Dan Martell - How To Setup Your Free Trial Email Sequence To Activate Customers

00:00:00.080 Hey there, I'm Dan Martell,

00:00:01.340 technology entrepreneur, investor,

00:00:02.760 and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:04.120 In this video, video, I'm gonna teach you

00:00:07.520 how to set up your email campaign

00:00:09.480 to close more customers in your free trials.

00:00:12.360 And be sure to stay at the end where I share with you

00:00:14.040 an exclusive download called the Trial Converter Campaign,

00:00:17.520 which is essentially a workflow for how to think through

00:00:20.520 the different emails I'm gonna go over today

00:00:22.480 and sequence them.

00:00:30.000 So maybe you've got a ton of traffic

00:00:37.060 but you're not converting enough into your free trials

00:00:39.460 and it's really getting to you

00:00:40.900 or you've got a bunch of people that are trialing

00:00:42.940 and they're not converting into customers.

00:00:44.640 What I'm gonna share with you is

00:00:45.600 how to structure an email campaign,

00:00:48.040 the information that should go in those emails

00:00:50.000 so that you can get 10 to 25% of those trials converting

00:00:53.860 and I know if you're at like 2%,

00:00:55.480 you're like, okay, Dan, that sounds a little crazy.

00:00:57.300 bear with me, I'm gonna walk you through this.

00:01:00.060 I've been doing this now for a very long time,

00:01:02.440 building software companies for over 20 years.

00:01:04.400 I started when I was 17 and I've figured out

00:01:07.780 there's a process for understanding how to get in the

00:01:10.540 mind of the customer.

00:01:11.980 I did that with flowtown.com which got acquired.

00:01:14.820 Clarity, same deal and I've coached hundreds of entrepreneurs

00:01:18.660 at this point in improving their trials

00:01:20.420 and I wanna walk you through the step-by-step process

00:01:23.460 that I use to make that happen.

00:01:25.200 Step one, welcome email.

00:01:27.120 So this is the first email that a new sign-up gets

00:01:30.260 when they're in the trial and to me,

00:01:32.060 this is all about showing them what you got.

00:01:33.920 Think about the watch, the trench coat guy with his watches

00:01:38.360 and he's like, what do you want?

00:01:39.400 What do you got?

00:01:40.340 That is kind of how you wanna think about that email.

00:01:43.000 You just wanna let people know and get them oriented

00:01:44.980 and situated and be like, here's where you go for support,

00:01:47.140 here's where you go for training, here's how you,

00:01:49.000 here's what, if you get stuck, let us know.

00:01:51.380 You can always reply to this email.

00:01:53.080 I would actually highly encourage that in your welcome emails

00:01:55.240 to ask them, just let us know what you're hoping to

00:01:57.780 accomplish with our technology or our product

00:01:59.940 and just make it all about just getting them situated

00:02:03.380 and what's available for them to move forward.

00:02:05.960 Number two, training.

00:02:08.080 Ideally, I'm hoping that you've got some level of training,

00:02:12.100 not inside your product.

00:02:13.460 If you drop somebody on a blank slate and then play a video

00:02:17.420 and consider that onboarding, shame on you.

00:02:20.660 So that's just right out of the gate.

00:02:21.960 That video though is probably a good training video.

00:02:23.960 So I think what's really important is understand

00:02:27.160 what's the success gap within your product.

00:02:29.440 Where is the customer coming in?

00:02:30.540 What do they want to accomplish?

00:02:31.800 And what's the ideal set of videos

00:02:34.240 that they would need to consume to really understand

00:02:36.200 how to get the most out of your product?

00:02:37.540 And you want to link those in the email.

00:02:40.000 So training is an important piece of information

00:02:43.520 that you want to communicate, especially to new trials,

00:02:45.880 so that they actually get activated and use the product.

00:02:48.680 Three, case study.

00:02:50.620 Now, the fun part about this is you probably

00:02:53.260 have a customer that's totally crushing it using your product.

00:02:56.360 Somewares and maybe you have one in different industries and

00:02:59.460 verticals, what you want to do is you want to extract that case

00:03:02.560 study and talk about that result with your new sign up trials

00:03:07.000 and just paint a picture of euphoria in the future of

00:03:10.320 what's possible.

00:03:11.620 If they like got all your technology deployed, what could

00:03:14.420 their world possibly look like?

00:03:16.760 That's the goal of a case study.

00:03:18.520 It's about saying, hey, I know how you feel.

00:03:20.360 I know where you've been.

00:03:21.360 You're probably feeling these frustrations.

00:03:22.360 One of our customers, X, had the same challenges.

00:03:25.120 Here's how they implemented our product to get these results

00:03:28.200 and be specific about the numbers

00:03:30.340 because the more specific you are,

00:03:31.740 the more exciting and engaged the trial user's going to be

00:03:35.300 to want to get those same results

00:03:36.940 and deploy your technology to get that.

00:03:39.580 Four, tips and tricks.

00:03:41.740 Now, you've been using your product forever

00:03:43.680 and you take a lot of the settings and features for granted.

00:03:46.980 Maybe you just kind of like assume everybody knows about it.

00:03:49.660 One of my favorite things to do,

00:03:50.920 especially when I get in front of this camera is remind myself

00:03:54.360 that I'm probably talking to somebody that's never met me

00:03:56.860 before, has maybe it's their first time doing this thing,

00:04:00.660 building a product, free trial, demo, email sequences,

00:04:03.760 whatever it is and I got to talk to them from that point of

00:04:06.660 view so the tips and tricks are unique and nuanced things that

00:04:10.380 customers are doing.

00:04:11.380 Maybe it's about adding their link in a certain workflow in

00:04:14.380 their business or maybe it's a specific report and how a

00:04:17.480 company's using that to get a result in their business.

00:04:19.980 It's the things, it's the customizations,

00:04:22.380 it's the personalization.

00:04:23.620 What are some tips and tricks, three or four things,

00:04:26.080 that you would suggest your customers to do

00:04:28.920 to get some extra value that they otherwise wouldn't know?

00:04:32.100 It's not the obvious flow of value

00:04:33.960 that they're coming in for your product

00:04:35.400 and just things that make them think like,

00:04:37.000 oh, that's really cool.

00:04:38.460 I didn't know you could do that with this product.

00:04:40.940 That's what I would do in the tips and tricks email.

00:04:44.600 Five, offer to help.

00:04:46.500 If you're monitoring and you have what's called

00:04:48.380 the member at risk monitoring set up in your free trials,

00:04:52.180 then you should be paying attention to who's active

00:04:56.120 in going through the free trial and who's at risk.

00:04:58.760 And if somebody's at risk, you want to send an email

00:05:00.760 and just offer to help somebody from your customer

00:05:02.820 success team to just say like,

00:05:04.720 hey, I noticed you signed up a couple days ago.

00:05:07.440 You haven't invited anybody to collaborate with you on this

00:05:11.000 or you haven't created a report or you haven't sent out

00:05:13.100 your first campaign, whatever it is in your product,

00:05:15.380 and just say, hey, do you want to get on a quick

00:05:17.000 15 minute demo and I'll actually use your account

00:05:19.840 and we'll get it set up and configured.

00:05:21.740 Here's a link to my calendar.

00:05:22.880 Feel free to schedule with me.

00:05:24.600 Now you can automate this whole process which is awesome

00:05:27.620 and really just make yourself available only to those

00:05:30.580 that need you most.

00:05:31.580 The ones that aren't moving along as you expect them.

00:05:34.080 So offering the help to me is a no brainer.

00:05:35.920 You should be doing this.

00:05:37.120 You can afford to do this and it just is the right thing

00:05:41.460 to do in business.

00:05:42.460 If somebody's stuck, show up and say hey,

00:05:44.720 let's get this unstuck, let's move you forward.

00:05:47.000 Six, make an offer.

00:05:49.040 Now, at the end of your trial,

00:05:50.800 maybe it's a seven day trial, three day trial,

00:05:52.780 I've seen those, pretty aggressive but I love it,

00:05:54.600 14 day trial, et cetera.

00:05:56.740 You want to use a little bit of salesmanship.

00:06:00.380 You want to think about the context.

00:06:01.720 The person's used the free trial,

00:06:03.480 they're at a certain stage of usage.

00:06:05.320 What could I put in the email to get them excited

00:06:08.380 about moving forward, about adding their credit card

00:06:10.360 if they haven't yet, about sticking around

00:06:12.360 and making sure that the next billing cycle goes through?

00:06:15.320 And to me, one of the easiest things is to make an offer,

00:06:19.060 to tell them, hey, you've done X in our product.

00:06:22.260 Maybe it's like you've created three projects,

00:06:24.060 you've sent two campaigns or 400 emails or whatever it is,

00:06:27.440 and we want to honor that activity in action

00:06:32.300 and if you make a decision to move forward today,

00:06:35.300 here's the opportunity.

00:06:36.300 If you want to do an annual contract,

00:06:37.740 we're gonna do it for nine months,

00:06:40.180 like the cost of nine months versus 10 months,

00:06:42.080 which is traditional, probably 20% off.

00:06:43.940 Make them an offer.

00:06:45.340 Get them excited to click the button and like it

00:06:48.120 and also let them know what they're missing out on.

00:06:50.180 I think it's important, you know, in any sales conversation

00:06:53.520 you wanna talk about what's possible and what's awesome

00:06:56.080 and you also wanna say like here's what's gonna not change

00:06:58.760 if you don't move forward and just let them know that

00:07:01.360 and say, you know, now's the time.

00:07:03.060 Let's get you set up, click the link,

00:07:04.660 update your credit card info and somebody from our team

00:07:07.360 will be reaching out to walk you through

00:07:09.400 how you can get even more out of our product.

00:07:10.800 Whatever you wanna do, I just think it's super important

00:07:13.540 to craft an offer email at the end of the trial,

00:07:17.040 not your trial ends in 24 hours and at that point,

00:07:20.880 all your data's gonna be deleted.

00:07:22.140 That is like, that's amateur hour at its best.

00:07:25.220 Think about this, the way I think about email

00:07:27.780 at a high level is what would I say

00:07:29.260 to somebody in person if I had the chance?

00:07:31.260 Email and automation is just a way

00:07:32.620 for me to do that at scale.

00:07:34.260 Seven, celebrate or learn.

00:07:36.700 Now, if they decide to continue with you,

00:07:39.300 put their credit card on file,

00:07:40.560 upgrade to a different plan, et cetera,

00:07:42.000 You want to celebrate them, congratulate them,

00:07:43.960 amazing decisions, so good to have you,

00:07:45.900 excited for you to be part of the community.

00:07:48.900 So that's on one end, that is what we all hope everybody goes

00:07:51.940 to but if they don't move forward then I want you to send

00:07:55.440 an email and ask them why because to me this is the point

00:07:59.020 that you get to learn, right?

00:08:00.680 You either win or you learn.

00:08:01.860 That's kind of one of my life mottos and at that point

00:08:05.160 specifically sending them an email and just say hey John,

00:08:08.000 I noticed you didn't move forward with our product.

00:08:10.860 I'm just curious what was missing for you

00:08:13.460 to make that decision and just sit back.

00:08:15.500 And if that's an automated email

00:08:16.640 and you're doing 100 trials a week,

00:08:18.240 you're gonna learn so much.

00:08:19.560 Maybe there was some confusion.

00:08:20.800 Maybe there was an issue around pricing.

00:08:22.540 Maybe there was an issue around the packages

00:08:24.440 or whatever it is and that's something you can fix.

00:08:26.980 If you don't ask, you never know

00:08:29.240 and you don't have the opportunity to make it right.

00:08:31.020 So to me, you celebrate if they buy

00:08:33.860 or you learn if they don't.

00:08:35.980 So quick recap, number one, send a welcome email.

00:08:38.880 Let them know what you got.

00:08:39.960 Two, training.

00:08:41.400 Three, case study.

00:08:43.300 Four, tips and tricks.

00:08:45.200 Five, offer to help if they're stuck.

00:08:48.300 Six, make an offer.

00:08:50.700 Seven, celebrate or learn.

00:08:53.640 As I mentioned at the beginning of the video,

00:08:55.080 I want to share a resource called

00:08:56.980 the Trial Converter Campaign.

00:08:58.840 Now, it's a workflow structure that I've designed

00:09:02.080 for people that are coming into your product and are new

00:09:04.920 and what you need to do to activate them

00:09:06.620 and also really have a clear understanding

00:09:08.980 of how to monitor if they're in a normal progression or if

00:09:12.880 they're at risk and the different flows of emails and information

00:09:16.620 you need to be sending so that you can finally get them over.

00:09:19.040 So think about all the emails I sent up in the trial converter

00:09:21.840 campaign worksheet.

00:09:23.840 It's going to put that into a flow for you to understand and

00:09:26.220 install automation into your business.

00:09:28.620 It's going to absolutely crush it for you so click the link

00:09:30.420 below to download that worksheet.

00:09:32.540 If you like this video be sure to click the like button.

00:09:35.620 If you know somebody that this could serve please share it with

00:09:37.980 and be sure to subscribe to this channel.

00:09:40.280 Thanks for watchin' and I'll see you next week.

00:09:42.980 Woo! 0.99

00:09:44.980 Dan-isms.

00:09:46.980 Dan-isms.

00:09:47.980 Dan-isms.

00:09:48.980 Dan-isms.

Dan Martell - August 06, 2018

How To Setup Your Free Trial Email Sequence To Activate Customers

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