What makes a person want to whip out their credit card and buy your software?

Hint: It’s not being nagged about how many days they have left in their trial every time they run your program.

It seems logical to nag the user.  Remind her that the trial is “time-limited, so act now!” like a fast-food commercial.  Remind her that she’s using your software for free, and doesn’t she feel guilty about that?

Sales people say “Pressure until they pay“, which for software trials means you should ask for money or at least guilt the user into paying. But you and I don’t like used-car sales techniques, and neither do your potential customers.

Don’t Lose Users on the First Screen!

This is part 4 of a 5-part series: How to convert more software trials to purchases.

Nothing’s worse than opening new software and staring at a vast white screen with millions of toolbar buttons.  Now what?

1. Most users don’t care enough to find out.
   They want to solve a problem, not root around in your menus.  They don’t care about your “project” paradigm or your innovative new work flow concepts.
2. Of course you also have to satisfy your power users.
   They probably don’t want paperclips popping up every five minutes distracting them from real work.  Power users are the ones who are going to spread the word about you, tell all their friends to download your software, and Tweet and blog about how awesome you are, so you have to keep them happy too.

Use a “Tips” Newsletter to Follow Up on a Trial

Photo credit: blue out

This is part 3 of a 5-part series: How to convert more software trials to purchases.

What do you do with customer’s email addresses during their trial?

• If the answer is “nothing“, then you’re wasting data.
• If the answer is “follow up with ‘account management‘ stuff and ‘do you need anything‘ questions“, then you’re bothering most users.  Even at best, you’re not thrilling anyone.

You should be using it for a special, 3-emails-only “Tips Newsletter“. There are several goals of the newsletter.

This is part 2 of a 5-part series: How to convert more software trials to purchases.

There are three camps about asking for contact info before a trial starts:

A.  Ask for nothing – Maximize number of downloads; minimize barriers.
B.  Show 1 – 4 fields - Make them optional. Get what you can, then get out of the way.
C.  Show 14 fields – Get their street address. Only serious people will download so you don’t waste your time with crap trials.

Allow me to convince you that B is the way to go.

Let’s first dispense with C.

If the world of free social media has taught us anything, it’s that “invasion without permission” is dead. You haven’t earned people’s contact information so they won’t give it.

This is part 1 of a 5-part series: How to convert more software trials to purchases.

I was the second software developer at Photodex in the ’90s.  We made CompuPic, the fastest thumbnailing image browser (before Microsoft built it into Explorer). We kept getting tech support calls like this:

Customer:  Where’s CompuPic?
Us:  I’m sorry?  What do you mean?
Customer:  I got CompuPic but I don’t know where it is.
Us: Did you download the installer?
Customer: Yes.
Us: Did you run the installer?
Customer: I don’t think so.  I don’t know where the installer is.
Us: Can you check your desktop for something called “CompuPic Installer”?
Customer: Ohhhhh, yes I found it.  Should I run it?

What if I told you that five changes to your software could increase revenue 25-50%?

It’s possible because of two facts: most trials don’t convert, and you’re too close to your software to see its obvious flaws.

The conversion rate from visits to sales according to a study presented by Andy Brice is around 1% with specific variations.  But the abandon rate on software trials is astonishingly high.  In an informal poll of a few software company owners I know, everyone agreed that 80-90% of downloads never become real trials.

In a way, that’s good news, because it means there’s lots of room for improvement.  Think about it – if only 20% of your potential customers make the leap from download to trial, shouldn’t it be possible to squeeze out another 5-10%?  That would be 25-50% more trials even with the same number of downloads!  And more trials means more revenue.