SaaS free trial optimization - Reasons why customers say "No thanks" after SaaS free trial

SaaS free trial optimization - You have got your leads to try your SaaS product, but what if they bid bye at this point? Here are the possible reasons why customers say "No thanks" after the free trial!

Reasons why customers say "No thanks" after their SaaS free trial:

Let us start with an example here. Take Company XYZ for instance:

• They have all that their customers might need.
• XYZ is different from their competitors and has distinctive features.
• They were sure that their solution will sell itself after the SaaS free trial.

They still felt something was missing. In fact they saw their qualified leads leave after trying their product! Is it just that they need more traffic? Or is their SaaS solution not as good as they think? Neither! It is just that they failed to engage their qualified leads. You don't want to end up failing to engage too. Read on!

Here is an exercise for you. Pick some SaaS websites and jump in. What do you see?

Let me guess! Pop-ups, images, and attractive CTAs to make visitors sign-up for a free trial. But, their ultimate goal is simple - they want you to become a paid member.

Now as a CMO for a SaaS solution, what do you want? You want the same. But, what don't you want?

1. Failing to convert leads into paying customers after offering the SaaS free trial.
2. Free-trial abuse

This chapter is all about the reasons why customers say goodbye after a free trial.

#1 Have you designed your SaaS free trial right?

Here is a thing that you might want to have on top of your mind! Prospects active during the first 3 days of your free trial are most likely to become paid members irrespective of the trial length. Why? Because you have succeeded in engaging them. Have the above thing in mind and design your free trial. You can seldom go wrong. Design your free trial in such a way that you keep them active and engaged. Now, even after you get the design right, what could go wrong? Take Company XYZ for example. They have a carefully designed free trial that is engaging. But one mistake that they did was, they dumped their new-found customers blindfoldedly into the dashboard. Which takes us to our next reason why customers say no thanks after the SaaS free trial.

#2 Do you have a demo?

Company XYZ had more than 85% of the people who signed up for free trial just leave. Inference? If you have a confused customer, you can never make him buy! Your software in your eyes is going to be simple to use and intuitive. But you customers need not necessarily have the same outlook. There are many possible occurrences:

• Your customers might have not used a software like yours before.
• They might miss out on the main feature of your software which will leave them questioning if they really should buy your SaaS product
• Your main feature might not have been as simple to your qualified leads, as it is to you

Now, one way to overcome all the above points is to have a demo to complement your free trial. Show them all that they need to see. The nature of your demo really depends on the type of SaaS solution you provide. In the case of Company XYZ, a video was created to highlight the features and guide their qualified leads. You can go for a set of how-to videos or even use a graphical overlay. Do anything just to showcase to your qualified leads what your SaaS product can do!

#3 Is your content appropriate?

You might be wondering why content popped up here. There are chances that your leads signed up for your free trial and later decide to go through your blog content. You can reduce the churn rate if you have a well planned content strategy that is targeted to the right audience. Here are a few cases for which Company XYZ created content and were rewarded:

• Content for speeding up - They created targeted blog posts for people who just visited their site after getting informed about their SaaS product. As a result, such visitors read the blog posts that were useful and ended up becoming their customers.
• Content to address the pain point - They created content to pinpoint the pain point and how their solution will solve it.
• Content to help with implementation - When they found out about the importance of a demo, they created content on how to make the implementation process easier.
• Content to project the future - Company XYZ went a step ahead to project to their qualified leads how their business will look like after they decide to become paid members. They used case studies to advocate their cause and this is working out pretty well for them!

So, content at any point should be relevant and should be available for the right people at the right time. Targeted content is an investment.

#4 How is your email marketing shaping up?

"Buy now" - If all your emails to your qualified leads after they sign up are these two words - be ready to bid bye to yet another prospective customer. Have an email marketing strategy that can nurture and educate people who have signed up for your free trials. Have a sequence of mails that will go out to your qualified leads once they sign up for the free trials. Here is the sequence that you can follow:

• For leads who haven't signed up for the free trial, guide them to take up the trial.
• For those who have signed up for the trial, nurture them using information to make adapting to your SaaS solution easy.
• After the trial ends, send them great content with CTAs to make them become a paid customer.

Make sure that your mails engage them and are useful to them. Try not to overload your prospective customers with information.

#5 Do you make your SaaS free trial customers feel risk-free?

There is this concept where you can tell someone that they can have their money back if they change their mind about the purchase. Risk in this context however does not pertain only to money issues. If your customers load data into your SaaS software and later decide to opt out of using it, what answer do you have for them? This fear might make them leave deciding not to buy. Let your leads know that it is easy to migrate without making the paid subscription if they don't want to. Time and money are precious and let them know that it is not risky to invest both in your software.

The above are the few reasons why your customers tend to leave. Setting the above right can get you more conversions! SaaS free trial optimization,