How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers Special Report

Transcription

1 How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers Special Report Copyright 2007 MarketingSherpa Inc. It is forbidden to copy this report in any manner. For permissions contact For more copies go to

2 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers While your Web site may be the central piece of a free trial subscription marketing campaign (think banners, content behind barriers, registration forms, etc.), also plays an integral role. That s because getting a prospect to sign up for a free trial isn t enough -- you have to convince users during that trial period to become paying customers. is a perfect channel for conversion efforts, whether overt, such as discount offers to upgrade to a paid membership, or subtle, such as informational s that encourage users to interact with your site and become hooked on the service. What s more, these new members also make up an audience for promotional s or newsletters that feature offers for additional subscription products. As part of our study of 50 premium content sites offering free trials (25 B-to-B and 25 consumer sites), we tracked the various types of communication we received during the trial membership period (see link below to part 1, which studied content on the sites). Here are our key observations about the role that marketing played: Chart: Use of Welcome s for New Trial Members Source: MarketingSherpa, ContentBiz 50 Audit, May 2007 Methodology: MarketingSherpa analysts interacted with the marketing, merchandising and content of 50 content-based Web sites between May 15, 2007, and May 30, Sites were selected from small- to medium-size organizations distributed across a diversified group of sectors. The idea behind a free trial is to allow potential customers to explore your site or service and decide whether they want to pay for it. One way to immediately start

3 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers engaging those trial members is through a formal welcome , confirming the start of the trial and outlining the features and benefits they will receive as members. Surprisingly, 43% of the sites surveyed did not send us a welcome or confirmation message, meaning they missed their first chance to reach out to a potential customer. Chart: What s in a Welcome Message? Source: MarketingSherpa, ContentBiz 50 Audit, May 2007 Methodology: MarketingSherpa analysts interacted with the marketing, merchandising and content of 50 content-based Web sites between May 15, 2007, and May 30, Sites were selected from small- to medium-size organizations distributed across a diversified group of sectors. At a minimum, the welcome/confirmation provides a basic customer service function, such as confirming the details of the trial or providing login information. It s also your first chance to link back to your home page and draw attention to your premium features. The elements listed above are the most common we observed among the welcome messages we received, but marketers can also use this initial message

4 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers for more than just customer service. One tactic to test is including promotional offers, either for an instant conversion to a paid subscription (9%) or for additional products and services (2%). -> Strategy #1. Immediate upgrade Salesgenie.com s welcome s include promotions to up-sell trial members immediately. Offers range from a specific promotional rate of $150 a month vs the standard $400 monthly subscription to a general appeal that daily specials are available for users who call customer service. Regardless of what anyone says, everyone wants to feel like they re getting a deal, and it s important to play to that, says D.J. Thayer, President, infousa Group, which owns Salesgenie.com. The tactic also is designed to encourage users to call infousa s telesales team, which is an important component of their conversion strategy. Because the service is more complicated to use than, say, an online premium magazine, asking questions or getting a product demonstration helps convert users. -> Strategy #2. Multiple links to popular features Providing a link back to the home page in a welcome is a good way to encourage new members to explore the site, but why stop at one link? A few sites sent welcome s containing multiple hotlinks to popular sections and key features. WSJ.com, for example, sent an containing seven links to Popular Pages and Features, ranging from international news coverage to an account personalization page. The strategy, says Klas Uden, Executive Director Circulation Marketing, is to get users deeply involved with the site as early as possible in the process to boost conversion rates at the end of the trial. Including a link to the account personalization section, in particular, has been extremely successful. Once you have designed your own customer experience, you re more likely to be an engaged consumer, says Uden. Using links to different features can also help glean valuable marketing data. By analyzing clickthroughs to the different links, you might find certain sections that are a big draw to trial members and then adjust your marketing efforts to play up those aspects.

5 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers -> Strategy #3. Welcome series A few sites expanded their welcome message into an automated series of welcome s, with each subsequent message highlighting features of the product or service. This technique makes sense for complex sites or services who might have to hold new members hands during the first few days or weeks to ensure that users get the most out of it. AccuWeather.com sent a three-part welcome series with their premium membership, including links to different sections and tutorials on online radar tools and other features. The goal, says Justin Roberti, Product Marketing Manager for New Media, is to help new members learn how to use the premium features that they ll hopefully want to pay for when the trial ends. It s one thing to have a Maserati. It s another thing to know how to drive it. The open rate for those s averages 40%, and while not disclosing actual results, Roberti says the retention rate from free trials has increased since introducing the three series. One concern with using a welcome series of s is the possibility of being perceived as a spammer. Roberti s team was sensitive to the issue and reduced a planned five-part series to three and included a link allowing members to unsubscribe at any time. Chart: Use of Newsletters Source: MarketingSherpa, ContentBiz 50 Audit, May 2007 Methodology: MarketingSherpa analysts interacted with the marketing, merchandising and content of 50 content-based Web sites between May 15, 2007, and May 30, Sites were selected from small- to medium-size organizations distributed across a diversified group of sectors.

6 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers New trial members may also be an audience for your site s free newsletters. Yet, despite it being a fairly simple process to include an optin button in the trial registration process, only 23% of the sites we signed up with began sending us a daily, weekly or monthly newsletter. Including an newsletter with a trial subscription may be a tactic more sites should consider because MarketingSherpa data compiled from more than 500 ers has found that newsletters receive their highest open rates and clickthroughs in the first 30 days after a subscriber joins the mailing list. Starting a newsletter at the beginning of a trial subscription would take advantage of that immediacy. Indeed, among the sites that sent newsletters, there was a clear bias toward using those messages to promote upgrades to premium online content, additional products and services or print subscriptions: - Each installment of Encyclopedia Britannica s daily newsletter, On this day from Britannica, features promotions for additional newsletters, the free trial and the company s ecommerce site. It s definitely an opportunity, since we have a broad selection of products, says Greg Drewganis, Marketing Manager, Premium Content. - WSJ.com and The New York Times Times Select included offers to subscribe to their print newspapers. - TheStreet.com s RealMoney daily newsletter featured promotions for other subscription products, such as stocks under $10. Along with the promotion in newsletters, 19% of the sites we studied sent standalone promotional s during the trial period. This low number may be another reflection of spam concerns, but as long as you employ a transparent optin procedure it may be worth testing. The types of offers we observed included: - Promotion of additional marketing materials and events. Several B-to-B publishers used their trial periods to invite members to online chats, webinars and other marketing events or to offer industry research or other materials. - Notice of ecommerce sales and special promotions. - Subscriptions and products from partner companies.

7 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers Chart: Use of Cancellation Confirmation s Source: MarketingSherpa, ContentBiz 50 Audit, May 2007 Methodology: MarketingSherpa analysts interacted with the marketing, merchandising and content of 50 content-based Web sites between May 15, 2007, and May 30, Sites were selected from small- to medium-size organizations distributed across a diversified group of sectors. Just as a welcome is your first chance to begin the relationship (and conversion effort) with a trial subscriber, a confirmation upon cancellation is your last chance to make a good impression on that user and, perhaps, convince them to stick around. That s why we were shocked that only 34% of the sites in our study sent an to confirm our cancellation. Those who didn t left a lot of room to worry whether our request was processed and our credit card was charged. In a few cases, we called customer service numbers just to make sure our trial had been canceled and learned that our credit cards had, in fact, been charged. Some sites have a policy of charging a credit card on the last day of the free trial, while we assumed we could still cancel anytime up to and including that last day. In these cases, though, we were able to negotiate either a complete refund or a partial refund for the charge. Two weeks after the trial was over, one site has still not made good on its promise to refund charges it hit us with during the free trial. As a marketing tactic, those messages are your last chance to make an offer that will turn trial members into paying subscribers. 18% of the cancellation s we received contained a retention offer or an offer to purchase an

8 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers additional product or subscription. For example, WSJ.com s cancellation contained a limited-time offer to reactivate membership at $20 off regular annual subscription price. Other creative ways to use the cancellation included: Link to an exit survey Description of all the features the subscriber is giving up by canceling membership Instructions on how to reactivate a membership at any time Creative samples from subscription offer s are on the following pages. To view them online, go to: More Useful links related to this report: Special Report: New Data on Converting Traffic Into Trial Memberships - Observational Study of 50 Subscription Sites: AccuWeather: Encyclopedia Britannica: Salesgenie.com: TheStreet.com: The Wall Street Journal Online:

9 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers Creative Samples: Subscription Site Trial Offers & Cancellations - s 1. AccuWeather welcome series - Welcome to AccuWeather.com Premium

10 10 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers - AccuWeather - Not Your Average Weather Site

11 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers 11 - AccuWeather Premium Tools for Life and Business

12 12 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers 2. Other offers in s - Wall Street Journal Online - multiple links

13 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers 13 - SalesGenie - immediate upgrade

14 14 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers - TheStreet.com - premium service

15 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers 15 - Britannica - newsletter with offers

16 16 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers 3. Cancellations - ChangeOne.com - instructions to reactivate membership

17 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers 17 - ConsumerDirect - reminder of features users lose access to

18 18 Special Report: How Subscription Sites Use to Convert Trial Offers - Briefing.com - exit survey About MarketingSherpa Inc. MarketingSherpa Inc. is a research firm publishing Case Studies and benchmark data for marketers in corporate America. 237,000 marketing professionals read MarketingSherpa each week. 60% of our readers are business-to-business specialists, making us the highest circulation B-to-B marketing information publisher in the world. The Economist, Harvard Business School s Working Knowledge Site, and Entrepreneur.com have all praised MarketingSherpa s content. In addition to research publications and 25+ virtual events per year, the firm also organizes three annual in-person Summits: Business-to-Business Demand Generation Summits (East Coast & West Coast) Selling Online Subscriptions Summit Summit (NYC) Marketing Summit + Bootcamp, Awards and Expo MarketingSherpa Summits are almost invariably sell-outs, with ticket sales closing a week or more *prior* to the actual events. (Book early to avoid disappointment.) Founded in 2000, MarketingSherpa is a preferred vendor for several Fortune 500s. (Check with our service department for details.). The firm is headquartered in Warren, Rhode Island between Boston and New York.