Trial Offers vs. Discount Upfront?

I would prefer the trial as I like to test drive before making the big purchase.

Personally, if I had to choose one of those I would go with trial offer. Maybe you could add the discount code to your autoresponder series for people who didn't take the trial offer. That way you can hit them with both options.

I think you'll have a better conversion on the trial offer – but as always you should split-tests the two offers just to be sure but usually by removing the risk on the shoulder of your prospect usually result in a boost in conversion.

Money is not just money - money is security. This is pretty hard to take your hard-earned money – or security - and give it to a stranger. This is why I tend to remove the risk on the shoulder of my prospect as much as I can because it becomes really easy to convince someone who’s on the fence with a killer offer.

There are three types of prospect :

1- Those who will buy no matter what.
2- Those who are uncertain.
3- Those who won’t buy

Those in category 1 will buy no matter how your offer is structured (installment plan of 397$ or 397$ upfront)

But by reducing the risk of your offer, you can get those who weren’t sure whether or not they should take your offer.

You want to show your prospect that there is no risk buying your product because they can test it out for just a measly nominal fee. The lower the better.

I would make it only 1$ for the first month instead of 20$. By asking less, you’ll increase the response rate and - even if it’s just a dollar – you now have a business-customer relationship with him.

It will be easier to have him shell the 397$ by the end of the month if he has already given you money at some point.

Hope this helps!

Daniel F. Lavoie

I would say that I like a trial offer on something in that price range. Can you not give a free trial of some section? Then when they are wow'd, they will want more? I have seen this arrangement several times with IM software, and I have ended up buying a few products that way.

Thanks All,

Slight swing to the trail offer here

I like it and think it is a winner, will put together a campaign and keep you updated

As for the initial offer, I would love to make it a $1, just has a nice ring to it. However there is a part of the product that is non-refundable in a B2B sense for me. So lowering it anymore and I would be running with a massive risk, that can easily be taken advantage of.

I will do some number crunching and try get it down to $10 although not to sure how much of a difference $10 and $20 would make. Maybe another test for me

Thanks again for your opinions.

If "people seem really happy to pay" $397 for something then personally I would be trying really hard to get people to pay $397 for my product instead of trying to convert a % of people signing up for a $10 trial.