How to boost your web trial conversion rates

For increasing numbers of subscription publishers the ‘web trial’ is a core component of their web marketing strategy.

Typically, online visitors are encouraged to register for a no-obligation ‘taster’ of a publisher’s newsletter, magazine, news service or data feed. At the end of the trial period, the prospect is offered the opportunity to sign up for a paid subscription to the service.

The attractions for publishers of this route to market are obvious: the automated sign-up process is cheap to implement, there’s no expensive mailing list to purchase, or postage to pay, and the fulfilment of the web trial is highly cost-effective.

The trouble is, web trial conversion rates are often disappointing – far lower, certainly, than most publishers’ expectations.

Why many web trial conversion rates are so low

There’s so much more to a successful web trial strategy than meets the eye. That’s because the relative ease and low cost of adding a registration form and some product & sales copy to your web site belies the complexity of the actual lead generation and sales conversion process.

A web trial sign-up form is certainly not something you can simply ‘fit and forget’, then sit back and wait for all the sign-ups automatically to roll in… followed by lots of paid orders.

Yet some publishers still seem unable, or unwilling, to invest the time and effort necessary to master the art of web trial marketing.

All too often they end up with:

• an unexpectedly low number of web trial sign-ups
• a disappointing number of paid conversions

At MortonGregory, we help specialised information publishers re-engineer their web trial strategy.

Our approach typically centres on the following:

• has the web trial process been fully thought through, and structured for success?
• is the sales cycle correctly structured for the product and market in question?
• is the sign-up form correctly sited, structured and designed?
• is the sales and product copy properly written and right for the job?
• how truly compelling is the offer?
• is enough emphasis being placed on both the quantity and quality of web site visitors?

Get just one of these factors wrong and your web trial strategy falls over – along with your conversion rate.

Want higher web trial conversion rates? Then contact us today.