Let’s talk about your product’s trial.

Or if you run an eCommerce store, any incentive you might provide to incentivise purchase.

One of my clients is in an industry where products similar to theirs are considered somewhat of a commodity.

A tool that their customers use, maybe add on top of their current stack.

It’s a lot about quantity (and quality, too).

And their customers need to be able to try this product quickly and easily so they can make a final decision.

Interesting factor is that even thought the product is a commodity (as in they can find an alternative very quickly), it’s also what makes or breaks their business.

Not having it (or not having enough of what the product does) = not having a business.

What would you do to let customers try the product?

There are many considerations, too.

One is that a free trial would make it easy for prospects to take advantage of it. Hence not such a profitable deal for my client’s business.

Would you limit the free trial on duration? Maybe on the features they can use?

But then you get the problem of prospects not getting an accurate idea of what the product does.

A bit of conundrum right?

One solution?

Ask your market.

But wait….not so easy still…

… most of the times your market doesn’t know what they want.

And based on their use cases they might have completely different opinions. Tough to come up with 1 single plan.

So what the hell can we do?

The best way I’ve found to go about reducing friction in the trial process (or incentivizing purchase for high ticket items) in complex cases like this is…

Make the trial as easy to access as possible.

And / or clearly showcase a super, uber specific guarantee (especially if a trial is not possible).

Ok these are actually 2, but the fundamental problem they hide under most times is that they’re not considered as products themselves.

Yes, that’s right.

Your trial and your guarantee, they are two products you “sell”.

And like anything you sell, it has to be easy to find, access and consume.

Showing your entire range of products and pricing plans/tiers is important.

But if you’re sure your audience needs to try the product before investing fully in it, make them go through a trial and focus their flow on it.

It’s sequential selling 101.

Just a bit more flexible as you’d still want to show the full products.

Just give priority to the trial and to the guarantee.

Test this approach, get information on how the trial is going and adjust.

Lot of research and analysis. That’s what I do.

If you want to learn, let’s talk.