SaaS Marketing Strategies to Make Your Web App Dominate SaaS Marketing Strategy Focus: Scalable Customer Acquisition Through scalable SaaS Marketing practices, Sixteen Ventures lead by Lincoln Murphy, provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) and Web App companies everything they need to acquire customers, improve retention, and grow the lifetime value of those customers. New Challenges – and Opportunities – Require an Optimized SaaS Marketing Strategy The cloud introduces new challenges for traditional Independent Software Vendors (ISV), but even for those who are building new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Web Applications (Web Apps) from scratch, many challenges exist, with marketing being one of the biggest. The Goal of Your SaaS Marketing Strategy: to Quickly Create Profitable Customers Because Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Web Apps are very often sold on a recurring revenue, monthly basis – without a large upfront payment like traditional software – the key to successful SaaS Marketing is efficiency and scalability. Payback Customer Acquisition Costs Quickly with a Great SaaS Marketing Strategy Regardless of the type of sales process, SaaS Marketing requires you to leverage scalable methods to attract the right audience up-front, to get the customer to try before they buy, and the methods used to convert your prospect to a paying customer. SaaS Marketing ultimately breaks down to a per-customer cost and should be paid back as quickly as possible in an effort to turn new customers into profitable customers. But, when your Free Trial fails to convert customers, it’s probably doing exactly what it was designed to do! You need to design your Free Trial to actually sell your product if you want to make any money in the SaaS or Web App business. So I’ve put together a list of 7 Secrets to Free Trial Success... how to turn your SaaS Marketing efforts - your sales process - and your Free Trial - into a Customer-Creating Machine. This is SaaS Marketing / Free Trial Domination Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring

1. Lincoln Murphy Presents...
The 7 Secrets to
Free Trial Success
Turn your ‘Free Trial’ into a Customer-Creating Machine!
Lincoln Murphy http://sixteenventures.com

2. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Secret #5:
Credit Cards are a
Red Herring
Lincoln Murphy

3. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
“I’ll ask for a credit card up front so only
serious, highly qualified leads enter my
funnel” - many SaaS vendors
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

4. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Vendors think asking for a Credit Card up
front qualifies people, but it simply does
not.
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

5. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
One member of my Free Trial Dominator
program was adamant that this was the
case...
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

6. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
So they convert 48% of their Free Trial
signups... pretty good right?
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

7. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Until you look at their overall numbers...
Unique Visitors (UV): 15k/mo
Trial Signups: 327 (2.18%)
Trialists that convert to customers: 180
(55% of trialists/ 1.2% overall)
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

8. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
How many people would have signed-up
for the Free Trial if they didn’t ask for the
credit card up front?
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

9. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Another vendor shared that they got rid of
the Credit Card requirement because so
many complained about the charges.
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

10. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
In fact, most Web App vendors who’ve
dropped the Credit Card requirement did so
because of complaints from customers
about being billed at the end of the Free Trial
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

11. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Some of those billings resulted in charge
backs (bad for your relationship with your
processor)
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

12. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Many result in bad feelings that have to
be - and hopefully are - resolved
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

13. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
All of those complaints and refund
requests add overhead that could be
avoided
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

14. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
This idea of taking a credit card to start
the trial and then 31 days later on a 30-
day free trial isn’t on the surface a bad
idea, but the execution of the post-signup
strategy is often flawed.
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

15. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Some vendors literally don’t want to bother
the person after they’ve signed-up because
reminding them that they signed-up might
remind them to cancel their account
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

16. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Not realizing that they will find out - when
you bill them - and since they haven’t
heard from you in almost a month, the
likelihood that they’ll be upset by this
charge on their bill that they don’t
recognize and ask for a refund (or initiate
a chargeback) is much higher than if you
communicated with them the whole time.
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

17. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
And of course there are the vendors who
have high conversion rate percentages,
but when you look at their super-low
initial Free Trial sign-up numbers, and the
actual number of conversions, it is easy
to see that the Credit Card requirement is
turning people off.
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

18. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Yes, asking people for a Credit Card up
front turns them off... you aren’t
“qualifying them out”.
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

19. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
If someone wants to become a customer
today, give them the opportunity to sign-
up with their credit card and pay, today.
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

20. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
But if they just want to try (remember,
they think they’re just ‘trying’ the product!)
your product, they aren’t ready to buy so
they aren’t ready to plunk down the credit
card; require it, and they’ll bounce.
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

21. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
CC-walls turn off people who aren't ready
to commit without seeing what you’ve got
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

22. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
But the truth is, the whole “Credit Card to
start a Free Trial” debate is a Red
Herring... something that causes us to
take our eye off the ball, to focus on it
and not on what really matters.
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

23. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Whether you require a credit card or not to
start the Free Trial (<7% of the SaaS
vendors that I’ve run into do, BTW), to be
successful, you need to have a strong post-
signup Free Trial strategy that drives
Engagement, Investment, and Conversion!
Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring Lincoln Murphy

24. For the Ultimate Free Trial
Resource Guide, visit:
http://sixteenventures.com/free-trial-resource-guide