How to Convert Trial Users into Paying Customers

When new users don’t convert after their free trial, we can relate how your enthusiasm rapidly gives way to dissatisfaction. Even after you manage to grab their interest, many users seem not to convert into paying customers but leave away once the trial period ends.

The experience can trigger a question about what actually failed you in converting trial users! No matter how good your product or service is, it doesn’t guarantee sales. There might be various reasons, such as poor onboarding process, insufficient follow-ups, failure to clarify product benefits properly, etc.

But don’t get much panicked. Still, you have enough opportunities to rein the market, retain the upcoming new users, and convert them into paying customers. But for that, you must update your approaches. In this blog post, we’ll explain tips and tactics on how to convert trial users into paying customers.

What Is Trial Conversion?

Converting trial users into paying customers is crucial to any subscription-based business. It’s not merely a metric. It defines how well your sales and marketing approaches are supporting your business.

A great trial-to-paid conversion rate indicates users are finding enough value during the trial period, which convinces them to sign up for the premium plans.

However, there are many points overlooked by product marketers that can seriously impact the success of the trial conversion.

Typical Trial Conversion Issues

Some of the typical issues that are often overlooked by the businesses are-

• Misaligned Expectations: Trial users are less likely to convert if they don’t completely understand the advantages of your product or how it addresses their issues. 

• Poor Onboarding: When users have trouble browsing your product or making efficient use of its features, they frequently end their trials.

• Fear of being committed: Long-term agreements or unclear pricing discourage users from upgrading. Many people worry about being forced into a strategy that might not work for them.

Types of Free Trials That Are Widely Used for Conversion

Now that you have addressed the issues, here are some types of free trials used worldwide. Various trial formats accommodate different user preferences and business concepts. You can pick from the most popular kinds:

• Limited Time Free Trial: For a set amount of time – typically 7, 14, or 30 days – users can experience all or the majority of the product’s capabilities. These are ideal for SaaS solutions that aim to instill a sense of urgency and promote quicker decision-making.

• Limited-Featured Free Trial: This type of free trial provides certain features or basic functionality that are accessible during the trial period. Until a user switches to a premium plan, advanced functions are locked. Companies that provide sophisticated products with high-end features or tiered price structures follow this type of trial. 

• Use-Restricted Free Trial: With this trial version, users are only able to do a certain number of tasks, like uploading 10 files, creating 5 reports, or sending 100 emails. They have to upgrade to keep going after they hit the limit. If your product is tools that produce quantifiable results, such as analytics or email marketing systems, you can provide this kind of free trial to your customers. 

• Freemium Perpetual Free Plan: This type of plan means there is always a free version of the product, but it has fewer features. To get advanced features, users must pay. To bring long-term improvements and grow a sizable user base, product owners often follow this plan. 

• Trials Without a Credit Card: By not requiring payment information up front, these trials remove any obstacles for users who are dubious about automatic billing. This helps increase user confidence and decrease hesitancy when registering.

How to Turn Trial Users into Paying Customers

Professional sales experts from different companies have used and validated some techniques for converting trial users into paying customers online. We have tested and gathered all the workable techniques that can impact your business. If you can implement these techniques correctly, you will see your trial users turning into paying customers. 

1. Enhance the Trial Experience

People rely on software to resolve particular issues for themselves or their companies. Enhancing and customizing the product experience will help users understand the value of your product, and they will feel encouraged to purchase. To enhance the trial experience, you can-

• Organize online programs to onboard and guide users through the product in a way that feels customized to their needs. Present with personal touches so that the users feel the need for the product. You can use Mailchimp or weMail to notify the customers about the onboarding program. 

• Provide real-time guidance to users on how to use your product. Use pop-ups, tooltips, or live chat to answer questions and demonstrate how easy it is to maximize the product’s potential.

• Do not forget to explain the Upgrade Offers. The users should have a clear outline of what they will gain by upgrading. You can use visuals and YouTube short videos to showcase premium features.

• Surprise users with bonus gifts. Add unexpected value, such as free e-books, webinars, or exclusive content during the trial. This small effort can leave a lasting impression and encourage users to pay for more.

2. Create a Sense of Urgency

Another effective way to convert customers into sales is to offer exclusive discounts. Time-limited promotions encourage users to take action quickly, which lowers hesitancy and increases conversions.

Users occasionally require a reminder that their trial is about to expire as they can be busy professionals. Some users may feel valued if you take the time to provide extra assistance, such as a one-on-one product demo or walkthrough. Just do not bombard your customers’ inboxes with pointless or excessive correspondence.

In this case, you can take the help of Appsero’s subscription renewal feature. The plugin will automatically send the email three, seven, fourteen, and thirty days before the expiration date. All you have to do is set the frequency for your customers. 

3. Use the Campaign Seasons for Big Savings

With the holiday season in, what better time to get fantastic deals on essential tools for WordPress developers? Take in the seasonal campaigns of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and New Year to make the most of your savings on Appsero, your all-in-one plugin management solution. With Appsero, you can streamline your workflow with its powerful features in analytics, licensing, and deployment, which makes plugin management easier than ever.

This holiday season, get 35% off on Appsero directly; no coupon is needed. So do not miss the opportunity to improve your development process on a budget. Whether you want to automate plugin updates or license management, Appsero covers the essentials, saving you time and effort. 

4. Communicate the Value Through the Trial Version

SaaS companies should focus on value communication through the product itself. You can provide enough value with your product’s free version to attract a loyal customer base. This will assist users in realizing that the premium version provides even more benefits. The goal is to make users dependent on the product by providing free features. Both their personal and professional workflows should incorporate it.

You can also give out some storage space for free to get users to use your product. Then, charge for more storage. Because their data are already there, they are more likely to buy your storage than to move to a different provider.

You can use requiring payment and subscription options in case you need to add that for your customers who want to pay for storage. So, once you have Appsero installed, you can even send emails to expired customers for further communication.

5. Request Payment Information to Begin a Trial

One of the best strategies for increasing your free-to-paid conversion rate is to request payment details before the trial. This eliminates spam and users who have no intention of making an early purchase. With Appsero, you can have all your customers’ information in one place.

Make sure you provide enough data safety assurance when requesting credit card information up front, just like with anything else. Doing so will undoubtedly result in fewer free trials being signed up overall, even though it will probably enhance your paid conversion rate. 

6. Showcase ROI with Real-Life Examples

On your product website, share success stories, case studies, or testimonials from other users. For example, you can ask your loyal customers to put reviews like- “At XYZ Corp, we have seen an increase in team productivity by 50% after using this product.” These positive reviews shoot up value and build trust.

7. Offer Transparent Pricing and Flexible Plans

Your product’s pricing should be clear and divided into easy-to-understand tiers. Always avoid hidden fees that can deter users. You can also offer options like money-back guarantees, holiday discounts, or risk-free trials to reduce the fear of committing. This also shows that you can cater to every type of customer under one roof. 

8. Use Data-Driven Insights

A data-driven sales approach can sell your product to new clients. Most interestingly, it can increase sales to current clients. There is a 60% to 70% chance of selling to an existing customer as opposed to a mere 5% to 20% chance of selling to a new one. Additionally, current clients are 31% more likely to spend more on your company’s average order value.

So, track user behavior during the trial to spot drop-off points. If many users leave after a specific step, tweak that part of the experience to make it smoother. By identifying the signs and behaviors, you can increase customer retention.

9. Keep It Simple For Both Parties

As an owner, automating your workflow guarantees increased productivity and enhances the user experience. Simplify necessary processes like email notifications, subscription tracking, and licensing management using Appsero. To save time and cut down on mistakes, concentrate everything on a single platform rather than handling several tools.

Your clients benefit from this simplicity as they go through a simple upgrading process, timely updates, and seamless onboarding. You can easily send custom upgrade offers and monitor user behavior with Appsero’s analytics. Customers see a stress-free, well-organized product when you concentrate on efficient procedures, which motivates them to convert.

Appsero: The Easiest Way to Manage Premium WordPress Products, Plans, and Customers

For WordPress developers who want easy management of their premium products, plans, and customers, Appsero is very handy. The features within Appsero are strong and straightforward, making the plugin management process smooth and efficient.

Easy Product Management

Appsero allows a user to handle premium WordPress product management from a single dashboard. This ensures that with Appsero, product updates, licenses, and releases can easily be tracked, with customers always having access to the latest versions.

Whether you are selling free or premium programs, Appsero gives you control over deployment and maintaining a structured organization for the entire product line. 

Pricing Plans and Introduction of Licenses

Appsero enables you to configure and manage flexible pricing plans for all products. Products may offer single-site licenses or multi-site plans. You will be able to identify different tiers of products, allowing customers to select the plan that best fits their needs.

License management is fully integrated with Appsero, ensuring that all of your customers receive the right license and can be provided with continuous updates. You can configure expiry dates, renewals, and active installations with Appsero across the entire board.

Customer Insight and Administration

Understanding your customers is necessary to provide constant support and optimize customer experiences. The analytics provided by Appsero will be an asset when it comes to understanding customer behavior, such as active installations, deactivations, and product usage. This information can provide the basis for optimizations in both product and pricing.

Managing your customers becomes a lot smoother when you can offer them specific tracking of purchases and specific plans. They will enjoy seamless processing from purchase to support.

To Sum Up: Make the Most of Your Free Trials

It’s not impossible to convert trial users into paying clients. All it takes is the appropriate tactics and persistent follow-up. You can increase your trial-to-paid conversion rates by addressing your customers’ pain points on the onboarding procedure, outlining value, and establishing trust via customized interaction.

Put these easy steps into practice right now, and see how your trials turn into devoted, long-term clients. To get the results you’re aiming for with the correct strategy, try Appsero today to eliminate the guesswork and understand why some features are not working. Hope you turn your trial users into paying customers soon!