Trials Or Full Monthly Price Points?

The past few weeks i have been talking to several program owners on and off about the differences in join/retention numbers between full priced memberships and trial memberships (3 day trials) and was wondering how you folks thought about the different types of join option?

As of right now, it would seem to be the general consensus of program owners that offering lower priced trial joins (for 3 days typically) actually raises the amount of 'new' joins a program gets but, lowers the chances of rebills whilst raising the number of 'instant' cancels.

The good news however seems to be that once the trial period is over, if a member doesnt cancel, then typically retention seems to be around 3/4 months.

So what are your folks thoughts on trial memberships compared to full priced memberships, have you tried promoting both types and if so, would you say the information i was given above seems to be the same for you or, have your experiences been different?

Also, next month i think im going to be adding a $5.95 3 day trial to all of the Condom Cash sites to see how well this effects sales/income for affiliates as id love for some affiliates to get lower conversions than they are right now, whilst still making the same amount of money and it seems like 'trials' are the way to do this :)

Regards,

Lee

Funny you're bringing this up because two weeks ago I started a one week test of a 3-day $9.95 trial on one of my sites.

I was really shocked at the number of instant cancels. On non trial signups my retention has always been about 70% with 3-4 months rebills on average, but on trials I was getting 20% rebills, with a couple recurring members getting a credit because they "did not expect rebill" (hate that)

So after the week I went back to the standard one month recurring and three month membership options.

I remember in the past conversions were great on trial signups, what's changed since then?