Does Offering Free Trial Increase Sign Up Conversions?

The Design Startup Show

Hey, design starters, quick one with regards to free trials, uh, questions that a lot of people ask is would you give a free trial to increase your sign-up conversion? Right. So the thing about the free trial is I find that it depends first is it depends on your service. Is it something that is truly unique to your audience.

So the first thing is obviously not so much of the free trial offers. The first thing would be who, who are your audience? Have you selected that group? Have you come down to a point where you niche down to a certain tribe where the need, your kind of service? I was struggling with the end.

When I started, I didn't have such a group. I didn't have such a try. I sold to anyone. And are you still selling to anyone? Have you sat down? And listed down a list of say 25 to 50 or even hundred possible people whom are common in one area, which is the niche. And because of this niche, this area, this problem, you have that solution to help them.

So you need to start with that before you come to the free trial. And my reason is because. If you don't, then you will most likely find that there will be a number of churn. People who want to get a refund is because they're just trying out. And most of them will just be trying out. Most of them will not be people who really need your service on the longterm.

For example, in my case, we are a subscription-based design company, right. So if people sign up free, it's only for the first month and if they want to continue, they will have to pay for the subsequent one. Right. And the people who, who kind of like stop signing up and, and, and just, just didn't want to work with us anymore.

I'll usually people who don't need ongoing graphic services. Because I gave them the free trial and because I gave them the free trial, what they did was they thought, I mean, it's like human nature, right? They were saying, why not? Uh, it's pretty right. So might as well just try it. There is no risk. I, I can just, you know, stop as, and when I want, and it doesn't really mean that they like our service.

It doesn't really mean that they trust us is because they didn't trust us. They want to have that try. But the, the thing is the thing is. They also didn't know whether they want it for a long run. So these are not people I should be looking for already. So when it comes to free trial, it has to be men for people who are already looking for it, but may not be sure which company to go to.

So if you have that list, you know their problem, you want to solve it, solve it. Then that's when you will find out who are the other players in the market solving this problem as well. Do these group of this tribe form your targeting. Do they know about these competitors? Right? If you are the first one whom they know, then that's a different, different situation, right?

It's it's there's no, not really a need to give a free trial, but you may want to offer a money back guarantee just to make them feel safer because you may be the first one out there or the second one out there. Not many out there for them to kind of try as well. So it's so, so if, if you are the only one then yeah.

You know, they would probably just buy from you because you are the one who solved their problem. So you may not be the only one out there. There may be others around and they may not know about them. Same thing. They would just come to Australia. We, and they will pay for it. This is my experience because I do have organic leads where they, they probably saw me on LinkedIn and they saw my profile that I do design with unlimited changes, unlimited.

Um, Designs. So they just pay a flat rate per month. And when they saw the profile, it was fresh for them. It was new to them and they were already looking for design help, which is long-term ongoing and this was new to them. And it just came to me and said that he just want to find out more because I'm looking for somebody to help with the design.

And I see that you do a flat rate, so it was new to them and they just paid for it. Right, right after our chat and, and understanding more of how we work, they just pay it for it. There is no need for me to say, I can offer you a free trial to try, right? So you need to really know your audience in this manner, whether they're competitors and that's when you offer well, then that's where you decide whether to offer a free trial or money back guarantee.

So the, whether this, this free trial or money back guarantee increase, sign up. Is not directly correlated, I would say so you can have so many other factors. And then when you put a free trial, it does not mean that free trial is the main factor of people increasing the sign-up conversion. That, that is how it works for me, because I have also given free trial freely and nobody signed up for the free trial, even if it's three, right?

So it depends on who you, who you go to to give the free trial. And it depends on who, you know, will need the free trial and also who, you know, who will be willing to pay without trying. And, and would they want to call this and will they want a lead magnet to, to, to help them first? So you're kind of off target your audience.

We have different kinds of people who will want different things at different stages. Need to understand that this, so should I try? Um, yeah. So offering a free trial may or may not work, but. I have tried it. And where I would say you may want to just try it first to see if it works for your audience.

There's no harm because if you're already hiring, you have the designer sitting with you, she or he is already working on designs. So if you have a free trial customer coming in. It doesn't hurt to pass someone over to your designer to do as well for, for, for, for short while. Right. So that's what we thought as well.

And that's why we tested it. So go ahead and try it. I'll speak to you soon. Bye.