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OK, I have seen a lot of sites offer something like a three day trial for only $9.99 or something similar.
I understand how you can do that if you are DRM protected, but I have seem a lot of non-DRM protected sites do that as well. Don't people just join for the trial, download everything, then quit?
Just curious how you deal with this...or if this is even a good idea.
Pretty much yep.Quote:
Originally Posted by TropixxxStudios
You'll find most sites offering 3 day trials are PPS based and have bucket loads of upsells and/or feeds in the members areas and not much else.
Regards,
Lee
What he said.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee
What she said, i said ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by CorbinFisher_BD
Regards,
Lee
What they said. :D
Ok then, I guess that explains it. Thanks. I was wondering how that business model worked.
We actually have 3 day trials on our sites. We don't that have that many upsells in our members areas and we also give free access to other sites when members join. The free sites are not crappy sites but very nice sites.
So when a member joins HSBoys they also get access to Broke Straight Boys, Straight Boys Jerk Off etc. Those sites has no upsells at all. We can offer 3 day trials with great members areas and we have really good retention. Sure we lose those customers that just go in and download videos and then cancel but the majority stay as members because they really like the sites. We might even lose those customers but some of them even come back again and again.
I think the other way to offer 3 day trials is have a crappy members section with tons of upsells where they don't care about retention. This method doesn't make sense to me but I have seen it done alot.
Mark
Quote:
Originally Posted by IntenseCash.com
I think what your talking about has more to do with money though, you have to have some good backing and a HUGE amount of content to gamble on this PPS and 3 day Trials or even Free Trials at the end of 3 months paying off. You are going to get many more content suckers, and create a environment that will more than invite people to almost immediately cannel their Memberships. But...
You will theatrically have a larger number of Joins, and attract even more affiliates with the convertibility and the PPS, and at the end of the day you can deal with the numbers. But in real the real world this is not as easy as it looks, and this could be a really good way to commit E-suicide :angel:
trials work in some situations. for example, if you update your site frequently and your content makes people want to see more or if you offer a limited trial so that trial members cannot see all of your content.
ultimately most companies that offer trials either use a limited trial - there are a LOT of these companines in str8 - or make most of their money not from memberships but from consoles, upsells, etc.
of course, part of the point of a trial to me is offering a low enough price to tempt a significant number of people to join. smaller gay sites always seem to offer the highest priced trials but if you're putting up a trial to get more people to sign up, lower prices work bestter. $1.95 and $2.95 were the prices that sold well for me, my friends and companies like naughty america. at $4.95 we saw a noticeable drop that made it not worth offering triials for us.
Yes Basschick, I know of two gay paysites that offer a crippled short term trial. The surfers that just want to get their rocks off immediately are happy and no chargebacks and no headaches. Others that like the entertainment value during the short days trial period, have an urge to see what was saved behind the mystery curtain, in the premium monthly area.
Do longer trials work better, say 7 or 14 days?
trials work best if you don't use them at all ;)
consider this: unless your site adds 2 new full scenes per week or has tons of content, the longer trials will give potential recurring members a chance to realize that your site doesn't have as much content as they had though at first impression or that the updates aren't that much content. 3 days is short enough to keep them from really realizing that the site they joined isn't going to keep them as busy as they hoped.
of course, if you have a really rare niche or super great content, what i said above doesn't apply, but if you do have super content or a great niche, what is the point of offering a trial at all?
Quote:
Originally Posted by FriskyMatt
This is starting to make me rethink this trial thing, maybe after some fine-tuning I should try 1.99 trials or even free. My retention even now is pretty good, I think this might be worth a try.Quote:
Originally Posted by basschick
if your hits to sales ratio is already good, i wouldn't try a trial. the first thing i do with every client who uses a trial is have them remove it and see how they do. not one has ever put the trial back because they make so much more money without the trials.
Quote:
Originally Posted by maxpower
Ya I know what your saying I will lose some money and it did help out when I dropped my week long trial, but my site has grown a bit. Will I not get many more people that join for 3 days and quit then come back in a month or 2? Will this not help build trust or at least a relationship with many more potential members. At some point I believe I will have to go PPS anyway, and I do try hard now to keep members.Quote:
Originally Posted by basschick
I am doing to redesign of my tour this week-end I was going to change a few price points anyway so might think about this a bit. I have been thinking about changing from a 3 page tour to a 2 page one with more action just to see the numbers, but right now is a good time for me to experiment a bit with this stuff. :shitpoke:
If I could get this PPS at 35$ a 1.99 join stuff to fly, with out having to fill my sites with upsells then that would be ideal would it not?
Boyfunk used to (2003) have a $7.95/5 day trial. It was responsible for the majority of our sales. On advice of several friends in the community, we took a deep breath, raised the join price from $14.95 to $19.95, and dropped the trial.Quote:
Originally Posted by basschick
The results were that actual joins dropped, but income increased, and actual overall membership increased, because the people willing to pay $19.95 to try the site found they liked it and retained.
In other words, I think we got a more qualified buyer spending $20 who stayed longer.
We've monkeyed with a bunch of things since and are still experimenting, but it still amazes me how much removing the $8 trial actually grew our income.
Still I wonder if I am not selling myself short with out some real attempts to make 3 day 1.99 trials work. I do not have allot of exclusive content and that does worry me, but I have overcome bigger problems than that. Not even sure I need exclusive content to begin laying the ground work for PPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
Its not like I want to start doing this tomorrow, but I bet I might try some 1.99 trials early this spring, might even add some upsells (I really do not have ANY) not to many but that might help this configuration work better.
What would you condsider a good hit to sales ratio? I know it must vary from niche to niche...but is there an "average" or something I should strive for?Quote:
Originally Posted by basschick
if you get review site traffic and you can go through your stats and count only that - and go through your sales and count only the review site joins, sort of filter them out and count only them, 1:200 is quite acheivable. there are sites out there getting 1:100 on review site traffic or even better.
in fact, now you bring it up, unless you are doing that well on review site traffic, i'd consider trying new join page designs before i'd consider a trial. possibly a new tour. those trials won't convert from trial to full at better than 30% unless you have a very sticky site with quality and enough updates - that means unless you have plenty of good content AND enough updates, you will make less money with a trial - possibly a lot less.
but a good tour and join page can double sales on many sites. one that really shows what you have to offer, has simple but attractive navigation and - again - a good join page. and having your own graphics on the ccbill join page is also a plus. there's a lot of different things most of us can do to make more FULL sales without going to a trial.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TropixxxStudios