So can someone please explain the 3 day trial thing to me...

[gaybucks_chip]

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.

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.

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.

[maxpower]

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.

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.

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.

[TropixxxStudios]

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.

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?

[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.

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?