Free trials are vital for your company as they make an impression that your products can be trusted. Such trials allow customers to test and get accustomed to your products before spending their money. However, not everyone will sign up for your products, and you might end up spending more money than you had anticipated.
Even if you don’t break even from the onset, a free trial provides lots of benefits to your business and might help you to reach unimaginable heights. You need to take advantage of the free trial and show your prospective customers what they’ll get once they buy the product. During the trial, you ought to help the customers to alleviate doubts and make an informed decision.
Take advantage of the following tips when offering a free trial for your products.
It Starts with a Great Product
If you have confidence in your product, you need to allow people to sample it. Once people decide to continue using your product, they will expect a bill. If you have a high-quality product, customer satisfaction will be high. A great product will sell fast, and even if you refund 50 percent of the cost, you can still break even.
Don’t be afraid to make the necessary changes to your product. People don’t buy products but the benefits and results that they produce. Before you even create the product, you need to know what your clients want.
Make a list of all the benefits that your customers are looking for and ensure that your product meets those needs. A free trial gives you a great opportunity to test the waters. The feedback that you receive from your customers is priceless, so be sure to use it wisely.
You can tell that you have a high-quality product if:
- The turnover rate is above average (50 per cent)
- People continue using the product after the trial period
- Customers are willing to give their payment details
- You are breaking even
Use your website to outline the benefits that your clients will enjoy and encourage them to sample the products with your free trial. People will decide right away that they will need your product after the trial period expires.
Be Mindful of the Expenses
The number of people that convert into paying customers can shed light on the effectiveness of your product. While the trials are free, you incur costs when developing them. If you send the product to 100 people, and only 70 converts, you still need to break even.
By simplifying your pricing structure, it’s possible to come up with a payment method that suits everyone. It would help if you allowed users to sign up without providing their credit card details. Before you ask for credit cards, be sure to entice them with special offers. A well-optimized website will also work to your advantage.
Use CTAs in your homepage to encourage the users to sample the free trial. Clarity is also vital as people need to know exactly what they are signing up for. Outline the costs clearly to avoid surprises down the road.
It’s critical to tweak your product to increase the conversions by:
- Understanding your customer’s needs
- Including features that solve a particular problem
- Making the product more user-friendly
- Providing personalized demos
Tracking your expenses can help you to set the right price before billing if you are looking to turn a profit. It’s critical to identify the right pricing model while offering software as service programs.
Decide whether to charge a flat rate or bill every client according to the usage. Experimenting with various methods will help you to determine the right strategy.
Let Them Try the Product for Free
The main reason why you offer free trials is to convert interested people into customers. By limiting the duration of trials 14 days or so, you expect a customer to start paying for the service at the end of the trial period. Before you bill the customer, it’s vital to get feedback on whether the product is beneficial.
However, no amount of advertising can rescue an uninspiring product. Experimentation goes hand in hand with business analysis to produce the best results. Experimentation is about developing an idea and releasing it out into the market to gauge its performance and the results it can achieve.
Negative feedback is essential as it helps you to make the necessary changes. People might fail to convert for many reasons, so don’t assume that the price is exorbitant or that your product is not effective.
If you are looking to succeed with free trials from the onset, you need to:
- Ask for credit card information
- Create a sense of urgency
- Find out why some people are not converting
Pre-launching your idea with a free trial helps you to determine how it will be received and whether it will be profitable. Without experimenting, it’s almost impossible to know whether your product will be successful. You also learn what your target market is looking for and whether your product meets those requirements.
You also need to bill your customers when they have money in their accounts. Most people get paid on Friday, giving you a great opportunity to bill them. Once you get the credit card details, you need to clarify the difference between billing and pre-authorization.
Your clients need to know that the credit card companies hold some money awaiting the completion of some transactions. Clarifying that you don’t charge any fees during the trial period is critical for developing trust.
Track the Customer Journey
Getting someone to buy your products is the beginning of a journey. You need to track the customer experience with the brand through messages and phone calls. If a customer cancels the subscription, you need to know why.
If paid-up customers are asking for refunds, you need to understand the problem. Remember that dissatisfaction will affect your profitability and that you must provide the solutions that your customers are looking for.
Improve the customer satisfaction in the following ways:
- Find out how you acquired the customer in the first place
- Determine how long the customer has used the product
- Identify the problem with the product or website
- Solve the problem and re-bill
Be sure to send messages before billing people to avoid catching them by surprise.
Develop a habit of apologizing to unhappy customers. If a misunderstanding arises, let the customers know that you didn’t quite comprehend their requirements and refund the payment.
Negative feedback can create waves fast on social media, and you don’t want people to mistrust you. After refunding the money, find out what else they’d like to buy.
Evaluate Your Abandoned Carts
Your website enables you to identify people that almost bought your products but changed their minds. You need to send messages and find out the reasons for cart abandonment. Such people are likely to buy your products once you provide such enticements and a refund policy.
Despite your best efforts, people can visit your site and start shopping, only to be distracted by something else. Unfortunately, most never return shopping. Since almost every online business encounters this problem, you need to find the right solution.
First, you need to find out your cart abandonment rate. Find out whether they are still interested and offer the following perks:
- Give them a 15 percent discount
- Offer the product for free for another 21 days
- Charge them 3.95 for shipping
- Remind them of your refund policy (30 -60 days)
If a high number of people are not crossing the line to the buying stage, maybe your website is not user-friendly. Also, most people abandon the buying process since they don’t want to pay the shipping costs. Clarify that people will need to cater for shipping costs in advance to reduce abandonment.
You understand that people who abandon the purchase are looking for such products on your competitor’s websites. You need to launch a remarketing campaign to reach out to these people.
Your results will indicate whether you are leveraging your cart abandonments as you should. Remind people that they forgot to check out and get them to follow through the buying process. Reducing cart abandonment is the best way to make the most of your traffic costs.
Create a Unique Landing Page
You need to create a landing page for your website where prospects can convert and easily get your product. You might have a great product, but if customers can’t find it easily, your sales will decline.
Linking your website directly to Facebook can make it easier for social media users to buy your products. A landing page will directly support your business goals by increasing conversions. Landing pages also boost credibility and brand awareness.
When developing your landing page, including the vital information right away. Online readers hop around the web pages fast, so you only have a few inches of space and a few seconds to capture their attention. Make it easy for users to find the services that you offer before they start to scroll.
You also need to describe the features as benefits and make the text easy to skim through. Once you describe your services in lush details, highlight ‘take advantage of our 14-day trial’ in bold. Such a strategy will get you more customers than providing lengthy paragraphs on your homepage.
Let Customers Provide Credit Card Details
Once you ask people for their credit cards, they will start to evaluate your product seriously. Buyers need to do their homework before they spend their money. So they will find out everything they need to know about the product. After understanding the pros and cons of your product, they will give both negative and positive feedback.
As you answer their questions through live chats or social media channels, you create more brand awareness. Let your customers have confidence that you are in business for the long haul and that you are available to answer their questions.
Most importantly, they need to know that you are listening and responding to their queries. By asking for payment details, you filter the cold traffic and only end up with the potential customers. The customers that provide their credit card information will expect to receive a bill at the end of the trial period.
Shopping for products online has become increasingly popular these days. While some people don’t even think twice about it, others are cautious that their details might land on the wrong hands. That’s why it’s critical to establish trust with your free trial program.
The last thing you want is to make your customers afraid of sharing their payment details when you start accepting the credit cards. If your website looks sketchy, people will be hesitant to give you their credit card details.
It’s vital to ensure that your site is secured and let users know that everything is safe, including the online payment process. Avoid giving assurances without taking the necessary steps to secure your website. A competent website developer can help you to secure the clients’ information and finances.
Monitor the Customer Satisfaction Ratio
Once the customers sign up for the free trial, it’s critical to know if they are happy with the product. Don’t wait until the end of the trial period before sending an email or bill. Remember that you are using the free trial to market your products and customer satisfaction should be on top of the list.
Communicate with your customers on social media and find out what they long for. Also, identify whether the product is fulfilling their different needs. Encourage them to leave reviews on your website.
If you’ve been talking all along, your customers won’t be upset once you send the bill. Use the following tactics to improve customer satisfaction:
- Determine whether they like the product by the eighth day
- Find out the challenges they face while using it
- Provide solutions and tell them to expect a bill
- Send the bill and give a 15 percent discount when the trial period expires
If a customer asks for a discount, find out how low you can go and still make a profit. If they are unhappy with your products, don’t hesitate to refund them. Find out whether they are interested in other products that your company offers.
Track Your Shipment and Provide a Refund Policy
It’s critical to ensure that people receive their packages. Tracking the shipments guarantees that products get to the right hands. If you send the product to the right address, the client will receive it without fail. You will also receive a notification once the client receives the product.
You will need a reliable logistics partner that provides insight and updates about your shipment's status at all times. Having the most up-to-date information will give you peace of mind and improve customer satisfaction. You ought to share such information with the recipient and highlight the delays that happen unexpectedly.
A company that keeps the tracking history details can help to identify the whereabouts of a product when a customer complains. Invest in the latest technology that tracks packages in real-time. Customers need to know that their packages will arrive on time and without fail.
A concise return policy gives your customers a feeling of security that what you are offering is guaranteed to work as it should. If you don’t give this guarantee, then your customers will become sceptical and avoid buying your products. Once you assure that you will provide compensation for the products that your customers return, you will significantly boost the sales.
Encourage the customers that you’ve compensated for giving positive feedback to improve your business’ credibility. The statutory laws require that consumers get a refund for faulty products within 30 days.
After the trial ends, you can now bill the full amount. Ensure that your rates are affordable to avoid upsetting your customers. You need to add the cost of shipping and handling. By tabulating the costs clearly and coming up with a total, your customers will be ready to oblige.
People also need to know why you are asking for credit card details. You need to verify the payment details beforehand. For the best outcomes, you ought to include the shipping costs in the bill. If you are charging $45 for the product and $5 for shipping, you ought to offer your product at $50.
Consult an Expert
A free trial allows you to create a relationship with your customers. As people experiment with your product, you have a great opportunity to engage them directly on social media.
At this point, you answer questions and shed light on any grey areas that might confuse them. Your clients also need to know that you are an honest person to work with. It can be frustrating for customers that expect to pay a particular price to be upset with hidden costs.
Your website ought to be user-friendly to provide a pleasurable shopping experience too. The website should also provide the metrics you need to gauge the performance of your free trial. These metrics include the cart abandonment rate and customer satisfaction ratio.
Are you looking to launch a free trial program but don’t know where to begin? Contact us today, and we’ll make the entire process a breeze.