The number of companies presenting a product with freemium pricing is increasing day by day. This is because many people appreciate free and secure software to use. The product’s free plan helps to engage more and more users in your company’s sales strategy. However, it generates new serious challenges for companies. The said is related to selling the pro product with lots of other features available. Besides, the support services for the rising number of free users are quite costly. So, what is the ideal solution? In this case, the smartest decision can be knowing how to convert free users to pro.
Let’s unveil the steps to acquire more pro users!!
Why People Should Pay For Your Product?
Before planning a strong strategy to convert your free users to pro it is crucial to know what are the main important features for which the users will strive to pay. The worthy features are the points on which you must lean when marketing your product’s Pro version. But how to know what features exactly your clients want to find in your SaaS product? One of the most widespread and trustworthy methods is surveying your freemium users on the ideal pro version feature list. And based on the opinion and offer of the majority of your users you can start adding the features that have real value for the already existing clients. So, this will be a big guarantee that you will have at least a group of people interested in the paid version.
Remember, that the first step to converting your free users to pro is to provide them with a great experience while they are just free plan subscribers. That is why you should also focus on the freemium product quality to move your client to its pro plan.
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What are Strategies to Convert Free Users to Paying Customers?
Even though the free forever plan can attract users at some point, they will start looking for new features in your product which is a good fit for their personal or business aims. So, this is the right time to offer them your product’s paid version.
However, you have to plan a thorough strategy to convert your free users to pro smoothly.
Below, you will find the needed strategy steps.
1. Make Users Feel They Are Missing Something Important
A well-prepared marketing plan should tell the users directly what they are missing by not purchasing your product’s pro version. You can involve the converted users in your Email Marketing campaign by telling them about your product’s benefits. Also, you can use Email Marketing automation tools to save your time effectively.
2. Present an Explaining Demo Version
If you like to convert free users to pro then it will be great to present a demo version for a group of features that are the essential additions to your paid product.
Demos will touch the most painful sides of the product users and showcase what are the easiest ways and crucial options offered in the pro version to solve the issues users face.
In addition, personalized demos are even more efficient than ordinary ones. Users get answers to the questions they are concerned with by getting an online interactive demo based on their demands and needs. After solving those issues, they are more likely to subscribe to your product’s paid version. This means, that a well-structured and on-demand personalized demo version can be a good identifier to expand the Pro plan users’ quantity.
3. Offer a Good Discount
In order to remove the barrier between your customers and your paid version you can offer a discounted price for activating your product. There are diverse ways to do this offer. One of the greatest examples is the 20% – 50% sales for 1-3 months of pro plan usage. Another way is presenting a new minimum price for a weekly Pro usage (for example, $1 per the first week).
Meanwhile, you need to create a sense of urgency around your special offer. This means that you can inform your customers about the time limit in order to move them to start converting with your offer. Also, it would be effective if you send an end-of-discount email to the qualified leads. This will remind them and possibly push them to pay attention to your suggestion.
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4. Make a List of Positive Feedback and Reviews
So, how to move your free plan users to pro for free?
Other users’ feedback and reviews highly impact the decision to make a SaaS product purchase. So, if you get good testimonials or have customer succession stories then it will be good to share them with your future customers. In this case, you will not be required to tell or convince the audience to become your Pro plan users. The process will be automatically completed with your paying client’s experience.
5. Offer Premium Support Service in the Pro Version
The free users should not be provided with the same support service level as your pro plan users. This is quite an engaging aspect as using new software always leads to many issues that must be thoroughly solved. Premium-class support will bring you more paying customers than you might ever think.
6. Make Free Trial Best Practices for the Pro Features
Even though Marketing is a strong asset and social proof is always helpful there is one key point you must remember. This is called “own experience“.
So, do free trials increase sales? Yes, they do. This is because you let your customers experience your Pro product’s beneficial features on their own.
Thus, if you want to expand your paying audience then you can set a free trial period for all your product features for a limited time frame. Here you should focus on a very important aspect. This is the duration of the trial. It must enable the customers to use your product features. It is one of the main identifiers of your free trial conversion rate. However, it should not last so long that your customers overuse the paid version for free without having a good reason to upgrade to the paid plan.
7. Have a Smooth Cancellation and Refund Policy
Even if you present the above-mentioned ways to make people’s experience convincing and smooth they might hesitate about their funds when purchasing the pro package. Paying without knowing about a 100% refund can be a real barrier on the way to a subscription. So, here is why presenting a smooth cancellation or refund policy is highly recommended.
By doing this you will make your customers sure they are going to pay for a product that has a good value.
However, you should pay attention to the time limit for free cancellation and 100% refund. The optimal duration for free cancellation is up to 2 weeks. Taking this into account will keep you away from users who will activate the Pro version, use it for their business or personal aims, and then demand a refund by totally benefiting from your SaaS product “for free”.
What If the Results Do Not Please You?
If you applied these steps and do not see a huge outcome then you need to read this chapter carefully.
Even though we may assert that after smoothly proceeding with mentioned strategies you can significantly increase the free version users’ migration to your paid product plans there can also be a disappointing aspect. Very often this happens when you make 3 widely spread mistakes.
1. Free Plan Features Smoothly Cover Too Many Aspects
So, think louder! Who will upgrade to the Pro version if your free version is so comprehensive that your customers solve all of the desired issues? Thus, one of the reasons for disappointing results in the free-to-pro lift is the wrong or so-called “generous” structure of your free plan. In this case, you need to somehow shorten the list of features included in the free version making people take advantage of your paid plan.
2. Free Plan Users Are Not Your Main Target
If you do not reach your desired results then you need to focus on your free plan users. Do they correspond to your target audience’s characteristics and behaviors? Are they using your product for their business or personal aims, or they are using it just for fun?
You can get the answers to these questions by finding out where you have attracted those users. Maybe they received information about your product from an Email Marketing campaign, Google Ads, etc. If you look closer to those details you will be able to target your advertisement to the right set of users. Those will serve as your main audience in your future endeavors.
3. You Have Missed Out Feature-Price Balance
If correcting the said mistakes does not improve your sales then you should probably focus on your product features and price balance. The customers pay for real value. So, you will not increase your product sales rate until your clients find helpful and momentous features in it.
Also, it is important to make a deep competitor research before including this or that option into your pro product. People may find the desired Pro feature in your competitor’s product totally free of charge. This, in its turn, will ruin your efforts to move them to pay for your SaaS product.
Concluding on How to Convert Free Users to Pro
Wrapping up the final thoughts, we would like to spot a few aspects of how to increase a free to paid conversion. So, along with presenting a great Pro plan full of useful significant features, you should focus on some user-centric strategies and Effective Marketing campaigns. Making competitor analysis will also help you to always stand out with your product keeping in mind that it is a big solution for the right target audience.
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