Add Telemarketing Sales Efforts To Free Trial With No Credit Card

Normally, it’s against best practices to offer a free trial without requiring a credit card number at sign-up. But this week’s Case Study on

Normally, it’s against best practices to offer a free trial without requiring a credit card number at sign-up. But this week’s Case Study on our sister site Subscription Site Insider has the one exception to that rule.SafetySmart.com has seen success with its 2-week trial offers despite not taking a credit card. That’s because the B2B site has a strong in-house sales team that aggressively pursues every prospect who signs up for a free trial. In fact, the site’s homepage (below) acts as a lead generation form.

Of course, the trick is that instead of a credit card, the site requires trial-takers to enter a phone number. That way, the 30-member sales staff can use email and telemarketing efforts to get a better idea of their customers’ needs and upsell them into the right subscription plan.The other reason it’s okay for the site to not ask for a credit card number is that the subscription price is fairly high ($99/month or higher), and the person who’s most interested in trying out SafetySmart (i.e., safety compliance directors) are often not the people with the authority to spend company money. When your high-priced subscription plan requires a decision by more than one person, particularly if it requires supervisor approval, it’s best to engage your customers through telesales efforts. Patient and steady relationship-building will be your best marketing and retention tactic.If you don’t have the staff (or budget for a call center) to follow up on every lead, then you’re better off requiring a credit card at sign-up. Otherwise you’ll just be squandering your site’s bandwidth and company resources on poorly qualified leads.In SafetySmart’s case, its lead generation and telemarketing sales efforts have resulted in a 200% increase in new subscriptions. Not bad growth for a site that’s been around since 1999 and already well-known in its niche.

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