Years before I was old enough to do my own shopping, let alone drive myself to get there—like most kids, some of my fondest memories as a child consisted of accompanying my mom whenever she made her routine trips to one of our local grocery stores to buy food for our family.
During those trips, ever so often, while shopping—we would spot something in an aisle of a grocery store that would unabashedly excite me beyond measure.
Having a voracious appetite at the time (which is still the case today), I would always go absolutely nuts with enthusiasm on those special occasions whenever we came across a brand representative in an aisle of a grocery store providing free samples of their brand’s food items.
Having the opportunity to totally devour free samples of food items like: brownies, cakes, donuts, and various other scrumptious snacks that were spread across a table with toothpicks sticking out of them—was the equivalent of going on a shopping spree for me as a preadolescent.
Each day, millions of consumers also experience that same feeling of enthusiasm whenever they receive a free trial from brands that they deem as valuable. But does that feeling lead to those consumers becoming subscribers once their trials end?
The numbers are in!
If you’ve ever received a free trial from brands like Amazon, HBO Max, or Norton that lasted for a significant amount of time, you may have thought to yourself, This is so cool! But what’s the catch? You certainly are not alone in sharing that sentiment.
Make no mistake, there is absolutely a catch. Which we’ll get more into later. But for now, let’s discuss the percentage of people who go on to become subscribers after receiving a free trial.
According to studies conducted by PYMTS, over 54% of consumers kept their subscriptions after their free trials came to an end.
And with a conversion rate of over 54%, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that offering free trials to consumers would be a no-brainer as it pertains to boosting your startup’s sales. However, that may not necessarily be the best move for the bottom-line of your business.
Should your startup offer free trials?
Similarly to brands offering grocery store shoppers free samples of their food items, the objective of offering free trials is to give consumers a first-hand experience of just how valuable, useful, and fantastic your brand's products or services are; to the point that the very thought of going back to living life without them becomes impermissible in their minds.
So, if you ever wondered what the catch was as to why brands give away so much to consumers for free—that would be the reason (which as the numbers show—is a very effective one).
The only question that remains now is whether or not your startup should also offer consumers free trials in hopes of enticing them to become subscribers.
Notwithstanding the success rate of free trials, the answer to whether or not you should offer them to consumers isn’t as cut and dried as it would appear. That’s because providing free trials to consumers could be very costly.
Depending on the current stage of your startup and the financial resources that it has at its disposal—offering free trials may not be the most effective marketing tactic for your startup to utilize if you have a smaller marketing budget.
Notwithstanding, if your startup does have a sizeable marketing budget—offering free trials is a great way to lure consumers to go on to become subscribers of your brand's offerings.
Ready to increase your startup’s subscribers?
At Decryption, we create customized marketing strategies for our clients that help ensure their startups see an increase in revenue, brand awareness, as well as other KPIs.
Become a Decryption client simply by emailing us today to schedule a complimentary client call and we’ll help you determine whether or not offering a free trial would be the most effective move at the moment for your startup.
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