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I am launching a website. It will compete with one other website. The service will be identical for the most part, except my website will be superior in usability and I will also provide some extra little features.

Their website is a bit of a joke, but they have been running it since 2005. They have the whole market slice. Everyone uses them.

I am trying to get a part of that pie. I will be happy if I can get 10% of their customers

Currently their customers are billed by debit. So basically the money is taken directly from their bank accounts. I consider this to be the biggest hurdle for me. I think I can get their clients to my website, but actually having them give me their banking details and having them ditch the other site, that might be tough.

So I am planning to do a 90 day free trial.

The reasoning behind it is that they will start to use my service, they will like it. Then some time during the first month they will cancel their subscription at the other site. Maybe they like my site more, or maybe they will just want to save money for 2-3 months.

At the end of the 3 months they will hopefully sign up with me.

Note: The operating costs of the website are incredibly low ($500/m) and won't increase with more customers.

Is 90 days overkill? I think it's necessary to "pry" the customers from the other site.

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2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Of course 90 days period is long enough for trial. But there is another consideration in psychology. It's so long that clients will almost forget payment and think it should be free always. They may not feel happy when they need to touch pocket when time due.

A client who really want your product doesn't need such a long trial period. Maybe he would rather exchange this for other terms such as discount, free support etc.

I suggest to use a combination of promotion methods, and cut trial period to industry average. Your competitor doesn't have trial period, you've already excelled him.

Some examples of promotion combination:

  • Free trial (You have it)
  • Offer private discount when free trial expires
  • Public discount/coupon before certain date
  • Free premium support for limited time(may be useful for your industry)
  • More budget on ad

Feel free to add you own. A tool set is definitely much powerful than a strong tool alone.

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What is the industry standard? 30 days? I almost feel like 30 days is the very minimum that I can make it. Awesome post btw. I totally agree with the points you listed. I love the discount/coupon idea. I can drop ones like that in forums. – Arramack Dec 30 '12 at 13:22
I think 30 days is common if nothing very special in your industry that the clients can use the product normally from day one or two. If other time involved such as learning curve for the product, setup time, organization transition etc, maybe you need to consider extending the period a little longer. – Billy Chan Dec 30 '12 at 13:43
There is 0 learning curve so I will make it 30 days. Thanks for your time, Billy. – Arramack Dec 30 '12 at 14:56
Also, you might experiment with lifecycle emails to see if you can accelerate their upgrade - training.kalzumeus.com/lifecycle-emails – CaseySoftware Jan 2 at 2:51
up vote 1 down vote

For some industries you will find a lot of customers will only start using the system as the trial nears the end. They are busy and it's not a priority, but as the trial is running out they better evaluate it properly.

A 90-day trial could cause your sales cycle to be unnecessarily long for no gain. They may still only use it for a few days before making a decision, but those few days will be 90 days later. It's possible they will even forget about it by then or find something else and the 90 days could be more harm than good.

I would lean towards 30 days, I think it gives enough for free but also has that sense of urgency.

Also, you mention that your website will be more usable and you will have a few small features to be better than your competitor. It will take more than that. Customers won't move for a small improvement, they need a bigger reason to move. Either a big improvement or be cheaper. I am guessing you care more about how dated or usable a website is than they do. You probably can't believe this competitor has so many customers considering how crappy their site is... it turns out... the site doesn't matter as much as you think.

Make sure you have a compelling enough point of difference to warrant the effort and risk of them moving across.

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The trail will be 30 days from when they sign up, so it's not a site wide trial. You are correct in that customer's won't move for something as small as a better user interface or small features. I'm really trying to rack my brain around what I can offer in this industry that will add value to the website. I guess the only thing I can do is to drop the price. So I will be dropping the price (let's say 10%) as well as making the first 30 days free. Hopefully that works. Also, I know exactly how much market share they have (3000 customers). If I get just 300 I will be happy. – Arramack Jan 24 at 15:07
I would be careful competing on price. Once you start it's hard to stop. – Joel Friedlaender Jan 24 at 22:55

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