I am excited to be a part of the Net-Results team. I look forward to sharing my thoughts on marketing automation, SaaS, online communities and a host of other (hopefully) relevant topics.
Recently, I have read a few blog posts decrying SaaS vendors offering free trials. One of the main thoughts being it eliminates a large number of potential customers at the outset because they don’t want to go through the hassle of downloading, installing and evaluating a potential solution to their pain point. Really? With all due respect I would hardly qualify the person or organization as a ‘potential customer’ if they did not want to go through a (assuming)simple (and free) process to investigate a vendor’s solution to their needs before making an investment that may be disastrous. How many times have people signed up for a new software solution, only to see the integration, implementation and rollout of the product take exponentially longer and cost more than originally quoted? Many, many times. With a SaaS solution, you can see results almost instantly with most free trials.
I come from the open source software world, and have seen the power of free downloads, which is extremely similar to a free trial. People definitely do want to see value before they purchase, especially in this day and age, and trying before you buy is the best model. I have worked with a number of companies who have achieved incredible results in very short order by providing a true free trial to their prospective customers. It is generally an impressive surge in potential customers.
Now I do decry when a free trial is actually a way to get people’s credit card number, so the moment the trial expires they are billed (and categorized a ‘new customer’. At Net-Results, we don’t believe in that. Our free trial requires no credit card number, no obligation, and takes minutes (literally) to get set up and running. That’s the way a free trial should be.
I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with free trials.
