It has been a while since I blogged but sometime in the next month I will start again. Here is something in the mean time.
Over a week ago my 30 day trial of Fetch file transfer for Mac OS X ended. When I tried to open the program, I received a pop-up message asking me to purchase the program. But I also saw “Trial period extension available in 14…13…12…” Fetch was telling me that every time I try to use their program, I will have to wait for this counter to hit zero until I purchase the software.
It seems that the counter increments each day with a base delay of 5 seconds. My trial period ended on 9/14 and today is 9/23. (23-14) + base_delay = 14 seconds. Although I am not sure if this progression will continue to be linear.
So what is the big deal here? Why is this worth a blog post?
I think this customer conversion method is very effective for this type of product. With the extended trial period, they are giving users the chance to become comfortable with the FTP client; and it is very important to be comfortable with your file transfer software (unless you are going command line). When the delay gets too long, I will probably purchase the software because it is not worth my time to go on a search for a new program if I am comfortable with Fetch.
Furthermore, there have been times when I have needed to do an emergency upload to a server. If the Fetch delay was on the order of minutes, all it would take is one scare and I am sure I would make the purchase. It is only $25, so it is not something I have to really think about.
One thing I might do differently is actually bake the delays into the software. I would delay a user every time he opened up a new connection because as of now, I can just keep Fetch open for days without being delayed.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
This entry was posted in Random, marketing and tagged conversion, customer, fetch, marketing. Bookmark the
permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.
Effective customer conversion scheme from Fetch?
It has been a while since I blogged but sometime in the next month I will start again. Here is something in the mean time.
Over a week ago my 30 day trial of Fetch file transfer for Mac OS X ended. When I tried to open the program, I received a pop-up message asking me to purchase the program. But I also saw “Trial period extension available in 14…13…12…” Fetch was telling me that every time I try to use their program, I will have to wait for this counter to hit zero until I purchase the software.
It seems that the counter increments each day with a base delay of 5 seconds. My trial period ended on 9/14 and today is 9/23. (23-14) + base_delay = 14 seconds. Although I am not sure if this progression will continue to be linear.
So what is the big deal here? Why is this worth a blog post?
I think this customer conversion method is very effective for this type of product. With the extended trial period, they are giving users the chance to become comfortable with the FTP client; and it is very important to be comfortable with your file transfer software (unless you are going command line). When the delay gets too long, I will probably purchase the software because it is not worth my time to go on a search for a new program if I am comfortable with Fetch.
Furthermore, there have been times when I have needed to do an emergency upload to a server. If the Fetch delay was on the order of minutes, all it would take is one scare and I am sure I would make the purchase. It is only $25, so it is not something I have to really think about.
One thing I might do differently is actually bake the delays into the software. I would delay a user every time he opened up a new connection because as of now, I can just keep Fetch open for days without being delayed.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!