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6 Golden Rules to Re-Engaging Customers After a Free Trial

Landing pages are excellent tools for capturing leads, getting your foot in the proverbial door with new clients by offering something “Free” in return for their details. Converting these contacts into paying customers, however, is a completely different ball game.

Marketers offer different kinds of ‘Free Trials’ and ‘Free Consultations’ by means of enticing visitors, depending on the nature of their product (think software companies providing a demo download, or a mortgage provider offering a free quote/estimation). This kind of lead generation may be the goal of your marketing efforts, but landing page conversions alone won’t equate to a monetary value, not unless you can re-engage these potential customers into buying your full product or service.

It’s tricky, because people are naturally hesitant about paying for premium features or product upgrades, even when they want the full package. But there are things you can do to tackle this issue, by being persuasive, strategic and persistent. Read on to find out more:

1. Credit Card Requirement Fields

I know, I know… if all you’re trying to obtain is customer contact information, adding an unnecessary form field (a rather off-putting credit card requirement field, no less) might sound counter intuitive, but there is a very good reason for it.

Strategically, this separates the wheat from the chaff - sorting out the people who are genuinely interested in purchasing your full product, from those who are just curious. Sure, your click-through rate is going to plummet, and you’re going to be losing out on a lot of potentials, but you can be sure the leads you do get this way will be of the highest quality.

Another good idea would be to run two different versions of the same landing page; one that includes a credit card requirement field, and one that doesn’t. That way you can determine a quality level of both lists, and market appropriately in the future.

2. Experiment with Trial Restrictions

The great thing about offering a free trial is that you get to showcase your product in a way that will make users want to commit to a full purchase. How you go about it, however, is completely up to you. Do you give them a small taste, or let users experience the entire thing? Are you going to leave them wanting more, or go for let them have everything? Here’s a few things you might want to think about experimenting with:

• Expiry date - Most free trials will come with a time limit, such as 14 Days, 30 Days or maybe more. You need to think about how much time users need in order to obtain a clear idea of the benefits of your product, whilst being brief enough to prompt an urgent, immediate action.
• Product version - If you’re providing a free demo of your product, are you going to give users full access to all its features, for a limited time of course, or an indefinite trial of a restricted version? You need to consider what will best show off your product’s capabilities.
• Custom version - Here’s an interesting thought; not everybody will be using your product for the same purpose. Ask your landing page visitors what they will be using your product for (include a message box, or form field asking if they intend on using it for work or home, or what features will interest them most of all) and provide a custom trial version based on their preferences.

3. Always Respond to Conversions

First impressions are always the most important. By responding to anyone requesting a free trial immediately, you are letting potential customers know that you are attentive and reliable. It can also help alleviate the anonymity factor customers often experience when deliberating whether or not to commit to an online purchase.

4. Be Persistent With Your Re-marketing Strategy. But Not Too Persistent

There’s a fine line between gently reminding and constantly pestering users into buying the full version of your product. You want to re-engage people at a time whilst their interest is still peaked, but you don’t want to turn them off all at once. This is quite a precarious position for marketers to find themselves in, so you need to think carefully about the intensity of your re-marketing strategy.

You’re not going to know what works best until you test the frequency and timing of your re-marketing efforts, whether you’re choosing to re-engage via email, telephone or display ads. For instance, it might serve you better to start off lightly and later increase the intensity as potential leads start to go cool. On the other hand, striking while the iron is still hot may prove more effective.

5. Utilize Positive Social Proof (before and after conversion)

Chances are you’re already including positive social proof on your landing page as a way of ‘selling’ the idea of requesting a free trial (such as positive customer feedback, testimonials and industry-expert reviews). But what about after users have already purchased the free trial, are you still utilizing social proof in order to re-engage?

It’s always good to include positive social proof as part of your overall re-marketing strategy, whether it’s included in your email, display ads or on social media. Hearing from similar customers who are pleased with the full product can help solidify the user’s satisfaction with their own free trial experience, whilst validating their decision to commit to a full purchase.

6. Reciprocity is King

Reciprocity has proven to work well for you already, offering a freebie in return for the user’s contact details and personal information, so why not try it again?

Offer users exclusive deals as part of your efforts to re-engage, perhaps utilizing you’ve learned from their free trial/consultation experience as a way of making your product more personally relevant.

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