INCREASE INTERNET SALES WITH FREE TRIALS

Patrick OBrien

If you're selling a product or service on the Internet, one of
the best ways to increase your sales is by offering a free trial
also known as a teaser, demo or limited version. By enabling your
potential customers to review your product and providing them
with an easy ordering process, you can increase your sales
immensely.

Free trials are not exclusive to software programs. There are
many ways you can offer a free trial no matter what product or
service you're offering. For example, if you've written a book,
consider offering it in an electronic version; better known as
an eBook. You can include your entire book within the eBook and
choose to lock out certain chapters.

In order for your potential customer to gain access to these
chapters they will be required to purchase the full version.
You can include an order form and instantly take orders, right
through your free trial Ebook. When you receive an order, you
simply send your customer a predefined user ID and password that
you set up when you create it.

The key to using a free trial version is to offer your product
for download from your web site and allow it to be freely
distributed. Provide some valuable free information, but save
your most important information for the unlocked version. Make
your locked chapters sound very intriguing and create curiosity.
Tell your potential customers what they will receive by
purchasing the full version, provide a complete list of all the
benefits, and provide them with an easy ordering process.

If you're selling a service on the Internet, you can offer your
potential customers a free trial as well. For example, if you
offer a search engine submission service, you can provide your
customers with a limited free submission to the search engines.

To entice your customers to purchase your full service you can,
not only submit their site to your full list of search engines,
but you can create doorway pages, insure their pages are
optimized for the search engines and provide a resubmission
service every month for a year. In addition, provide your clients
with a free report of each submission process.

Prior to doing your customers last submission, contact them and
inform them that their submission contract will soon be expiring.
Tell them how they can renew their submission process and offer
another enticing freebie such as, "If you renew your submission
contract before (date) we will also submit your site to over
1000 Free For All Sites."

This type of free trial will not only increase your current sales
but it will promote future sales as well.

In summary free trials build customers confidence and desire for
the fully paid up version. The possibilities are endless.
By offering your potential customers something of value for
free, providing instant gratification, and an easy ordering
process, you can dramatically increase your sales.

Patrick OBrien is a Webmaster at Sirius Java Productions.
He has been building and promoiting websites for the past 3
years with a strong bias towards Java Applets. He has used
the above technique to great effect and many free trial applets
are available at,
http://www.net800.co.uk/netstart/sirius/index.html
Careful though, you may get hooked and end up buying