SaaS Marketing Strategies to Make Your Web App Dominate SaaS Marketing Strategy Focus: Scalable Customer Acquisition Through scalable SaaS Marketing practices, Sixteen Ventures lead by Lincoln Murphy, provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) and Web App companies everything they need to acquire customers, improve retention, and grow the lifetime value of those customers. New Challenges – and Opportunities – Require an Optimized SaaS Marketing Strategy The cloud introduces new challenges for traditional Independent Software Vendors (ISV), but even for those who are building new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Web Applications (Web Apps) from scratch, many challenges exist, with marketing being one of the biggest. The Goal of Your SaaS Marketing Strategy: to Quickly Create Profitable Customers Because Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Web Apps are very often sold on a recurring revenue, monthly basis – without a large upfront payment like traditional software – the key to successful SaaS Marketing is efficiency and scalability. Payback Customer Acquisition Costs Quickly with a Great SaaS Marketing Strategy Regardless of the type of sales process, SaaS Marketing requires you to leverage scalable methods to attract the right audience up-front, to get the customer to try before they buy, and the methods used to convert your prospect to a paying customer. SaaS Marketing ultimately breaks down to a per-customer cost and should be paid back as quickly as possible in an effort to turn new customers into profitable customers. But, when your Free Trial fails to convert customers, it’s probably doing exactly what it was designed to do! You need to design your Free Trial to actually sell your product if you want to make any money in the SaaS or Web App business. So I’ve put together a list of 7 Secrets to Free Trial Success... how to turn your SaaS Marketing efforts - your sales process - and your Free Trial - into a Customer-Creating Machine. This is SaaS Marketing / Free Trial Domination Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial

1. Lincoln Murphy Presents...
The 7 Secrets to
Free Trial Success
Turn your ‘Free Trial’ into a Customer-Creating Machine!
Lincoln Murphy http://sixteenventures.com

2. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Secret #7:
The Four Phases
of a Free Trial
Lincoln Murphy

3. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Your Free Trial actually consists of 4 phases
Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial Lincoln Murphy

4. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Breaking the Free Trial down into 4 parts
not only helps you understand the
process more deeply and allow you to
create a process more likely to deliver
sales...
Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial Lincoln Murphy

5. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
But understanding the Four Phases of a
Free Trial allows you to more easily spot
and optimize bottlenecks
Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial Lincoln Murphy

6. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Four Phases of a Free Trial
Attention Engagement Investment Conversion
Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial Lincoln Murphy

7. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Attention
Everything you do before they sign-up for the
Free Trial. Includes your Marketing Website,
Advertising / Promotion, Up-front
Indoctrination, Expectations Management,
Pricing, etc.
Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial Lincoln Murphy

8. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Engagement
The Phase immediately after you get them to
sign-up for the Free Trial where there’s one
goal; start using the product. This is absolutely
the MOST IMPORTANT PHASE and where
most SaaS & Web App vendors drop the ball.
Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial Lincoln Murphy

9. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
When you tell me you get 1000 Free Trial sign-
ups, but only 100 ever login more than once, you
have a problem in the Engagement phase!
Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial Lincoln Murphy

10. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Investment
This is the phase where your potential customer
moves beyond simply setting up their account
and adding users to actually starting to use and
spend more time in the app. They become
“invested” in the product through time,
resources, etc. The goal of this phase is to get
the user so invested that they’d hate to lose
their work and conversion is a no-brainer. This
is where CCAs really come into play.
Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial Lincoln Murphy

11. 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
Conversion
Ultimately, everything you do in every
other phase of the Free Trial should drive
toward Conversion.
Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial Lincoln Murphy

12. For the Ultimate Free Trial
Resource Guide, visit:
http://sixteenventures.com/free-trial-resource-guide