Thread: Do you think trials matter?

It's funny because biohost promised me a trial via email then never got back to me.



Pretty shady.



Two weeks and many emails later, have not heard a single word back.

No, I do not believe they do as most promise what they can never deliver.
I'd simply get my own dedicated server and install ruTorrent myself.
However, I have never had any problems with Xirvik and those guys are all that seedboxes should be and more

Oh and if Biohost never responded then best to steer well clear of them isn't it.
Again Xirvik have never and I mean never not responded to an e-mail of mine.

First of all, I haven't tried your service or know much about your business or you personally apart from what I've seen in these forums. I'm speaking generally, not specifically at anyone in particular, so don't take offense to any of the proceeding rant.

Are free trials worth it? Yes and no.

First I'll tackle the no part. With any special offer you're always going to get people who try to trick/abuse/take advantage/cheat the system etc. etc. These are the reasons that trials would not be worth it. There are always people who try to cheat the system or just don't understand that its your way to advertise/promote your business. It's as simple as that. It's part of some peoples nature.

Now the yes part. Any time you can convert a forum dweller into a customer, that's a win. Extra customers put $$$ in your pocket and lets you feed your kids, afford your bad habits etc. etc.

That being said, a trial *IS* part of your advertising/promotion and should be looked at it like that. It's a cost and you have to manage your costs alongside the benefits you gain from when it does work and determine whether the costs are worth the benefits. To help work out whether the costs are worth it, you'll need to look at the average life time value of a customer. How long will the average customer stay with you. How much revenue does this customer bring in? How much does it cost to retain this customer and pay for that customers portion of the infrastructure that this customer uses. Then you need to work out the average conversion rate. Then work out the cost of running each trial, including man hours/bandwidth costs/clean up costs/potential costly problems that each new customer brings etc. After doing all that you should have a fairly clear idea of whether it's worth doing trials or not.

I've seen two ideas mentioned in this forum so far. One being charge for a week long trial and other giving a free trial (48 hours, 72 hours, 7 days etc). Each have their benefits but as I'm hoping to kind of explain to you, the free trial is going to be the better option for you (as a business model) in the long run.

Charging for a week long trial is a great idea, but it excludes a lot of people from even considering you as a provider. When you're selling a service, you're basically selling a promise that you're going to deliver what you say you're going to deliver. Apart from your signature a new potential customer has no idea whether you're trustworthy or not. When you're selling them a 1 week trial, you're asking them to take all the risk to try your service. Think of it like if you went to a car dealership to test drive a car and they required you to put a 10% deposit down just to try the car. If you're anything like me, you'd walk out laughing at them especially if I could find other dealers offering free test drives.

What someone said earlier, charging for a 7 day trial will weed out your Tyre kickers so your expected conversion rate would be a lot higher.

Free trials: This is a reversal of placing the risk of the transaction on the customer. You're taking the risk of the transaction on yourself. This is likely to increase the amount of potential clients, but will also open yourself up to a lot more tyre kickers. If you find a way to manage these people a lot better (usually with better communication/ease of service that no one else can deliver etc) and work a better conversion methods, you'll find yourself in a much better situation using the free trial method.

There is another method that combines the two, but puts the risk of the transaction back on you. That is to simple have a no questions asked money back guarantee. If for any reason in the time they're not happy with the service or product, they ask for their money back.... and you give it back to them. Most sales studies concluded that the amount of people who asked for refunds was small (often people who have legitimate gripes) but I also suspect there will still be cheaters looking for a free ride. If your margins are high enough, this may be a great compromise.

Another tip: It really need to be automated to reduce the man power. That's the great thing about computers, automation is normally possible. Have a link at the bottom of your signature where they can request a trial on your server and have the server track them via ip/cookie. Of course some are on dynamic ip addresses and others know how to delete cookies, but most of those who are trying to cheat the system often aren't motivated enough to go to the effort.

Last point: It also matters what part of your business cycle you are in. If you're early on and looking to expand fast, then free trials really make sense. If you're later on in your cycle and already have a nice collection of profitable clients, free trials may be too much aggravation to be worth the effort.

If you do continue with the free trials I think you really need to stop worrying about people who are just looking for something free. Think of it as "I'm one cheap bastard closer to another paying client." or something equally lame as that and make sure you're making a profit in the long run.

Edit: Oh, and one more thing. You asked: "Do you think it makes a company look better when there willing to let you take a test ride before buying? Or does it not really matter to you." Does it make you look better? Not really. It kind of makes it look like there is less of a chance that you're a scam, but it doesn't really make you look better.. Does it matter? Yes, provisionally. For me personally I won't take a free test unless I'm genuinely interested in your service AND I'm not sure if I trust your customer service, not sure if you can live up to your promises. not sure I will benefit from your service or I don't feel it's clear what exactly you're giving me in exchange for my money.

Another note: On the 48 hour tests. They're too short. On my first seedbox it took me a couple of days to work out exactly what was happening, why, what to do, what I was doing right/wrong and what was the trackers problem. If I tried your service for 48 hours and something wasn't working and I couldn't figure out what, I may blame your service and decide it was a bad idea to use it. While this issue might not happen with more experienced users, with the new potential customer it could change your conversion rate.
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I'm fairly tired right now. Hope all that made sense.

Further questions?

Mod Advisory: Keep the discussion on track people - if you have issues with a specific provider then take it up with them, do NOT start a flame fest in this thread or there will be consequences for all involved.