Imagine you’re in the peach-selling industry. You’re perfectly aware that your peaches are the best available. And you’d like to show it to others. So you give them a free bite of fruit before they choose whether or not to buy. Some people purchase, while others do not. After sampling one, you find out a technique to convince more buyers to shop peaches. They’re well aware that you have the finest peaches. But they may require some persuasion to finish the purchase. So, read further on how to boost your free trial to paid conversion rate.
Use this analogy to explain your SaaS business model. For SaaS organizations, the purpose of a free trial is to obtain a customer. In this blog, you’ll learn how to boost your free trial to paid conversion rate using some simple, effective tactics. You’ll discover how to design the free trials more appealing, as well as the motivation for conversions.
It is critical to monitor the Free trial to Paid conversion rate.
Offering a free trial when selling technology is analogous to giving away a piece of fruit. It allows you to show people that your product is the greatest on the market. However, there is considerable risk involved. You’ve put money (and work) into something you can’t get it back if someone doesn’t complete a purchase.
As a result, it’s in your best interests to improve your free trial conversion rates. If you convert more free trial customers into paying customers, you’ll make more money. It’s as simple as that.
To put it another way:
- Accelerates conversions.
- Improves Customer Engagement
- Increases recurring revenue (ARR/MRR) via increasing customer engagement
- Builds Trust
Customers that sign up for a free trial are a great marketing target because they’ve already committed to your business enough to sign up and maybe provide relevant information.
Optimize trial to paid conversion rate using Customer Success Tool.
A dedicated Customer Success Software enhances the general customer experience while also allowing the company to scale. The following are some of the benefits that a customer success solution can provide to your company.
- Automate Manual, Repetitive Processes – Scalability is improved by automating repetitive tasks.
- Enhance the number of trial users who convert — Thanks to the possibility to discover rich usage data, the team was able to track how trial users interact with their product. They were capable of improving their trial subscription offer as a result of this.
- Improve account management proactively – Using real-time health measures, the team was able to forecast whether a client will churn or renew.
- Optimize Customer Success Initiatives – Useful customer data is never more than a few clicks away. This data is presented in an easy-to-understand format, with a user-friendly UI/UX design and the ability to generate reports.
- Determine which accounts require attention — The team lacked the ability to assign health scores or predict whether a customer would churn.
- Deliver the right touchpoints at the right moment — Automating the customer journey, as well as other crucial communications, was critical.
- Recognize and track their most important prospects – trial users – and how they’re using the product.
5 Ways to Optimize ‘trial to paid’ conversion rate in SaaS.
Whether people are buying at Costco or signing up for the newest streaming music subscription, everyone loves a free sample. It’s no wonder that a method formerly reserved for food courts has spread to other businesses, including SaaS. Of course, the actual measure of success is the number of free trials that become paid subscriptions.
Let’s look at how SaaS companies can improve their Trial to Paid Conversion rate.
Offer a short free trial period.
What should a free trial period last? Many apps provide a free 30-day trial period, which you should take advantage of. Isn’t it great to allow your prospective buyer more time to fall in love with your product? No.
Why? Because it’s uncommon for people to attempt new activities for a month. They’ll probably make a decision in a few days after starting the free trial. As a result, the majority of B2B SaaS companies only provide a 14-day trial.
Simplify for non-paying customers to use your product.
For SaaS companies, early product adoption has a big impact on long-term customer success. The same approach applies when turning a trial user into a paying account: product value must be delivered as quickly as possible.
To transition a free user into a paying customer, possibilities for product ambiguity must be avoided. Because time is of importance, the time to value for a user must be realized quickly. This is easier said than done, given the frequency of free or low-cost trial subscriptions. After all, few companies can afford to hire Customer Success or Support staff for non-paying customers.
Thanks to automation and the correct product resources, trial customers can get the interactions and assistance that are typically reserved for top-tier clients. Make sure that trial consumers have easy access to extra materials, regardless of your plan.
Optimize your Pricing Plan
This has nothing to do with your free trial business plan, but it’s worth mentioning because it has a big impact.
What is the size of it? Groove HQ observed a 358 percent increase in free trial signups and a 25% increase in income after altering their pricing strategy. Groove HQ used to offer three subscription options, one of which being a limited free option. Consumers had varied amounts of access with the other two options. When Groove HQ shifted to a $15/user/month plan, their conversions and revenue surged.
It’s that simple! If you can simplify your pricing and remove an option barrier between prospective customers and purchase, you’ll benefit.
Nurture your Free trial subscribers
On paper, a 100 percent increase in trial subscribers seems impressive. What matters most, though, is whether they convert to paying accounts. Customers, like traditional sales and marketing approaches, should be nurtured and moved down the funnel on a regular basis.
Consider how you can create consumer touchpoints that emphasize distinctive properties or case studies that are relevant to them, regardless of the fact that these trial accounts have very little value. A powerful way to achieve that is to use in-app messaging to push novel features to trial users.
As customers continue through their product journey, your team can use automated emails, often known as ‘Plays,’ to proactively target these folks with relevant content. Providing beneficial ideas and other material ahead of time can help trial users attain their “aha” moment.
Identify Common Conversion Activities
Lincoln Murphy’s Common Conversation Activities (CCA) statistic is presumably unknown to you. “Things that all or most paying clients do during their trial,” Murphy explains.
It was a way to look back over previous data and find patterns like “anyone who became a customer in the last 12 months did X, Y, and Z before conversion.” If previous data was not available—either for a pre-launch business or because that level of detail was simply not available—we may use our understanding of the customer to construct the assumption that “every client will likely need to accomplish X, Y, and Z before they convert.”
What kind of data are we talking about? Consider the following scenario:
- Creating an account.
- Putting payment gateway configurations through their paces
- After entering into the customer site, create an invoice.
- Constructing a hosted page
Final thoughts- Optimize Trial to Paid Conversion rate
A free trial is a value commitment that you’re giving people the opportunity to try out for themselves. Don’t overlook the basics. Failure to keep this commitment harms a company’s brand and sales. If you can maintain your word, though, you may make a great first impression and persuade your user to upgrade.
- Are you providing the right kind of service to the right people?
- Is it feasible in seeing your value propositions from the beginning to the end of their lifecycle?
- Is it straightforward to sign up for a free trial or a subscription account?
Addressing these minor problems is the first factor in enhancing your free trial conversions.After you’ve converted those consumers, you may use the customer success software to keep them!
P.S. – The main image has been created in canva.com
