Pros and Cons of offering your prospect customers a free trial of your web based product?
Hi all, we have a web based Testimonials/Review and Feedback management system (www.testifor.com), which have been launched in the market few months back. And now we have decided to give our prospect customer a 15 day free trial, in order to attract more customers.
But here, I am keen on knowing your views on this. Is it a good step or strategy to offer free trial to your prospect customer? What are pros and cons of this? Or Is there any alternative way we can choose to attract more customer?
Would you love to have a free trial of a product before you go and buy the same?
PS: your feedback on our system are always welcome
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Aug 5, 2014
Thee is only cons of free trail you can arrange meeting with client and tell them all imp things you offer start with low fees and gradually increase it
Jun 22, 2014
A free trial draws people because they know they can test your service, support, and their learning curve without risk. All they can lose is their own time invested. In the process, they give you information that your marketing and public relations people can use. Also, from the perspective of sales psychology, if you can put product in a prospective client's hands, you are more likely to get the sale. Your servers will need increased bandwidth, but temporary users tend not to require as much resources as committed users and they are, after all, temporary.
One alternative to the free trial is the tiered service structure that allows selecting between package with ranges of features. A free basic service will get you more reviews (that is, publicity) and more potential buyers. It's like the free trial, except the limitations are placed on capabilities instead of on time. Plus, demonstrating that you care about clients before you've seen their money brings good will.
I mentioned above that if you can put product in a prospective client's hands, you are more likely to get the sale. In the case of free, limited-capability offers, users (for example, for personal use) who use the product over a longer period invest more time into learning the tool. That investment becomes time that they'd rather not spend again to learn to use a competitor's product. If they later need the paid version, they will consider yours first.
Jun 22, 2014
That's not my area of specialization.
Dec 18, 2014
The free trial is always a good step to attract new customers. My only concern is the way some cons behave : many people take the free trial to get good ideas and when the free trial is finished, they stop and they make another free trial with somebody else.
Dec 18, 2014
The free trial is always a good step to attract new customers. My only concern is the way some cons behave : many people take the free trial to get good ideas and when the free trial is finished, they stop and they make another free trial with somebody else.
Jun 21, 2014
It's a great idea to offer a free trial because people will want to try the software. Make sure you collect credit catd information. Once the 7 to 15 day trial is over, your company could send a courtesy email to the consumers that their credit cards on file will be charged. This way the consumers will know ahead of time that the free offer expires and anyone who likes the software could confirm with your company that they want to keep using your software, but also, get input on your product via one question survey on how they like your product.
Jun 21, 2014
In my experience a free trial is OK but a better alternative is a low cost test drive of your product.
This way you have income from these "test drives" and you have a somewhat better assurance that the potential customer will use the product during the test period becuase they have invested in it.
Raise your prices to $50-$100-$150 per month and charge $75 for a month of using the $150 level.
This way the potential customer can see what they may not want to use going forward and make a better decision on what to buy next.
You should asjk them to commit to six months minimum in order to get the refund of the test run.
Good luck.
regards,
Bruce Rubin
Jun 21, 2014
When giving free trial for the type of service you do try connect the trial activation with automated credit card billed subscription, this will:
- eliminate the prospects that are not really prospects
- make people that subscribed to your trial take the service more "seriously"
- ensure more income for you
For others it is easier to create a "demo" account with setup data, and let them try the product on the staged demo that you control. For this kind of a trial require they register, so you collect all information, send unique access account data to their emails to get as much real people as possible.
Very often you forget to create a staged demo, and you can loose a lot of prospects because of a simple fact - people don't have time and will to setup your product just to see how it works. And that is why you get a lot of free trial registrations where customers dont use it - they will log in, see there are things need to be done - and forget about it. Give them REAL LIFE experience of full possibilities.
Jun 21, 2014
All of the comments have merit here but the most important aspect is how does this aid in closing the sale and turning a customer into a client. Before the expiration of the trial, how are they contacted and what is asked and presented and why?
Food for thought, follow the model.
Jun 20, 2014
1) never stop freebies
2) freebies can enable addiction to your product/service
3) look at bundling offers to increase your funnel (prospect base)
Jun 20, 2014
It is a good idea, provided you could bear the cost. People are always ready to try something new free, provided they have a use for that. If they are happy and like, it is a wonderful way for marketing. Don't hesitate to start that concept. Pradeep Berry
I guess that pros stands for producers and cons for consumers?