We all love free things, or at the very least, are intrigued by them. But assuming that a free trial or a free-but-limited sample will automatically win the prospect’s desire to engage in the service is a mistake. The proof is in the CTR.
Sam Cooke once sang that the best things in life are free – like flowers in spring, robins that sing, and CRM software. OK, fine, maybe not that last one.
We all love free things, or at the very least, are intrigued by them. So given the two ads below about free CRM software, which one do you think outperformed the other in a split test?
Made a decision? Here are the results:
Ad 1 outperformed Ad 2 by a whopping 106 percent increase in CTR. Let’s dissect both ads to better understand why.
The losing ad makes the fatal mistake, a mistake all too common among software providers, of assuming that a free trial or a free-but-limited sample will automatically win the prospect’s desire to engage in the service.
But free is never “free” when there is time, effort or transfer of information involved. Even if the software is free, the person’s time, frustration, and lost productivity is not free if your software’s “free trial” ends up being a mistake. So the “free” trial actually feels risky when the offer is made without some prior reassurance and salesmanship.
Also, the losing ad tries to sell the prospect on the benefits of CRM vs. the benefits of their CRM service, which is also a huge mistake. If prospects are searching for CRM, they’re already sold on the benefits and just want to know what makes your CRM software better for them.
Where the losing ad failed, the winning ad hit a homerun. Instead of just banking on the power of free, the winning ad directly addressed the major concerns of the prospect (besides price):
With that in mind, is it any wonder that the winning ad crushed the previous best-performing ad?
So what “fatal mistakes” are your ads making when it comes to persuading searchers? If you don’t know, and frankly not knowing is pretty common when you’re an “insider” in your industry and company, you might want to test a different approach. Who knows, you might just hit a home run with your new ad.