Hi dear digital marketers,
I have 3 years of experience in digital marketing, and I’m currently managing a Chrome extension. I generate 40+ leads through SEO and SMM organically, and all users receive a 30-day free trial. However, I’m facing a challenge: not even 1% are converting to paid subscriptions.
What strategies do you suggest to improve this conversion rate? I would appreciate your insights!
Why is everything a shitty app or a subscription now?
Everyone I know is watching their subscriptions since those monthly charges do add up.
You didn't reveal what your product is. Let's hope it's not another Email marketing app.
Your DANIWEB profile is also in need of completion.
Are you prompting users to enter their payment information before starting the free trial, and then the trial automatically converts over to a paid membership after the 30 days?
When someone signs up for the free trial, that’s when you have their attention. You’re either solving a pain point they have, providing them something they want or that interests them, etc., and they’re taking the time to download your extension and sign up.
Is the expectation that they return to your website 30 days later with credit card in hand? Does the extension remind them that it will stop functioning soon? Perhaps after 30 days, they’ve gotten all the utility they need from your extension and no longer have a need for it. It could be a whole bunch of things. It’s hard to offer more without knowing some more details as to what the extension does and how you’re currently promoting it.
Absolutely! We send reminder emails to users about the expiration of their 30-day free trial, and we follow up with a mail campaign offering special discounts for their first purchase.
Additionally, we’re continuously promoting the extension through various channels, including SEO and social media marketing. We also update our website landing page with exclusive offers and promo codes to attract users.
I completely agree that capturing their attention during the trial is crucial, and we’re focused on ensuring they see the value in our extension. If you have any specific insights or suggestions based on your experience, I’d love to hear them!
It might just be the case that for every 100 people who are interested in using your product if it were free, only 1 of those people find enough value in your product to pay for it.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but what if you were to ask for a credit card up front and have the free trial automatically convert to a paid membership after the initial 30 days? There's a reason most companies do it this way. And that's because you're trying to convert a user twice. It's hard enough to get a user's attention on the Internet long enough for them to see enough value in your product to take an immediate action that takes time on their end. But you are asking them to do it twice. First, to sign up. And then a second time, at a later date, to get out their wallet.
I would be very curious what the outcome would be if you were to run a test where you only sought the user's attention span the one time. At the least, this would tell you if your problem is that your target audience, at the moment you have their attention and interest, simply doesn't see enough value in your product to pay for it, or if the problem is that you're trying to convert them twice. If it's the former, then either your product needs to improve or your price needs to lower. Either way, you need to make a correction to your value proposition. If it's the latter, then it's as simple as a marketing problem.
It's hard enough to get a user's attention on the Internet long enough for them to see enough value in your product to take an immediate action that takes time on their end. But you are asking them to do it twice. First, to sign up. And then a second time, at a later date, to get out their wallet.
Something I forgot to mention is that the first time, during sign up, is when the user came across your product, and it caught their eye. This is when you have their attention the most. Not a month later when they're not thinking about you anymore, laying on the sofa watching TV, while casually scrolling through a hundred junk emails and you're just one of many marketing emails in their inbox. If there's going to be any time when a user is going to take the time and thought to hand over their credit card, it's going to be at that initial moment when you just grabbed their attention and you're foremost in their mind.
I frequent the PyCoder website. They have both free and paid content. The paid content includes tutorials. I recently got an email offering me a seven day free trial of the paid content. When I checked it out I saw that it was a "sign up and get the first week free - cancel any time" offer.
I am very careful with my credit card (never been scammed in 50 years) and I absolutely refuse to use it where I am billed automatically. I wrote back suggesting they change it to a free week, and at the end I would be asked to continue by entering my credit card info. The short version of the polite reply I got was "nuh uh". While I do trust this site, there are too many sites that would continue to bill after cancelling.
The short version of the polite reply I got was "nuh uh".
You got that response most likely because PyCoder has an understanding of what I explained here in this thread.
I think subscription models are really popular these days, and I am one of those folks who has a monthly subscription for Microsoft Office, Quickbooks, and tons of others. If you're concerned about entering your credit card information, then you might want to set up a virtual card with your bank (if that's a feature of your bank) just for the individual vendor. You can limit virtual cards to just certain amount limits as well as custom set expiration dates (e.g. a month away).
Something else that's probably worth a mention here is that this all also depends on what the business objectives are. Is the primary goal to get more signups and people using the Chrome extension, or is the primary goal to get more subscriptions?
For example, suppose that with not asking for a credit card until after a 30 day trial, you get 100 signups, but only 1 of those people ends up forking over their credit card and signing up for a subscription. However, when you do ask for a credit card upfront, you get only 3 signups. That's 97 fewer people on your mailing list. That's 97 fewer people using your product. However, it's 3X the amount of revenue!
Which way you go depends entirely on the business needs and goals.
Dani, which is better for understanding our product and improving the conversion ratio: a 7-day free trial or a 30-day free trial?
I think that entirely depends on the product, how often it's typically used, how long it takes for a user to configure and get the hang of it, and how long it takes the average user to recognize its value and make up their mind that it's worth the amount of money you're asking for it.
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