Two Simple Emails That Activated 10% of The Free Trail Users (for B2B SaaS)

An unconventional approach to reactivation sequence for free trial users

Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash

I worked with a B2B SaaS Startup that provided an assessment solution for pre-employment screening.

I was hired as head of content and copywriting. This included framing lead magnets, strategizing for blogs, and optimizing web copy, socials, and emails.

This case study is about an email campaign that got us leads worth $11,800.

Quite frankly, anyone can experiment with this approach. There is no rocket science to it. You can immediately set it up within 30 minutes.

The challenges we had:

1. Our prospects were signing up for the free 7-day trial not signing up for the paid version. This is very common. But our conversion to the paid version was very low.
2. When the product was launched, the founder decided to give it free for early adopters. But this messed up the perceived value of our product.
3. Our solution was tailored for hiring managers. When our prospect signed up for a 7-day trial, it wasn’t necessary that they were hiring in those 7 days. So it’s a rare possibility that must have used the product and explored the solution.

A very important side note: If you want users to convert during your free trial phase, you have to get them to experience the product. You have to get them to feel the transformation you’re offering. BTW, that’s the purpose of the free trial nurture sequence. To get them to an ‘aha moment.’

With our product, we had the challenge to get them to experience the product, as the hiring managers would not experiment with it. What if they are not hiring in the next 7 days?

I don’t want to get into the discussion of what is the right length of a free trial, that’s a whole other discussion.

The email sequence (of two emails) that got us qualified leads worth Approx $11,800

We used to send a nurture sequence to those who signed up for a free trial. But there was no sequence for those who didn’t sign up after the free trial was over.

So my strategy was to run a campaign that would get the free trial users re-invested in our product.

Let’s talk about the emails::

Founder reach-out email

This email was sent from the founder, not an employee or the company.

The email was plain text

This email was plain text. It read like an email. Not a promotional-style email.

It looked personalized

The email was written in a way that makes prospects feel as if it was written only for them.

Here’s the screenshot of the emails:

Email: 1

The first email

Email: 2

The second email

The results

After two emails we had leads worth $11,800.

Why this worked

1. It shows that we care about our free trial users. It shows empathy
2. We were not selling. We were casually asking if they need to reactivate for free
3. It was a pattern interrupt. As these folks are not used to seeing these kinds of emails.
4. It had an easy CTA. We didn’t ask for much it was a quick “Yes”, and we’d activate the account

I’m an email strategist and copywriter. If you want to get a spike in your conversion rate, connect with me.