The future of how people will buy software is all about leading with product - not gating it.
The old playbook was pretty straightforward:
SaaS company launches freemium plan or free trial
People visit website
Sign up for plan
Receive value from product (maybe)
Upgrade to paid subscription
The approach is relatively straightforward. Get user to experience value inside the product - and they'll be more likely to buy.
The challenge is the value is gated behind a signup form. Which means 97% of SaaS website visitors don't experience it. A huge missed opportunity.
Now, we're seeing innovative companies flip the script. They're not gating product value. They're taking leading with it instead.
Their playbook looks like this:
SaaS company launches freemium plan or free trial
Embed an interactive version of product on their site
Encourage every website visitor to play with it
After some meaningful interaction - suggest user sign up to continue their progress
The new playbook leads with value.
It engages a much larger percentage of visitors. That means, way more people experience the value of your product. That's good for visitors. Good for your brand. And good for your conversion rates.
Grow the number of new users that receive value now — and you’ll see the number of paid subscribers grow later.
I'm seeing tons of companies doing this with lots of success.
This post was originally shared by Andrew Capland on Linkedin.