Tag Archives: paying customers

Optimizing for the Right User

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A good friend of mine (who is an amazing entrepreneur) called me last night and was excited to tell me that he got a huge burst in traffic and acquired 10,000 new users in the last 2 months for his website. The reason for the burst was he was investing in social media advertising, running contests, SEO, referrals, etc.

This is really great! Acquiring 10,000 new users is a major accomplishment, especially in such a short time period. Also – free users can help you build and test your product. It also helps you validate the market.

BUT, here is the problem:
I asked him what is his goal was. It was to acquire paying customers for his product. In my opinion most of these 10,000 new users will never ever convert to paid customers. The problem with focusing on free users out of the gate is this is the wrong type of customer – you know, the customers that never pay you.

Once you have a product try charging as soon as possible. Have a very generous free plan but also have a paid plan. You don’t really have customers until you have someone paying you. This will also help you optimize your web business towards bringing more money in the door.

Are we just getting better at getting free customers?

I’ve run into this issue as well. For my side product, Digioh – we have several hundred users that we acquired through Google Adwords on specific keywords. We got really excited for about a week until we realized that we still only have a handful a paying customers. We asked ourselves: Are we just getting better acquiring free customers because we want to get better at building a business where people pay for our services.

Since we have a premium paid plan in place, we are focusing on ways to optimize our site to get people to pay us. This includes changing our landing pages, re-writing our ad copy, and really understanding what features customers will pay for.

Getting Paying Customers is YOUR problem

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You can’t expect your users to stumble upon paying you. Sending your users email reminders and navigating them through a series of steps that will lead them to paying you is key.

One of my favorite freemium website builders, Weebly, does an incredible job. Here is what they do:

Step 1: Get the Users Email Address

Weebly Homepage

Weebly tries to get you into an account as fast as possible. The free sign up form is right on the homepage, they don’t focus on making you watch the video or go to a “Pricing Page”.

Step 2: Create an Easy Hook to Get the User Engaged

Weebly's Welcome Message

Notice the stripped out navigation. Weebly only gives the user two options right after you create an account.

Option 1: Fill out your website title and the type of site you are  building

Option 2: Close the browser

The “Category” question is really interesting. This probably helps Weebly understand who their top customers are and helps them target future customers as well. Another side benefit is Weebly can tailor the user experience based on what category the customer selects.

Step 3: First Sell – Get Your Users to Buy a Domain

Step 3 Weebly Choose Website Domain

If you purchase your domain with Weebly it is a major lock in factor. People hardly ever get rid of the domains they buy. I like how they make this part of their on boarding process and the default option checks to see if you domain is available.

Step 4: Send Timed Emails to Remind Them of Your Service

Step 4 - Weebly - Timed Reminder 1

Checkout how they use my name in the subject line and in the email. Open rates go dramatically up when you include the first name or business name of your customers.

I also really like the “Auto Log-in to Weebly” in the upper right hand corner. I never remember my password and a major barrier to entry for me would be having to go through resetting my password. The “Auto Log-in” removes that worry from my completely.

Step 5: Send a Hard Close Email with a Coupon to get Users to Upgrade

They end the email with a sense of urgency. They really make you feel like you are losing out if you don’t upgrade today. You only get this email if you haven’t upgraded.

When in doubt – Think Like Ikea

Ikea Store Map

Have you ever been to Ikea? If not, there is only one route you can take through the entire store. They make it super simple to buy everything you need. Don’t worry if you forgot something on your list, Ikea will remind you by showing you on your path to the checkout aisle. This worked on me about 2 years ago when I moved to San Francisco. I thought all I needed was a bed, some dishes, and a couch…. Ikea really opened my eyes by showing me all the things that I was missing on my list.

Do you know other companies that have amazing navigation that lead to paying customers? Let me know about them in the comments below.