SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

35
The 7 Secrets to Free Trial Success Turn your ‘Free Trial’ into a Customer-Creating Machine! Lincoln Murphy Presents... http://sixteenventures.com Lincoln Murphy

description

SaaS Marketing Strategies to Make Your Web App DominateSaaS Marketing Strategy Focus: Scalable Customer AcquisitionThrough scalable SaaS Marketing practices, Sixteen Ventures lead by Lincoln Murphy, provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) and Web App companies everything they need to acquire customers, improve retention, and grow the lifetime value of those customers.New Challenges – and Opportunities – Require an Optimized SaaS Marketing StrategyThe cloud introduces new challenges for traditional Independent Software Vendors (ISV), but even for those who are building new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Web Applications (Web Apps) from scratch, many challenges exist, with marketing being one of the biggest.The Goal of Your SaaS Marketing Strategy: to Quickly Create Profitable CustomersBecause Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Web Apps are very often sold on a recurring revenue, monthly basis – without a large upfront payment like traditional software – the key to successful SaaS Marketing is efficiency and scalability.Payback Customer Acquisition Costs Quickly with a Great SaaS Marketing StrategyRegardless of the type of sales process, SaaS Marketing requires you to leverage scalable methods to attract the right audience up-front, to get the customer to try before they buy, and the methods used to convert your prospect to a paying customer.SaaS Marketing ultimately breaks down to a per-customer cost and should be paid back as quickly as possible in an effort to turn new customers into profitable customers.But, when your Free Trial fails to convert customers, it’s probably doing exactly what it was designed to do!You need to design your Free Trial to actually sell your product if you want to make any money in the SaaS or Web App business.So I’ve put together a list of 7 Secrets to Free Trial Success... how to turn your SaaS Marketing efforts - your sales process - and your Free Trial - into a Customer-Creating Machine.This is SaaS Marketing / Free Trial Domination Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Transcript of SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 1: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

The 7 Secrets toFree Trial Success

Turn your ‘Free Trial’ into a Customer-Creating Machine!

Lincoln Murphy Presents...

http://sixteenventures.comLincoln Murphy

Page 2: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

Secret #2: Get Your Product

to Sell Itself

Lincoln Murphy

Page 3: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

When someone signs-up for your Free Trial, and the product doesn’t sell itself, how do you expect to make a sale?

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 4: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

When we see Free Trial conversion rates of < 10% - even for ‘great’ products - it should be very clear that the product won’t sell itself, right?

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 5: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

When your sales process fails to convert customers, it’s probably doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 6: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

The reality is simple; your product won’t sell itself...

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 7: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

Unless it is DESIGNED to sell itself.

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 8: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

Yes, some people will buy based on features even if you have a difficult-to-use product and cannot articulate the value proposition... it’s true.

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 9: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

But those people are early adopters and likely don't make up the majority of your market and your opportunity

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 10: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

Getting beyond those Early Adopters and to a wider audience (even in vertical / niche markets) should be the goal.

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 11: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

But that doesn’t happen by accident

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 12: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

The products that seem to ‘sell themselves’ aren’t magic, they are designed to ‘sell themselves’ as part of a highly-scalable customer acquisition process

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 13: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

Whether you have a low-touch, e-commerce, self-service sales process or have a team of sales people, designing your product to ‘sell itself’ will add much-needed scalability to your customer acquisition process

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 14: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

When you get into the right mindset around Free Trials you'll realize how most vendors do this wrong

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 15: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

And probably how you’re doing it wrong!

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 16: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

So how do you design a product to sell itself?

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 17: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

For most SaaS & Web App vendors, it starts with the Free Trial!

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 18: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

For most SaaS & Web App vendors, the Free Trial is a black hole...

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 19: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

A black hole where they send potential customers to die (not literally, I hope)...

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 20: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

Here’s a typical scenario I run into...

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 21: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

A vendor has a great marketing website with a good amount of traffic (very often paid traffic)

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 22: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

Through on-site optimization they get a good amount of people to sign-up for the trial every month...

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 23: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

And once the potential customers sign-up for the Free Trial, most of them leave after logging in only one time, never to be heard from again!

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 24: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

Very few ever come back for a second look, let alone sign-up as customers!

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 25: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

So what happened?

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 26: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

The vendor didn’t look at Free Trials the right way!

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 27: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

They thought the product would sell itself to people who were interested in simply poking around and kicking the tires.

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 28: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

I like this real estate analogy... which agent is going to sell a house faster and at a higher price?

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 29: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

The agent who gets a bunch of people to the front door, opens the door to let them into an empty house to look around on their own while they read the newspaper, allowing people to come and go as they please? Or...

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 30: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

The agent that greets them at the door, tells them what they’re going to see when they enter and guides them through the professionally staged home in a specific path, and gets them so emotionally invested in the home, neighborhood, school system, their kids’ future, their grandkids’ future, that they are ready to make an offer right then?

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 31: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

I’m going to go with the second agent.

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 32: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

The house is the same… the underlying product is the same.It is how it is presented and how you engage and pull in the user through the experience; how well you get them invested.

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 33: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

You can’t let someone come into your app and not know EXACTLY what to do to get started!

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

Page 34: SaaS Marketing Strategy - Free Trial Success Secret 2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials

This is where most SaaS & Web App vendors completely drop the ball and why their Free Trial conversion rates are so low... the product isn’t designed to sell itself and yet that’s what they’re banking on!

Lincoln MurphySecret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself