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Hi everyone,


We’re in the IT industry. When a lead comes in, we suggest him to book a free demo of our software, followed by a free trial.


We’re currently running PPC campaigns and for that designed a ‘get a free demo’ landing page, but it didn’t convert much (15%) and no one ended up doing the demo after all. On the other hand, we tested a ‘Get a free trial’ landing page and it did convert better (23-25%), but the problem is we don’t want our lead to access the software without a demo for we know that he’ll have a much better experience with the software if he has a demo prior to his trial, and therefore he will be more likely to convert to a real client.


So I was wondering if there was best practices out there for designing a ‘get a demo’ LP, or any opinion/advice/experiences…related to that?


Thank you a lot.

Hi Holisoa, 


Based on what you’ve described above, I would suggest you look into implementing a proper drip/onboarding email campaign based on certain triggers for your free trial leads. 


Examples of the types of emails you should be sending out and also A/B testing:



  • User signed up but didn’t complete X, Y and/or Z

  • Invite your user to schedule that demo 

  • The user hasn’t logged in X days, weeks, etc. 

  • User only completed their profile until X point

  • Invite to a weekly webinar (your users might feel less pressured when the attention is not concentrated just on them)


In essence, you need to find your inflection point for when a trial user is most likely to stick around and continue using your product. Everything else should be designed, build and tested to get the user to that “aha moment”. The point where your software becomes an invaluable part of their routine.


Hi Holisoa, 


How about giving out a coupon or some other reward for attending the demo? 


Here are some copywriting tips: 

http://writtent.com/blog/20-killer-web-copywriting-tips/ 


and 


Here is a list of landing pages for lead acquisition

 http://unbounce.com/landing-page-examples/25-lead-gen-landing-pages-critiqued-for-conversion/ 


It is from 2012 but the basics are still the same. 


Cheers, 

Kenji


Hey guys,


Thanks a lot for your help. These tips gave us some great ideas to implement.


Holisoa


Hi Holisia,


In addition to the great ideas above, I’d like to point out that not all customers would be up for a demo. Some people prefer to play around the tool on their own as we’ve witnessed with some of our customers here at Unbounce.  In this case, when you send a welcome email after they sign up, you could invite them to a webinar (which may seem less demanding/intimidating than a 1-on-1 demo).  Other options would be to have a short demo video on your sign up page (usually your pricing page), have a guided demo via in-app cues that would walk new trial starts through your tool when they first log in, or a combination of the aforementioned ideas. 


For high value customers, you could try calling them directly to see if they need help getting started and book a demo.  


Cheers,

Princess


To build off of Princess’s answer, some people here demo and shudder.  (90% of the time that’s me.)


Will it take too much time?  Will I be pressured to follow through by a sales person?  Do I know how much this offering will cost to determine if it is viable and worth my time?  

Hopefully you can reach out to those that didn’t follow through with the demo or thereafter and find out what went through their mind.  Their are endless tests you could run to try and improve the conversion rates and ultimately, the genuine macro conversion you really care about - new customers.  

Maybe in the end the demo ends up not being the CTA.  I’m not going to guess either way, but would encourage you to hear it from your customers why they did not move forward.  Keep on testing it and on a personal note, I have always enjoyed the “demos” that Princess has described above where the perceived risk is removed.


Best regards,

Joe


Perhaps you could offer the demo, but position it a bit differently. For instance, you could focus more on the benefit of the solution than the features of the product and create a webinar. You would still essentially work the demo into the webinar by showing the features, but it would be more as a way to achieve the benefit. You could even customize it for different audiences and segments.


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