If you’re a software developer, the product you sell is intangible in most ways. Besides the disk, there is nothing to hold on to, place on your bookshelf, or sell at a flea market. So, it’s hard to get your customers to see the value and hard work you put into it. And although it may seem counter-intuitive, offering your customers a free software trial before they buy actually benefits your business.
Giving it away for free doesn’t sound like the best business strategy, but because your product is mostly intangible, you need to give your customers a chance to build their own relationship and value with the software, so they will be willing to buy it. In fact, studies have shown that giving customers a free trial of your software actually increases the chance that they will buy it.
Also, when you let customers try before they buy, you cut down on the amount of refunds that you would have had to issue had you not offered a free trial. When a customer tries your online casino software or word processing program and then knows exactly what they’ve bought, there are no surprises. Those customers who don’t find your product useful simply will not buy it in the first place, allowing you to more directly target your best customers and save money in the long run.
In addition to cutting down on refund requests, giving customers a software trial period will cut down on your customer service calls. If a customer has already had 30 days to figure out and play with your software, then once they buy it they are already comfortable with it and know how to use it correctly, in most cases. So you won’t have as many customers calling up after the fact with tons of questions.
Don’t think about a free software trial as a free giveaway. Think about it as an investment in your future that will gain you more customers and cut your costs at the same time.