Question About Trials and Monthly Memberships

[mercedes]

Hello everyone!! :) I have a question about trial periods and monthly memberships. I think I had seen somewhere on this board before that someone said you should have your trial memberships at a higher price and then have your monthly memberships at a lower price. I can't find the posts from that though. Does anyone else know anything about this?

Like right now I have my trial period at $4.95 for 4 days and then rebilled at $19.95 a month. I usually get at least 2 sign ups a day. But if the person cancels at the trial period ... then you're really not making too money. I just wanted to see what people thought about charging more for the trial and then less for the monthly. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you :) and have a great day!!

[IntheBlue]

I don't know about the actual $ values. I tend to believe that the price is not important as long as it is under $25. Over $25 tends to raise flags to the surfer.

Your strategy is pretty good. Only offer the trial recurring signup. My conversion rates were much much better once I started doing that. Plus it really pays off in the long term, rather than going for the quick single monthly membership.

Nice site btw. :) Could do with a few less buttons and links at the bottom of the page.

[basschick]

why not drop the trials? that usually works unless you are bidding on search engine terms.

[mercedes]

Thank you IntheBlue ;) You should have seen how many buttons I had on that page before ... I took about 10 of them off LOL. Maybe I will try to do what you said .. just offer the trial then recurring memberships.

Also .. if anyone knows about this please let me know. I was going through my stats pages on Thursday night and I was looking at the amount of times people were entering my members area with their usernames right? Well .. I had a sign-up on January 1, 2002 .. and another sign up on January 2, 2002. The one from January 1st had entered my members area 67 times in 2 days and the person that signed up on January 2nd had entered my members area 43 times in 1 day. Now ... I was like there is no way they entered that many times in that short of time. So I was like ... well maybe those 2 people that sign up for pay sites and then give out the usernames and passwords to people. So I cancelled them both. Does anyone else here agree with me or do you think that's normal for someone to enter that many times in that short amount of time? The other members were entering anywhere from 2-6 times. Let me know what ya think :) Thank you ~

[Marky]

mercedes, there's scripts that protect against password sharing. As far as the trial goes, if someone's going to pull out their credit card, then they're probably going to spend whatever amount you ask. Trial sign ups are usually just bandwidth burners and since 50-75% will just cancel, you're not making any money from them anyways. Maybe you should try 19.99 1st month sign up and 29.99 for every month after that. But of course, it depends on your tour page.

[Marky]

one extra note, the 43 times entered seems reasonable because if you use a cc processor .htaccess password protect, everytime a user has 4-5 minutes of inactivity, and tries to go to another page, the password alert usually shows up. I've gone through many paysites, and it seems like everytime I try to download a movie, it will ask me to re-enter my password and login.

[IntheBlue]

Rather than cancel their membership immediately, I would first look through the raw log files to see if the same username is being used by different IP addresses.

Secondly, I would just change their password for them and send them an email that it has changed.

[mercedes]

Ohhh ... I have never seen the raw logs before. I wonder if my host has that available on our options. I will have to look into that. That would be really helpful if they did, then I could just check that out when I am curious if people are just giving out their usernames and passwords. As far as the membership charges I am still not sure what I want to do yet LOL. Waiting for more suggestions :p

[copland]

Originally posted by Mercedes:
<STRONG>As far as the membership charges I am still not sure what I want to do yet LOL. Waiting for more suggestions :p</STRONG>

High entry, low recurring.

[shunga]

Originally posted by IntheBlue:
<STRONG>Rather than cancel their membership immediately, I would first look through the raw log files to see if the same username is being used by different IP addresses.

Secondly, I would just change their password for them and send them an email that it has changed.</STRONG>

You don't have to look through the raw logs if you have something like Wusage on your server. Then you look for the number of IP's used and accesses made as a guide. You can spot problem accounts quite easily. Then, as you mentioned,, you change their password and email them the new one, giving them a gentle warning about keeping their details to themselves. ;)

[shunga]

Originally posted by Mercedes:
<STRONG>As far as the membership charges I am still not sure what I want to do yet LOL.</STRONG>

With a $19.95 price point, I'd drop the trial. Give it a month and see how sales go. You'll probably see a drop in sales, but an increase in revenue.

[mercedes]

Ok, great !! Thank you to all that have responded here :) I really do appreciate it. I believe that I am going to try dropping the trial and just do the $19.95 per month. I'll see how it goes. Now, should I do $19.95 recurring until they cancel or should I do $19.95 one time fee? Or should I do both?

About that "Wusage" program ... is that hard to install? If it requires me to go into my CGI-BIN and stuff ... that scares me lol. Thank you ~ Have a great day everyone ;)