Trigger a countdown timer or a website notification banner on the app dashboard to communicate that their free trial is ending.

Offering people a reward to upgrade improves your free-to-paid marketing strategy drastically. Here are a few tips to make your incentives more appealing to users:. You can easily use OptinMonster to show the right offer to each group of users. In each group of email, include a link that subscribers can follow to take up your offer.

Price anchoring is a psychological tactic that you can use in a couple of different ways. You can show the highest subscription plan first to draw a contrast with other, lesser-priced plans. By introducing the highest plan first, you give users an anchor for reference. Another way to apply price anchoring is to place your best paid subscription plan between the free version and the highest-priced plan.

You can see this on a lot of SaaS websites that sandwich their best-selling plans between other plans. Lusha goes a step further.

It anchors its pricing against its closest, more expensive competitors:. Applying price anchoring makes one plan look more attractive than others. It can also help you underline the value of the paid versions, especially if you also include a feature list.

The length of your trial period impacts your free-to-paid conversion strategy. Other studies also back up this finding. Most people make up their minds in about 3 days, says CrazyEgg. Using welcome emails in your free trial marketing strategy can be a game-changer. Consider these mind-blowing statistics about welcome emails:.

Sending a welcome email is a great way to build relationships with your trial users. Here are 3 examples of really good welcome emails that engage first-time users:. Savee sends a minimalistic welcome email for users to choose what they want to do next:.

Soft Services encourages its users to opt in to other content:. Aeropress includes a discount code in their welcome email:. Want to get more ideas on how to use welcome emails well? Here are 3 tips to improve product adoption and engagement:.

Instead, send an email addressed by a real human to foster a relationship with customers from day one. For more ideas, read our posts on how to write perfect welcome emails and the best welcome email examples. Email marketing is an excellent tool to onboard new users, engage with them, and convert them into paid customers.

Here are some findings to remind you just how powerful email marketing is:. The welcome emails that we discussed earlier should ideally be the first sequence in your email marketing workflow. WPForms runs a lead nurturing campaign offering something of value to new users with each email.

Assuring users that they can cancel their subscription at any time is yet another way to increase your free-trial-to-paid conversion rate. This strategy needs you to believe in your product. GetResponse talks about canceling a subscription anytime the users want right on their homepage:.

To avoid churn via cancellations, ask customers to fill out a customer feedback survey as part of their exit. You can use email list segmentation to nurture lost users through win-back campaigns. These are the users your free trial marketing strategy needs to focus on.

Mixpanel and Amplitude offer free plans for you to test the product before deciding which one you like best. Research shows that :. With segmented lists, you can convert potential customers through personalized email marketing campaigns.

Adding pricing transparency below the fold could help visitors decide what plan would be right for their team after the free trial ends. More details about the trial to help convince visitors to convert. Adding how long the trial is, if a credit card is required, etc may result in more conversions.

Adding customer logos above the fold would clearly show prospects which brands are currently using leveraging Dropbox. HoneyBook What the page does well: The purple CTA stands out and makes it easy for visitors to convert in the hero section. Although, making this more prominent would make the point even more persuasive.

Presenting additional information in a Z-Pattern below the fold helps visitors scan information and makes it more digestible.

Experiment with scroll depth by removing some of the less-utilized sections of the landing page. The orange CTA stands out and makes it easy for visitors to convert. The sliding scale tool helps visitors determine what plan they would need in the future.

Minimal copy allows visitors to quickly scan the page and get the information they need to make a purchase decision. A more specific, benefit-focused headline could increase conversions. Adding an image of the platform to the hero section could help visitors to the landing page instantly know what to expect and get a better understanding of the platform.

Move video and gifs of the platform higher on the page to better showcase the platform. io What the page does well: No header navigation keeps visitors focused on the page and the free trial offer. The offer is clear highlighting the length of the trial, that no credit card is required, and that you can cancel at any time.

The page is clutter-free and each section lets visitors scan the content without confusion. How does your free trial landing page compare?

START DAY TRIAL. Try the world's most advanced landing page platform with a risk-free trial. Ready to turn more ad clicks into conversions? Try the world's most advanced landing page platform today. We use cookies to give you the best experience on our website, deliver our services, personalize content, and to analyze traffic.

By continuing to use our website you agree to allow our use of cookies. When thinking about digital products we often think of SaaS products e. Salesforce, Xero, Shopify, LinkedIn, etc.

g MS Office, Keynote and apps iOS and Android , but there are many other forms of digital products. For example, online courses, magazine subscriptions, e-books, and so on.

In general, the longer someones uses your product the more likely they are to keep it after the trial period has ended. Furthermore, free-trials reduce the risk to the consumer — this is especially important if you are entering a new market, and your brand awareness is low.

In this specific example, we are using Google Ads to build awareness and attract leads to our website and the landing page. As we mentioned above, our campaign and conversion funnel starts with Google Ads Step 1. The landing page Step 2 covers our digital products benefits, features, and testimonials — the primary purpose of the landing page is to convert prospects into free-trial customers Step 3.

Related : A Comprehensive Guide To Lead Generation And Nurturing. In the context of this post, the trial period Step 4 is the most critical step — this is where we need to make our product sticky, and ensure a good percentage of these free-trial customers convert into paying customers.

Which specific tactics you use will depend on the digital product you are selling e. SaaS vs. E-book ; however, most of the principles are the same. Assuming we are a SaaS software as a solution business, we may try these 4 steps to make our product sticky. The quality of content is vital because a free-trial customer will make certain assumptions about your product and company based on these early communications.

For example, if your onboarding content e. Firstly, we need to understand what our free-trial customers are looking for and not looking for. In our experience, free-trial customers are mostly interested in the user experience and core features; therefore, the free trial period is not the time to overwhelm them with features and details.

Instead, focus on making the experience as easy as possible, provide examples, make your content feel personalized, and reduce the fear of the unknown — with social proof e.

The Ultimate Guide to Designing a Successful Free Trial Marketing Strategy (Step-by-step) · 1. Attract Potential Users · 2. Define the Details Use email. Your number one tool for gaining free trial users is email. Early on in the process, you should have gained the user's email address 1. Know what to use when: free trial or demo · 2. Engage only the most qualified leads · 3. Create an outbound touch pattern on multiple channels

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Free trial campaigns - Furthermore, free-trials reduce the risk to the consumer – this is especially important if you are entering a new market, and your brand awareness is low The Ultimate Guide to Designing a Successful Free Trial Marketing Strategy (Step-by-step) · 1. Attract Potential Users · 2. Define the Details Use email. Your number one tool for gaining free trial users is email. Early on in the process, you should have gained the user's email address 1. Know what to use when: free trial or demo · 2. Engage only the most qualified leads · 3. Create an outbound touch pattern on multiple channels

The benefits and features we need to highlight during the free-trial period should be driven by the role e. Designer, Marketing Manager, Project Manager, CMO, CEO.

Simply put, a testimonial from a marketing manager should be sent to a marketing manager someone they can relate to , and not a designer someone they cannot. Also, the type of communication you send out during the free-trial period should take into account data and analytics.

For example, if you detect a red flag e. product was not used in over a week , you may want to give those users special attention — to get them to re-engage again.

Most marketing automation software will have a default setting regarding timing. For example, when to send the first, second, and third email. However, this is only a guide; hence it is not optimized for your specific business. The timing of your communication can make all the differences, so closely monitor your conversion funnel and percentages, and make adjustments.

How do we improve it? How does it correlate to our conversion percentage? However, if you are in the business or selling physical goods or services then the cost can be significantly higher; therefore, these types of offers should be highly selective.

The bottom line is, the free-trial offer has to make financial sense, and as is the case with any marketing campaign, a certain percentage of the marketing budget should be reserved for experimentation, but most marketing campaigns have to pay for themselves. If you are a well-known brand, then the risk factor is much lower — why most consumers buy from well-known brands.

However, if you are a startup, or just entering a new market, then reducing the risk of the unknown is extremely important. The free-trial dramatically reduces this risk and allows you to demonstrate why your product is better — when compared to your competition.

The bottom line is, free-trials are effective because the longer someone uses a product the more likely they are to keep it purchase it. Related : How to make your product or service friction-free easy to buy.

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Sadat Reza is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research expertise is in empirical modeling in marketing and industrial organization and current interests are focused on social and spatial interaction models in marketing, econometrics of duration data and digital technology in emerging markets.

Dixon Ho is Senior Lecturer of Marketing Discipline Group at UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney. This is why you need to build an email list right now. There are 4 major steps to build an email list:. Pro-tip: For best results, integrate OptinMonster with your email marketing service provider to start the nurturing campaign and track conversions.

Live chat is an excellent way to create a direct feedback loop with prospects and to encourage them to sign up for your free trial. It helps make sales, too. According to research by Forrester , with buyers who chat before making a purchase, there is a:.

Using live chat can help you discover what information people need to complete the signup. Want to get started with live chat to increase free trial signups? Check out our guide to the best live chat plugins and software.

Track existing conversions to see how many people complete your signup process. There are several ways to do this. You can track conversions:. In OptinMonster, the conversion data is readily available in the analytics.

You just need to log in to OptinMonster, go to the Campaign Dashboard, and click the zigzag arrow icon. Bharadwaj Giridhar of Inbox Pirates offers the following suggestion:. You can collect user feedback through customer surveys , live chat, or in-app questionnaires. Popping up a survey just before people leave can help you find out why some people are ignoring your free trial.

Some prospects stop using a SaaS product halfway through their onboarding experience. To avoid free trial churn, send an onboarding email to new users right after they sign up. You can aggregate that data to improve the trial and user onboarding process.

Pro-tip: Want to learn how to collect customer feedback on your website? Read our guide on collecting customer feedback.

When it comes to marketing, data beats guesswork every time. Sometimes, the best way to get new business is to just ask for it. You can offer your existing SaaS users an incentive for qualified referrals to increase your free trial numbers.

Missinglettr does a good job of offering its users renewal discounts if they refer users who actually use the product. This is an excellent way to make your existing customers happy while expanding your revenue potential by attracting new users to your SaaS platform.

You can segment the free trial users coming via this source into a new group and run an email nurture campaign to convert them into paid customers. Now you know how to increase free trial signups with proven strategies that can help you improve your free trial signups. Want to drive free trial signups through enticing popups?

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Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Share Tweet Share Pin. Published by Manish Nepal. Over the years, I have helped several B2B SaaS brands grow their online presence and get more customers.

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Free trial campaigns - Furthermore, free-trials reduce the risk to the consumer – this is especially important if you are entering a new market, and your brand awareness is low The Ultimate Guide to Designing a Successful Free Trial Marketing Strategy (Step-by-step) · 1. Attract Potential Users · 2. Define the Details Use email. Your number one tool for gaining free trial users is email. Early on in the process, you should have gained the user's email address 1. Know what to use when: free trial or demo · 2. Engage only the most qualified leads · 3. Create an outbound touch pattern on multiple channels

Offering a reverse trial is a fantastic way to show users the true value of your product. With reverse trials, the right audience will get hooked on the product during the free trial experience. The product adoption also goes up if the trial requires users to commit their data, such as adding team members or creating workflows.

In your marketing, make sure you include language that reminds the user of what they lost. It offers a day free trial for 2 of its paid versions:.

Pipedrive CRM does the same for all its paid plans:. Pro-tip: Another great way to improve free trial signups with reverse trials is to offer product tours and walkthroughs. It can be a simple overview of your SaaS interface and all the features it offers.

Or it can be a 2-minute demo video that explains your product to first-time visitors. After you figure out who your best customers are and what resonates with them the most, you can build landing pages specific to their intent.

Landing pages are great customer acquisition tools. When you optimize them properly, they can also rank in search engine results pages. It helps you attract prospects who look up search terms related to the problems your product solves. You can create separate landing pages catering to different buyer personas you want to target.

If you just have a single buyer persona, optimizing your homepage will do the job. To create a landing page aimed at increasing free trial conversions, check out the following articles:.

Make your landing page even more irresistible by including product benefits, trust seals, social proof , and customer testimonials.

Here are a couple of real-life examples. Buffer includes the names of some of its clients and their testimonials as social proof:. Freshbooks does a better job. Their free trial signup page addresses 7 major things succinctly:.

If your Saas website is built on WordPress, go with SeedProd. Marketing stands or falls on the effectiveness of your call to action, the marketing element that gets your visitors to click. CTA might seem like a small nuance in the big scheme of things. But even the smallest factor, like the color of the CTA button, impacts conversions.

Here are 6 best practices to create great CTAs :. When you apply the right principles to your CTA, you will:. You can ask people to try out your product, sign up for a demo, or other wording that might work better.

For example, ActiveCampaign uses Get Started :. Sendbird uses 3 different CTA buttons back to back, asking you to sign up, talk to sales, or request a demo:.

If you use them well, popups can convert better than CTA buttons. If your landing page or exciting CTAs are failing to drive conversions, try popups. You can get started with OptinMonster to create enticing popups for your website. That will make them leave your site and never sign up. OptinMonster lets you control that only interested people can see your free trial popup campaign.

There are several ways you can enable this with OptinMonster. You can:. As an example, Lifter LMS designed the following popup in OptinMonster. For instance, creating a long signup form is a turnoff for a lot of users. Be thoughtful about how much information you need to collect when creating a signup or demo request form.

Lead segmentation helps you offer personalized experiences to boost conversions. However, long forms can be counterproductive to the self-service user experience. If you just want to get people to sign up, you need less information from them.

For example, Brevo just asks for an email address on its free trial signup page:. Once you get users to sign up for free, you have enough time to nurture them and extract the information you want. Below are a few tips to make your new user signup form simple:.

This last point is extremely important. Some companies ask for credit card details when you sign up. According to Chargebee , they usually get better lead quality but fewer sign-ups. SaaS founders like Ada Chen Rekhi agree:. Creating a to-do list and seeing through the checklist is the best example of the Zeigarnik effect in action.

In marketing, the Zeigarnik effect works best with 2-step optin forms. First, you get the website visitors to initiate a task by clicking on a CTA. Step 2: To complete the action, they now have to do is enter their email.

And InternetSuccesGids engineered a whopping per month increase in subscribers. Email marketing is still one of the best ways to promote anything.

Since over 4. With email marketing, you can repeatedly convert a good portion of your email subscribers into free trial users. This is why you need to build an email list right now.

There are 4 major steps to build an email list:. Pro-tip: For best results, integrate OptinMonster with your email marketing service provider to start the nurturing campaign and track conversions. Live chat is an excellent way to create a direct feedback loop with prospects and to encourage them to sign up for your free trial.

It helps make sales, too. According to research by Forrester , with buyers who chat before making a purchase, there is a:. Using live chat can help you discover what information people need to complete the signup. Want to get started with live chat to increase free trial signups?

Check out our guide to the best live chat plugins and software. Track existing conversions to see how many people complete your signup process. There are several ways to do this. You can track conversions:. In OptinMonster, the conversion data is readily available in the analytics.

You just need to log in to OptinMonster, go to the Campaign Dashboard, and click the zigzag arrow icon. Bharadwaj Giridhar of Inbox Pirates offers the following suggestion:. You can collect user feedback through customer surveys , live chat, or in-app questionnaires. Popping up a survey just before people leave can help you find out why some people are ignoring your free trial.

By analyzing the data collected during the trial period, you can see which customers are most likely to make a purchase and which ones are not.

This information can then be used to prioritize your customer acquisition efforts and focus your resources on the most valuable segments, which can further help lower your costs. Overall, offering a free trial can help lower customer acquisition costs by making it more cost-effective to reach potential customers, reducing customer churn, and identifying the most valuable segments more quickly.

Customer engagement is a critical aspect of any business, and offering a free trial is a great way to improve engagement with potential customers. A free trial provides customers with a hands-on experience with your product or service, which can help them better understand its value and how it fits into their lives.

This increased level of engagement can lead to a stronger emotional connection with your brand and a deeper level of customer loyalty. Moreover, offering a free trial can also provide an opportunity for you to engage with your customers and understand their needs and preferences.

This can be done through surveys, feedback mechanisms, and other forms of interaction. By collecting this information, you can gain valuable insights into what your customers are looking for and how you can better serve them.

This improved level of customer engagement can help you build stronger, more meaningful relationships with your customers over time. Additionally, offering a free trial can help you identify your most engaged customers and prioritize your engagement efforts accordingly.

This can help you maximize the impact of your engagement efforts and create a more meaningful and lasting connection with your customers. In conclusion, offering a free trial can help you improve customer engagement in a number of ways, including providing a hands-on experience, collecting valuable feedback, and identifying your most engaged customers.

These benefits can all contribute to a deeper level of customer loyalty and a stronger connection with your brand. The customer experience is critical to the success of any business, and offering a free trial is one way to improve the experience for your customers. A free trial allows customers to try your product or service in a low-pressure, risk-free environment, which can help them make a more informed decision about whether or not to make a purchase.

By offering a free trial, you can also demonstrate your commitment to providing a great customer experience.

When customers see that you are willing to let them try your product or service before they buy, it sends a message that you believe in what you offer and that you are confident in its quality.

This can help build trust and increase customer satisfaction, which are critical components of a positive customer experience.

Additionally, free trials can also provide an opportunity for you to gather feedback from your customers and make improvements to your product or service. By listening to your customers and incorporating their feedback, you can make changes that will improve the customer experience and help drive customer satisfaction even higher.

Finally, offering a free trial can help you identify customers who are not having a positive experience, and you can work to address their concerns before they become bigger issues.

This can help you prevent customer churn and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction over the long term. Overall, offering a free trial is a great way to improve the customer experience by providing a risk-free way to try your product or service, building trust, gathering feedback, and addressing any concerns that may arise.

These benefits can all contribute to a higher level of customer satisfaction and a more positive overall experience for your customers. Customer retention is a critical metric for any business, as it is often more cost-effective to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones.

Offering a free trial is one way to increase customer retention and keep customers coming back. A free trial provides customers with a risk-free way to try your product or service, and this can help increase their level of comfort and trust in your brand. When customers have a positive experience during the trial period, they are more likely to make a purchase and become long-term customers.

This can help reduce customer churn and improve customer retention over time. Furthermore, offering a free trial also provides an opportunity for you to engage with your customers and gather feedback. By listening to your customers and incorporating their feedback into your product or service, you can make improvements that will increase customer satisfaction and further drive customer retention.

Additionally, free trials can also help you identify your most valuable customers and prioritize your retention efforts accordingly. By focusing your resources on the customers who are most likely to stick around, you can maximize the impact of your retention efforts and improve customer retention over the long term.

In conclusion, offering a free trial is a great way to increase customer retention by providing a risk-free way to try your product or service, engaging with your customers, gathering feedback, and identifying your most valuable customers. These benefits can all contribute to a lower rate of customer churn and a higher level of customer retention over the long term.

Offering a free trial is a great opportunity to drive upsells and cross-sells, which can help increase the lifetime value of your customers. During the free trial period, customers get a hands-on experience with your product or service, which can help them better understand its value and potential.

This increased level of familiarity can make them more likely to upgrade to a higher-tier product or add additional services to their subscription, leading to upsells. Furthermore, by offering a free trial, you can also expose customers to other products or services that complement what they have already tried.

For example, if a customer tries a free trial of your product management software, you can cross-sell them on your project management tool. This can help increase the overall value of the customer relationship and drive additional revenue for your business.

Additionally, offering a free trial can also provide an opportunity for you to gather customer data and understand their preferences and needs.

This information can be used to make personalized recommendations and drive upsells and cross-sells based on the customer's specific needs and interests. In conclusion, offering a free trial provides a valuable opportunity to drive upsells and cross-sells by increasing customer familiarity with your product or service, exposing them to complementary products or services, and gathering customer data to make personalized recommendations.

These benefits can all contribute to increased revenue and a higher lifetime value for your customers. Having a competitive advantage is essential for any business that wants to succeed in a crowded marketplace. Offering a free trial is one way to create a competitive advantage and stand out from your competition.

A free trial provides customers with a risk-free way to try your product or service, which can differentiate you from your competitors who may not offer this type of opportunity.

This can help you attract new customers who are looking for a low-risk way to evaluate potential solutions, and it can also help you retain existing customers who appreciate the opportunity to try before they buy. Furthermore, offering a free trial can also help you gather customer feedback and make improvements to your product or service.

By constantly improving and refining your offerings, you can stay ahead of your competition and maintain your competitive advantage over time. Additionally, free trials can also help you gather customer data and understand their preferences and needs.

This information can be used to create targeted marketing campaigns and better understand your target audience, which can help you maintain your competitive advantage and stay ahead of your competitors. In conclusion, offering a free trial can provide a competitive advantage by providing a low-risk way to try your product or service, gathering customer feedback, refining your offerings, and gathering customer data to create targeted marketing campaigns.

These benefits can all help you stand out from your competition and maintain a competitive edge in your marketplace. Data collection and analysis are critical components of any successful business strategy. Offering a free trial is one way to gather valuable data and gain valuable insights into your customers and your market.

During the free trial period, you can gather a wealth of information about your customers, such as their demographics, behaviors, preferences, and feedback. This information can be used to inform your marketing efforts, product development, and customer engagement strategies.