Marketing Automation and Trial Conversion

If you’re failing to convert customers from your free trial offers then there’s probably a very simple reason why:  you’re failing to engage them.  Failing to engage potential customers within the first three days of a free-trial sign up is the number one reason why customers lose interest in a product or feature.  And if they’re not interested or find the experience enjoyable, they’ll get bored with the product, and will fail to convert.

On average, you can expect somewhere around 15% of your free-trial users to become paying customers.  That number drops significantly within ninety days as you lose customers as they try the product and find that it might not work for them.  So you might be wondering how exactly you’re supposed to attract more free trial users, convert them to customers, and keep them as customers.  This is where marketing automation and trial conversion comes into play.

Marketing Automation and Trial Conversion

Email marketing can be a useful tool in getting customers to convert.  Even if you have a small percentage of users converting to paying customers, a small improvement in activation rate will increase your paying customers.  Developing a relationship with your potential customers can be as simple as sending short, concise, and personalized messages via marketing automation.

You’re going to want to send your first messages within ninety minutes of your leads expressing an interest in the product – this will give you the best chance of converting them.  Marketing automation can do all of this for you.  All you have to do is set up your software to trigger an email once a customer signs up for the free trial.

Crafting Scheduled Messages

You should also have a scheduled messaged that explains all of the features of the free trial program or product and how to get started quickly.  This message should give customers the option of contacting a representative at your company or within your customer service department if they have questions – which is just another way for you to establish a personal relationship with the customer.

Scheduling multiple messages throughout the trial period will also help you with your conversion rate but only as long as you’re adding convincing content.  Marketing automation via trial conversion can help you monitor your customer’s free trial use and trigger appropriate e-mails to be sent to them.  For example, if your customer hasn’t used the free trial in a week, your marketing automation software could trigger an email with the goal of getting the customer back to the trial.

By monitoring usage of the trial, marketing automation can give you valuable insight into whether or not an extension of that free trial is appropriate.  Users who have already stopped using the product prior to the end of the free trial are unlikely to move forward in your sales funnel.  However, users who are actively using the product but stop due to attrition may be viable candidates for at trial extension.

If you’re ready to take the next step in applying a marketing automation solution to your business, contact us today!