The numbers don’t lie. Statistics show that the free trial method trumps other practices. As per a Totango report, over 16% of companies get more than 50% of their new customers from free trials.
Unfortunately, most SaaS marketers and entrepreneurs struggle with this. In simpler words, giving a free trial is only half the battle won — and everyone is doing this. The bigger challenge for businesses is to get website visitors to sign up for the trial.
If you are facing the same situation, this article is for you. In efforts to make your lead generation easier, these 5 tried and tested tips will help drive more sign-ups to your SaaS website.
5 Ways to Boost Your Sign-Up Conversions:
- Provide social proof to build trust
- Provide incentives to sign up
- Showcase what happens after signing up
- Test the length of the form field
- Utilize mobile-friendly sign-up forms
1. Provide Social Proof to Build Trust
Your sign-ups will increase when you show that people are using your products and are happy with it. That is called social proof.
But as a startup, showing social proof in the form of impressive numbers may not be possible because you do not have that many clients.
So instead of displaying numbers, ask your best clients to give genuine testimonials and product reviews. Go ask your customers for feedback.
Additionally, you can get featured in reputed online magazines and publications that your target audience refers to.
You can place their logos on your website, landing page, or in your marketing material for everyone to see.
A proposal management software, Better Proposals, uses product reviews from Capterra, a software reviewing firm, and displays them on their sign-up page.
Knowing that they are in safe hands could compel website visitors to sign up for your free trial.
2. Provide Incentives to Sign Up
The conventional trick is to provide visitors with a relevant and intriguing incentive to sign up for your SaaS product’s free trial.
The incentive could range from offering free templates, e-books, white papers, access to an exclusive group on Facebook or an email course, or even a consultation over Skype.
The project management tool Monday allows users to download a free work-plan template when they sign up for the free trial.
When the gated offer adds value, it goes a long way in boosting the sign-ups. Invest in building an incentive or a gated resource that screams at the visitor to be accessed.
3. Showcase What Happens After Signing Up
Your visitors will want to know how the product helps them, even before they sign up for the free trial. They will want to know if the fields on your form are worth filling and worth their time.
Show your visitors what they would receive after signing up. This can be in the form of sharing the benefits and value proposition instead of merely listing the features.
An explainer video, auto-playing GIFs, or screenshots can demonstrate your product, along with its use cases. If a video is not possible, even high-quality screenshots can showcase the power of your product.
Better Proposals has a section called “Take the Tour” beside the signup tab. This directs the visitor to a landing page that has social proof use cases, benefits, and the integrations highlighted.
Let your visitors see if the product matches their requirements. Show them that your product is beginner-friendly and intuitive to encourage them to sign up.
4. Test the Length of the Form Field
Test the length of the form field instead of assuming that shorter forms have a higher conversion rate on your sign-up page.
As seen in this JotForm study, the conversions are not the same.
For businesses that need to collect more information from customers, a longer sign-up form makes more sense. A shorter form isn’t always the best.
For example, GetVoIP, a business VOIP provider first asks the visitor to answer some questions before asking for their contact information such as email and phone numbers.
This could be based on the number of employees, features needed, geography, and budget. Then the visitor is directed to the right product sign-up.
Run A/B testing to know the length of forms that work the best for your business.
5. Utilize Mobile-Friendly Sign-Up Forms
With mobile audiences growing at an unprecedented rate, designing the form for a mobile-first experience makes your sign-up form easy to fill. It helps to remove unwanted fields.
Having a mobile-first experience forces you to think of user interfaces such as setting default options for certain fields or keeping the form labels above or to the left.
Imagine having to make your US-audience scroll through 160 countries to select the United States in the form.
Furthermore, you can make the form completion easier by taking advantage of mobile capabilities. For example, why ask for their location when they can share that information by using GPS via a single click?
When you design forms you should take into consideration that the spatial orientation varies depending on the device being used.
With a large number of users browsing your website and filling the sign-up trial through their mobile device, design your form based on their needs. The advantage is that you will improve the sign-up experience for every user.
Start Boosting Your Conversions Now
The ultimate goal is to make sure you reduce the fiction to boost your sign-ups. Sign-up forms are the interface between your SaaS business and potential customers.
Make the signing-up experience better in order for your conversion to improve. Higher conversions through the free trial sign-up form leads to more customers, new business deals, and a successful online presence.
