Here’s a question for you – if a user never engages meaningfully with your platform during a free trial, did the free trial ever actually exist? People, even B2B buyers, like free things so it is no surprise that a free trial offer is a relatively easy way to generate interest in your product. And, for many B2B software companies, it can be a great product-led growth tactic if you can figure out how to predictably convert free users into paid customers. It’s by no means easy and the formula will vary by product/company but here are some helpful tips we’ve learned along the way.
- Ease the friction – Free trial offers attract attention, but this attention is short and fleeting if you make it difficult for the user to actually sign up and get started. To determine whether friction may be working against you, compare the number of users who initiate the sign up process to the number that complete it. Large fall out means it’s time to re-evaluate your process. Are prospects abandoning the process at the same point? Are there form fields or steps you can eliminate (or at least make optional)? Remember, you can always collect more user data later during the trial period.
- Stay in touch – A free trial user that has a positive experience with the platform is more likely to convert – it’s really that simple. To ensure this happens, communicate early and often with new users – make sure they are sufficiently and optimally (use product data along with customer insights to determine the “aha” moments/experiences that every free trial user should have) engaging with your platform. While customizing your communication strategy based on user-specific behavior is ideal (i.e. encourage activation until a user activates and then move on to in-product engagement communications), even generic free trial nurture programs and in-product tips and reminders can make it significantly easier for a potential customer to experience your product.
- Give them advanced warning – If you are waiting until the day before the trial expires to give users a heads up, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Not only do multiple reminders about an impending trial expiration create a sense of urgency, but they can also serve as an opportunity to present other ways to experience the product because B2B buyers are real people with real lives. Despite high interest and the best of intentions, maybe they just didn’t have time to engage with the product directly. Suggest a product tour or 1-1 demo as an alternative. Or, consider simply asking them if they need a little more time.
- Try to win them back – Don’t take a lack of engagement or conversion during the trial as a no. See above for my comment on B2B buyers being real people with real lives, and like most things in life, timing is everything. Give it a few weeks and reach back out. Still no luck? Stay in touch by sending good, relevant content their way and then try again in a few months. You will be surprised at what a little space and time can do.
- Know who they are – Too often our clients who have a free trial program group the users in a generic free trial bucket without developing an understanding of who they are or where they are in the free trial process. To be successful with free trials it is critical you have great metrics on how many free trials users you have and what stage they are in. Plus, not all free trial users are the same, so it is important to truly understand performance to know who they are and what their needs are so you can better understand their behavior.
TL;DR
Monetizing a free trial strategy is not easy, especially for complex B2B software products, but it can be a powerful source of new customers if you can figure it out. While the exact formula may differ by company, it will likely involve empathy and communication.
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