Five Mistakes with Free Trials

It’s common for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies to offer free trials.  That’s because a lot of times they work.  Done well, free trials can be a very effective way to attract new customers. 

But done poorly, they can be an expensive failure. 

I’ve seen SaaS companies make several common mistakes with their free trials.

1.  “Free” isn’t really “free”

Sure, it’s called a “free trial.”  But to the SaaS vendor, it’s not really free.  They’ve paid to build and host the solution, and attract and support the trialer.

And it’s not really free to the trialer either.  They’ll invest a fair amount of time learning and evaluating the solution.

So if you’re going to offer a “free trial,” recognize that it actually will cost something. 

2.  A free trail doesn’t always make sense

Free trials make sense for certain solutions and markets, but not all of them.  For example, customers might not be eager to deploy a critical enterprise application throughout the entire organization as a free trial.  There’s just too much at stake.

Talk with your prospective customers to see if they’d consider taking on a free trial.  You might find that they’re not as eager as you might expect. 

3.  Free trialers need guidance

If you want free trialers to see the value in your solution, you need to take them by the hand and show them.  If you let them just wander around, don’t expect they’ll see what you want them to see. 

Whether through a phone call, email, video, sign-posts in the trial, or some other way, walk the free trialers to the handful of awesome features and benefits that you think will cinch the deal.  And try to get them there in less than a few minutes.

4.  Free trialers don’t convert automatically

Just because someone signed up for the free trialer doesn’t mean the marketing and sales job is done.  It takes some work to convert them into a paying customer.  They need to be shown the value in the solution (see item 3, above), push it to the top of their to-do list, allocate budget, and trust the vendor. 

All that might not happen by itself.  It requires some effort.

5.  “Lost trialers” aren’t really “lost”

Just because a free trialer didn’t convert to a paying customer at the end of the trial doesn’t necessarily mean they’re no longer a prospective customer.  It doesn’t always mean that they’ve purchased another vendor’s solution or changed their mind.  They simply got distracted by other priorities and the trial period expired.

Stay in touch with these “lost” trialers.  At some point, whatever problem they had that caused them to sign up for the trial in the first place will probably bubble back up to the top of their priority list.

When that happens, you want to be top-of-mind and give yourself a second chance.