The Hack - Forcing Users to Register For a Free Plan Exclusively

AARRR stage - Activation

Growth Problem - How to Increase Activations of Your App

Haxplanation:

Who'll say no to something free, right?

Are your serious?! In the digital world, nearly everything is given away for free. With the explosion of content marketing, you now have to actually sell your free content as hard as the product itself.

So, the answer is: most people will say 'no' to a freebie.

These days, it actually takes a lot of work to persuade someone to accept something that is free. Users are just too weary.

However, this doesn't write off the fact that free app subscription plans can still be used as a great customer acquisition tool. The trick is to maximize the opportunity and work very hard to ensure your activation rates cover the opportunity cost of having all of those non-paying accounts. The burden of supporting a high number of free users can potentially tank your startup if you get it wrong.

But if you do go down this path, wowing your user with your product and your startup's overall customer experience is non-option. And you really have to believe in the quality of your product. Because your success hinges on it. Let's look at how to achieve this.

Just Hack It:

1. Trello and Optimizely are examples of SaaS apps that start their users off on a free plan by default. As a result, both startups have been successful in acquiring substantial business in the enterprise space. This is due to the lack of an initial financial commitment on their prospects' part
2. However, offering such an option has to match your business model and target customers
3. Such an option may not work as well for B2C as it does for B2B startups
4. Given that only 25% users of free users convert on average, the trick is carry out constant free trial optimization .
5. Now go get 'em tiger!
6. And then optimize, optimize, optimize, to ensure that your free users are converting into paying ones. Otherwise, you might as well be running a charity…

Source or Inspiration:

http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Optimizely-change-their-pricing-structure-to-only-include-a-Free-and-Custom-option

http://sixteenventures.com/free-trial-optimization