Case Study Lessons: Online Trials for Lead Generation Work Best with Few Barriers to Entry

A subscription database in Canada is generating $168,000 to $191,000 a year by catering to the non-profit niche, an impressive feat, in our opinion. CharityCAN

A subscription database in Canada is generating $168,000 to $191,000 a year by catering to the non-profit niche, an impressive feat, in our opinion. CharityCAN has been able to solve a pain point for fundraisers looking to conduct prospecting research by combining their own proprietary information with cleaned-up public data into one sophisticated database with a starting price point of CA $1,999.And interestingly, as Publisher Anderson Charters told Subscription Site Insider, CharityCAN has generated such impressive revenues almost exclusively by mining its own database of Canada’s 85,000 charities and making outbound sales calls.We’ve seen this use of traditional sales conversion work before, most notably by Megawatt Hour, and we applaud the effort and smart use of resources.However, sometimes the marketers who are crushing it on one marketing channel need a little help optimizing the others.That’s the case with CharityCAN’s online trial. While the site offers free trials to all its prospects contacted by its sales staff, it also wanted to create a 24-hour trial through its website for prospects the company hadn’t identified or who simply disliked dealing with salespeople.The site has a solid conversion button on its homepage for the trial, but unfortunately, each prospect needs to be approved. CharityCAN says this is to make sure they’re getting qualified prospects, but that means they’re requesting prospects — especially those signing up with gmail or other non-business email addresses — to send them more information “qualifying” them.This is an unneeded barrier for entry and one that can be easily resolved by either requiring prospects use a business email (see our Case Study on Structured Credit Investor for more info) or by requiring prospects fill out qualifying information at sign-up. Online access should be immediate, unless there’s a exceptionally good reason to delay. Requiring an email exchange and making consumers feel they have to justify their desire to try your product will not help your conversion funnel.Of course, I understand the genesis of this approach — traditional sales people are used to qualifying prospects before beginning a relationship. It’s wise when making outbound sales calls. But like many things, what used to work is outdated or annoying in the instant access culture of the digital world.

Up Next

Register Now For Email Subscription News Updates!

Search this site

You May Be Interested in: