I’ve talked before about what’s a good conversion rate for your opt-ins and online sales… And today I want to share how we quadrupled our sales conversions, with one simple idea.
First, let me set the stage…
We’re talking about our internationally best-selling WordPress plugin, PopupAlly Pro. The free version of the plugin has over 10,000 active users and it’s been featured on a number of happening WordPress blogs and directories.
Our strategy with the free software has been to deliver amazing functionality at no charge and to have people who want more customization, mobile-friendly options, and advanced features upgrade to the paid version.
This seems simple enough, and for the first 6 months after we released the premium version of the plugin we just placed a link to our sales page in the hopes that people would see the value and upgrade.
How We Quadrupled Sales By Changing Our Assumptions
Our assumption was that we’d get a certain percentage of the free PopupAlly users to click over, check out the new features, and decide it was worth the extra cost to buy the paid version.
This wasn’t bringing in a ton of sales, but we were getting enough traction from word of mouth from happy customers, so the sales were still coming in nice and steady.
The beauty of having a software product is that you can keep selling the solution you’ve created, without adding a ton of additional work. Especially now that the software is nice and stable, and we’ve ironed out all of the kinks.
Our sales conversion rate at this point was around 1.26%. Pretty much average, and nothing to write home about.
I had a hunch that our sales landing page wasn’t doing the pro version justice… So I decided to put together an all-new special offer. Here’s how we did it…
1. We Made A Better Offer
We often think that the offer we make is set in stone. But in reality, your offer is one of the easiest things to play around with and split test, because it’s one of your best leverage points.
Let’s compare the original PopupAlly Pro offer: you sign up for $97 right away, and after you assume all the risk, you get to download and install the plugin.
Then if you find out that you don’t like it or it doesn’t do what you expected, you need to email and ask for a refund within 30 days.
Contrast that with the new offer we made: you pay $1 today, you get instant access to the plugin and can start building your list right away… Then if you like it, we’ll bill you for $97 in 21 days, and you can keep using the plugin. Otherwise, just email and we’ll cancel the charge before it goes through.
On the surface, it might seem like it’s the same ingredients, but how you mix them together means we’ve got a totally different feeling for the person considering the offer.
The original offer feels a little cold and transactional… while the new offer gives a lot of value and trust up front, and doesn’t feel as “final” as a purchase. It’s just a trial, after all.
2. We Shortened The Message
Instead of having a full-on “long form sales page”, we put together a short and sweet video that talked about the highlights and explained the $1 trial offer.
The added benefit of offering a trial with instant access to the plugin is that you don’t need to do nearly as much selling of the different features and benefits. People want to know what it does, and instead of boring them with pages of features… they get to just start using it, pronto.
At the same time, we focused the video on a few key reasons the plugin is awesome, and how it’s different from others out there.
Most notably, we talked about how PopupAlly Pro was featured in Entrepreneur.com.
You Might Change Your Mind About What Features You Want, so You Need a Platform That’s Flexible.
Get your own free demo sandbox account so you can experience the flexibility AccessAlly has to offer.
See it in action3. We Were Polite About It
Now you might be thinking that this whole new offer is all about tricking people… But we’re actually quite polite about the whole thing!
We send several different emails within the 21 day trial period, reminding people that they’ll be charged the full amount for the plugin unless they cancel. We don’t want to charge anyone who isn’t using and getting a lot of value out of the software!
We also take this opportunity to educate people about the features of the plugin, taking some of the stuff we had on our original long-form sales page and turning it into an email welcome sequence.
This gives people a chance to play around with the plugin, and hopefully implement more of the key features so they can build their lists right from the get-go.
The idea is that if they’re already getting value from PopupAlly Pro, they’ll be more than happy to pay for the plugin when the time comes.
How We Tracked The Sales Results
To this date, the new $1 trial is converting at just under 11%. We’re tracking this offer through Google Analytics, and even though not everyone who takes the trial stays on for the full license… based on the small number of cancellations we’ve had, 10% is still much higher than our original 1.26%.
It’s been amazing to see how playing with our offer and how we present it can make such a dramatic change in the sales results we’re seeing.
And yes, it did take a little more technical know-how to set up a 21 day trial period with a payment processed further down the line, but it’s been well worth the additional steps.
So my recommendation for you is to think about how you currently present your offerings… Would there be a more enticing way to give people a taste of what you’ve created for them?
I’d love to hear how you plan to implement some of these ideas in your business!
Other Strategies We’ve Used to Increase Conversions
Another approach that we recently implemented is an abandoned cart email sequence when someone starts their order but doesn’t complete their payment details. It led to recapturing an average of 40%+ of our lost sales.
