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the problem is that most people will go for the cheaper option. take it away and you'll see big differences.
in my work as a consultant, we've often removed the trial and seen the site owner's income go up 50% or even 100% without any other changes.
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Originally Posted by maxpower
Ya this might just be a coincidence but my sales are doing well the few hours after I have changed it, I will have to wait and see how the week works out “keeping in mind its the end of the month” , but so far I am happy, I wish I never offered a cheap trial at all. If I can really keep allot more members I really might lower my monthly price to 19.95 to be lower than most sites, after all I really don’t have that many affiliates yet so in a way with out paying them I will still end up ahead, but we will have to see how that works out.Quote:
Originally Posted by basschick
we used to have trials on the hunkmoney sites ($2.95 for 3 days). When we removed them, there was a decline in signups by about 20% but the strange thing was that the average member ended up staying a lot longer, we saw our 2nd month rebills skyrocket. Plus chargebacks went down and refunds all but disappeared too (most chargebacks / refunds were people not cancelling before the trial ended then whinging when they got hit with a full membership). So even though there was a dip in sales the overall result was much more profit for both us and our affiliates. I urge all paysites to drop trials, there really is no use catering to that market and if all sites dropped them then overall the industry would be much more stable and profitable.
cheers,
Luke
so why not post the URL to your affiliate program so some here can perhaps sign up? Might help improve your ratios, after all everyone here is looking for added income...:coffee:Quote:
Originally Posted by maxpower
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Originally Posted by Chilihost
Really this is weird but my sales are up after doing that, I don’t think I will be adding trials ever again. The weirdest thing is that what sales are really up now, its my most expensive non recurring memberships, that are 10$ more than the recurring one. It seems now that I have wasted thousands of $ on these revolving door trial memberships.
I believe strongly in the theory of "perceived value". If you offer a trial at $2.95 or $3.95 your customer is going to perceive that to be the value of your site.
We tried trial memberships years ago and dropped them within 60 days. Just recently we increased our monthly recurring from $19.95 to $24.95 and memberships are up. It's all in perceived value when getting them to join the first time. After that, retention is in the content and adding new content daily or weekly.
Years ago when I had a company producing and distributing tranportaton safety videos, we had a 90 minute training video that sold for $49.95. It was a dog of a seller. We broke it down into three 30 minutes tapes, took the price to $349.95 and it sold like hot cakes. Perceived value....go figure.
Bill
That’s really about the most interesting and insightful comments I have ever seen on this board. My current monthly membership is at 19.95 and nonrecurring at 29.95 to try to keep more active members, I have only had this new pricing in place for a few weeks so the jury is still out on it for me. After 2 months and I am able to get a better picture of how this will work-out I will try to raise the price to see how it and if it will effect sales and retention. I totally do agree that perception is what matters most to viewers.Quote:
Originally Posted by hdkbill
I think the only way for a trial to truly work is to offer a "glass wall" trial. Offer a 3-day trial for $4.95, or whatever, but only give the surfer limited access. Let's say you have 100 galleries. Give the trial surfer access to 10 galleries, but let them see through a "glass wall" all of the other stuff they're missing by not having a full membership. Perhaps all the thumbnails they can't access are greyed out or maybe you tease them with super hot preview clips.
Workin' Men Movies used to offer a trial and it sucked. I sold more of those than anything and few of them rebilled. We convince the site owner to remove it and sales skyrocketed, so did rebills.
If you give away the farm for $4.95, why should the surfer pay you $24.95.
Cheers
Michael
That is true, what I have observed from all this is that trials are a totally waist of time and like hdkbill and you said it creates an atmosphere of perceived worthlessness. I like your idea about offering limited access but, the weird thing is that when I dropped the trials my sale did not go down in fact they are up a bit even with only more expensive options only. Previously I would have never thought this would be a fact and, that most people would be looking for a bargain “Hell that’s still why I only charge 19.95 for monthly recurring memberships” but as I am learning more about this from my own experimenting if you say something is worth more than it is people will also believe this it true. I am still not 100% sure how far I can take this, but one thing is for sure I will never use trials again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzinerbear