Instead of a free trial, the CV builder uses a low-cost paid trial (£2.70 for two weeks). This initial financial commitment acts as a strong qualifier, leading to an impressive 34% of trial users converting to the full monthly subscription. This filters for high-intent users and generates revenue from day one.

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For products with high trial churn, replace the standard "try before you buy" model. Instead, charge users upfront and offer a rebate or a free second month if they complete a key activation task. This creates commitment and incentivizes the exact behavior that leads to long-term retention.

Despite lower volume, leads from high-intent forms like 'demo request' converted at double the rate of product trials. They also resulted in deals that were twice as large, highlighting a massively undervalued pipeline source that was being ignored in favor of high-volume, low-quality trials.

The company initially used a one-time payment plan, resulting in low customer lifetime value. Switching to a recurring subscription model, even for a product with natural churn, massively increased revenue and LTV by capturing more value over time from each customer.

Charging a small fee (e.g., $15) for a launch event weeds out passive onlookers and attracts committed participants. This strategy yields a much higher show-up rate (60-70% vs. 10-20% for free events), ensuring your marketing efforts reach a smaller but significantly more engaged and convertible audience.

Free offers attract high volume but often low quality. Counter this by adding strategic friction—like multi-step forms or forced video consumption—to weed out uncommitted prospects. The goal is finding the sweet spot that maximizes qualified leads without losing high-value but lazy prospects.

A low-cost, multi-day paid bootcamp pre-qualifies leads by securing a small financial commitment. This strategy attracted more engaged prospects and resulted in a 23% conversion rate to the main high-ticket course, far surpassing typical 7-10% webinar metrics.

Founders often miscalculate Customer Acquisition Cost by measuring the cost to acquire a trial user, not a paying customer. This creates a dangerously optimistic view of unit economics. True CAC must account for the trial-to-paid conversion rate (e.g., if trial CAC is $130 and 1 in 3 convert, true CAC is ~$400).

The common myth is that low-ticket buyers are low-quality leads. In reality, someone who pays for a small product is often more qualified and converts to a high-ticket offer at a much higher rate than someone who only consumes free content, like a webinar.

A week-long, low-cost paid event that previews a membership experience can drastically outperform single webinars. By building deep trust and delivering quick wins over several days, this model generates high-quality leads and exceptional conversion rates, such as the 1,100 new members Sarah Williams gained in one launch.

Dan Kohler's Kapo Chronicle newsletter converts over 40% of its list by paywalling every weekly issue. Free subscribers only get a monthly email summarizing what they missed, creating a powerful incentive to upgrade. This challenges the common freemium model where substantial free content is the norm.