How to Convert SaaS Trial Users into Paid Customers
80% of the free trial users just fade away and never become paying customers (source).
How can SaaS startups tap into such a huge volume of prospects and successfully convert them into paying customers?
Of course, there are some tips and ideas, which I have mentioned below, but the ultimate takeaway is for you to not fade away from your customers’ mind and to stay connected throughout the trial period.
Here are my tips:
1. Send how-to-use mails and feature updates
Don’t leave the customers alone during their trial period. Stay in touch with them and offer useful advice.
Engaging with them frequently, especially with the inactive users, will give you a better shot at converting them.
Also, update your free trial users with your latest feature updates. Your email must contains images with a proper explanation so that even layman can understand it. Here is the example howSproutSocial team updated their users about latest features update in an interesting way.
Did you know that 90% of the leads go cold after 1 hour of their subscription? (Source) In order to counteract this, not only do you have to send a welcome email, but you must also make sure to check-in with them frequently, of course don’t be annoying about it though!
Here are some ideas on how to stay in touch:
- Send them How-to-use tutorials about your product/service.
- Send an explanation email of your features update.
- Give them tips and tricks — for example, if you are an email marketing service company, send them emails such as ‘Tips to write great email’ etc.
- If nothing else, you can send a ‘we miss you’ email after week with quick hacks/tips. (Here are some good blogs about emails)
2. For engaged users, extend the free trial period
If you see that a user is actively using your product, or has just begun to do so, then extending their free trial period would be a smart move. Your user may not be quite ready to make the big move yet, and it is perfectly fine for you to give them more time to do so.
Not only does it instill good faith between you and your customer, but it also improves the chances of their conversion.
Do this: Send them an email to let them know that you are extending their trial period, this way you can renew their interest in your product. See our example:
In the email, make sure to include:
- A comment or two from your happy customers.
- Statistics of your performance in the market, better if the data is latest.
- Request for product feedback.
3. Create a sense of urgency
Let’s admit it, most people don’t act without an incentive; a sense of urgency can be a great incentive.
For example, you will have better success when you say,
‘ A special discount on our product just for you — expires in 12 hours’
Instead of,
‘We have a special discount for our special user’
Infact, at my startup Hiver, we ran A/B email testing on creating a sense of urgency to convert our free trial users, we realised that the Email B, which used responsive words such as ‘Act now’, ‘Ends in 10 hours’ written in red had 3 times the conversation rate of the email which had no sense of urgency at all.
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