Comments on: What makes a free trial work (or not)

By: Glen Lougheed

Glen Lougheed — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 06:40:13 +0000

I truly believe that barriers to entry are no longer created by patents or by tech differentiation alone, but by driving strong traction in the marketplace. Freemium models can create this situation. I think people have to look beyond the dollars and cents and look at the effects it can have pulling users away from others. So the value in the user is sometimes not in what they pay to you, it could be what they are not paying to others.

By: Ellis

Ellis — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 17:41:48 +0000

Rita, you should see the latest benchmark report we did at Totango that audited 10 companies on their free trial and signup processes: http://blog.totango.com/2012/11/signup-and-trial-process-benchmark-report-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly/

By: Samuel Clemens

Samuel Clemens — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 22:45:49 +0000

David, completely agree. I probably should have prefaced my anti-freemium comment with a B2B caveat. :-)

By: Rich Nieset

Rich Nieset — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 17:59:13 +0000

This is a great article, Barb. You called out Jive and New Relic as examples of doing follow-up right and you can see that reflected in their growth rates. This is further proof that products don’t sell themselves — at least not complex ones. Free trials are a way to engage and if they are supported by a professional approach, it can be a valuable opportunity creator. If they are not, then the assest is wasted and it could even wind up being negative work — actually proving to prospects that they DON’T want the product and inoculating them against the solution for ever!

By: Rita

Rita — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 17:36:07 +0000

I wonder what kind of free trials worked better than others.

By: Arlene

Arlene — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:40:34 +0000

This is a really useful article and I couldn’t agree more. Customer service is the most under-used sales tool out there. It’s quite shocking how bad companies are at it. Regardless of how it’s delivered – social media engagement, email, phone call, etc. – it absolutely should be part of a potential customer’s free trial experience.

By: David Mytton

David Mytton — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 12:18:06 +0000

Freemium works well for mass market consumer startups like Dropbox and Evernote. The goal is to get as many people using it as possible and the power users will pay, easily covering the costs of the free users. This can work because of the volume of users – many millions.

It doesn’t work so well with B2B products because there are fewer users. A free product also produces skepticism about the value and long term viability of the company. This is why a trial makes more sense so you can get people into the funnel and work on converting them.

At Server Density we send a couple of automated e-mails (with a real person replyto address) and phone each signup to start building a relationship. This gives us valuable feedback about how people are using the product and lets us quickly solve problems for new users who might not otherwise get in touch.