Here’s one way to lower the bar for your product’s free trial: Don’t require them to give you their credit card!
Insertit, a new codeless content management system, has a 30-day free trial … and on their signup button it says very plainly: “No credit card required.”
They are differentiating themselves from the hundreds of other free trials that require a credit card in order to sign up.
As a prospective client for these services, I think to myself, “If it’s free, why do they need my credit card?” And if they really want my credit card that bad, it is a red flag that tells me signing up for this product will probably turn out to be a great source of irritation for me. They’ll probably require me to cancel it somehow and then I’ll have to make sure my credit card isn’t billed.
Of course, this approach might not garner as many “qualified” or serious contacts, but my theory is you should lower the bar for your prospective customers to actually USE your service.
Why do you think car dealerships want you to test drive their cars?
Why has Sam’s Club, for years, offered “taste tests” of certain foods?
Why do software companies, like Adobe, offer trial versions of their software?
Because if prospects end up test driving (or eating) their product, then the chances are significantly greater that they will end up buying.
Think about it … a user downloads or test drives your product and spends the next 30 days getting familiar with the product. They find all the shortcuts. They see first-hand all the functionality you’ve got Or better yet, they see the results they can have using your product …
In other words, they’ve invested their time in the learning curve for your product.
Now, it’s an easier buy for them because they already know how to use your product.
