By: Carol Vercellino, CEO & Co-Founder
Free trials are a great way to show users why they should choose your app or software product over anything else.
But how do you ensure your users will renew their subscriptions once the free trial is up?
Today, I’m going to share three ways you can get your users to commit after their free trial has ended.
Nail your onboarding process
How do you nail the onboarding process? There are three ways you can focus on this.
First, you want to create a help center on your website or have a small support team. You could even have part-time folks who can answer technical questions. Make it easy for your users to find you; for example, your support email should be help@yourappname.com.
Second, send users a welcome email with all the information they need about their free trial and how to download the product to get started. You could even turn that process into a welcome cadence where you send them an email once every two days or every day for the first seven days.
Third, you also want to provide in-app native FAQs so your users can open the app, click Help, and quickly get the answers they need.
Empower your users
To get your app or product’s full benefits, your users need to know all the ins and outs. Empowering your customers with educational materials about your product can boost customer loyalty and reduce complaints.
So, first off, you want to offer your users hands-on experience with live demos. If you’re a startup, you want to do this person-to-person, for example, over Zoom, and ask your users how things are doing and if you can answer any questions.
Second, you can create and share useful content on your website, email, and social media. It can be simple how-to’s or tech tips to support your user in achieving their goals through your product.
You can also organize a virtual workshop or webinar. You can do those live or have them pre-recorded so your users can access them anytime via your website.
Make it easy for users to buy your app
This step often gets overlooked, but it’s the most important. Make it easy for your users to buy your app or software product once the trial is up.
Remind users their free trial is about to expire. You can send your users an email or maybe even call them if you’re a startup and have the team to do it.
You can also provide an early discount if they buy before the expiration of the trial. For example, you can send them an email and say, ‘Hey, if you renew now (7 days before your trial is up), we’ll take 20% of the subscription!’
Also, send a final email that includes step-by-step how users can buy and activate the full version. Make the purchasing process really easy. Find the simplest checkout form that you can have them put their credit card information in (if you can, use Apple Pay). If the product is available in the app store, that makes it pretty easy too.
Conclusion
Your free trial phase is a great way to retain customers, build loyalty, and grow your business.
Make it easy for your free trial users to learn how to use your app or software to its fullest potential, and they’ll move right into the paying phase.
Now that you’ve got your users hooked, learn how to streamline your onboarding process, so your app users never want to leave. Read it here.
