Posts Tagged ‘trial edition’

Mandatory sign up for the free trial ?

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

sign-upOffering a free trial edition is an important tool to sell more software, I think we can all agree on that. But how do you make that trial editon available to potential customers?
Do you let them download the trial using a publicly available download link on your website? Or do you force them to give you their email address first (mandatory sign up)? Or maybe a softer, optional sign up?

If you want as many users as possible to evaluate your trial version, it makes sense to make downloading it easy as possible, no barriers at all.
On the other hand, having the email address of your trial users lets you follow up with them, hopefully increasing your chances of converting them into customers.

Which approach will bring you more profits?
Public Download Links or Mandatory Sign Ups?
As always, there’s only one way to find out: an A/B split test. More »

Choosing the limitation of your trial edition

Friday, March 27th, 2009

One of the hardest things to decide on when releasing a trial edition of your software is the registration incentive, or in other words, the limitation of this trial edition.
But it is also a decision that may have a big impact on your downloads to sales conversion rate. So let’s look at it more closely.

First, here’s my thoughts of what a trial edition is and what it is for.
A trial edition is:

  • A marketing tool, designed to convert website visitors into customers.
  • An evaluation version, a way for prospects to try your software before they buy.
  • Not free software.

So, how does this impact the design of your trial edition?
More »