in the HR space – wanted to pass on the storage costs associated with the use of the system to their end-customer. I told them that […]
Competitor Pricing… Does It Matter?
September 19, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
“Wait… what about competitor pricing?” you ask. I recently published a post where I had the audacity to suggest that value pricing required only two inputs: The Customer’s Willingness to pay (value perception) The Customer’s Ability to pay (how, when, why, where, how) Since I got a number of emails with the same question – […]
Price Objections are Value Objections
September 14, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
It’s not your price that they object to… it’s the value they don’t like. There are times where the price – the number – is so out of whack with the reality of the market that no matter how valuable you make your offering seem, they simply cannot afford it. Like promoting the value of […]
Offer a Free Trial of your Web App? Don’t EVER do this…
August 31, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Are conversions from Free Trial to Paid Customer not as high as you’d like? You work hard at Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) on the front end (including your Pricing Page), you pay a lot to get people into your Free Trial through advertising, and you just can’t seem to convert enough of them into paying […]
The SECRET to $1M ARR in 6 Months is 9 Customers
August 30, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
It’s easier than you think to get to $1M in annual revenue with your SaaS app. To have a $1,000,000 per year run rate, you need to bring in $2740 per day… roughly. Pardon me if my math is off a bit… this is just one of those posts to get you thinking… your mileage […]
Why OfficeDrop Went Freemium… and how Mobile Apps forced their hand
August 19, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Was OfficeDrop forced into Freemium at phone-point? Healy Jones, VP Marketing at OfficeDrop, told me exactly how leveraging mobile apps made Freemium the right strategy for them. Do you prefer to listen on the go? Download the .mp3 audio file (33.7MB) here. Wistia has kindly donated business video hosting to me, which pretty much makes […]
Assistly Marketing VP Tells You Why They Dropped Tiered Pricing and Picked Up Freemium
August 11, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
UPDATE: Assistly was acquired by Salesforce.com shortly after we did this interview… they are now Desk.com. I sat down and chatted with Assistly’s SVP of Marketing Matt Trifiro via Video Skype and he spilled his guts for you about why Assistly changed their pricing, adopted Freemium, and set out to disrupt the market… all at […]
Web App Sales Funnel: 2 Questions You MUST Answer
February 17, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS and Web App companies must manage marketing metrics, but before diving in too deep, answer these two questions. What if I told you there are two questions that you probably don’t immediately know the answer to but if you did would absolutely change your view of your self-service “sales funnel?” Would you want to […]
SaaS Customer Success: Technology Will Fail, but Service Must Never
December 20, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
As a SaaS company focusing on Customer Success, you are in a unique position to offer proactive support to your customers; anything less is unacceptable! Alternate title: SaaS Vendors Should Learn What NOT To Do from Citrix So, I’m not sure if you heard (you probably did if you follow me on Twitter!), but the […]
