Converting temporary solutions (free trials) into digital stratgies and compliant solutions
As many of you would have experienced, during COVID a number of clients took advantage of 'free trials' from various vendors, and in most cases just stood up a 'quick and dirty' solution in order to keep the lights on. Since many of those trials are coming to an end, has anyone seen success in converting these to permanent compliant solutions, and better still, enable a serious conversation with clients on their digital transformation?
Best Answer
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@Sonu Natt I would begin by doing a value based market segmentation of these 'customers.' A value based market segmentation groups customer and potential customer by value drivers and buying process. In this case I might swap adoption process for buying process. Value includes economic, emotional and community aspects (all three are important). A good segment gets value in the same way and is adopting the solution in the same way (usage and engagement data will help with this).
Not all the segments will be attractive. If a segment is getting nominal differentiated value don't invest effort. If a segment should be getting value but adoption data suggests it is not see if the opportunity is large enough to invest in solving for adoption. But focus your efforts on the customers that have get differentiated value and are on the path to adoption.
Price should be aligned to value of course. The key here is to test that there is alignment between the value metric (the unit of consumption from which the customer gets value) and the pricing metric (the unit of consumption for which the customer is charged).
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I can confirm to you that we had in one area where I'm aware of a multiple dedicated client requests for what you call 'quick' offfer from COVID19. And there is now work to convert this into a formal product. But: The reasoning on our side was not just to please the clients, but we used the client requests to open a formal product strategy discussion. And we realized, that there is obviously a serious market need for something we did put out 'quick' for clients. I would not just create a formal offer without normal market research. In our case the conclusion is: COVID19 did drive in my example an evolution that would have probably anyway have happened during the next 1-2 years (we spoke about this idea before but it never really was high on our radar) which now happens during the next 1-2 quarters.
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@Sonia Sedler We've had very good success in converting free trials to paid versions. This started in the B2C market a number of years ago and in the last 2 years this has been a dominant customer acquisition vehicle for several B2B products we sell. We rely heavily on automation (in product messaging), email marketing, and ecommerce to build the funnel paying customers, who can later be upsold by sales reps or partners, as appropriate. I've become a big proponent of Product Led Growth and OpenView has several good resources you might enjoy, such as: https://openviewpartners.com/blog/build-the-end-user-era/
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