Paysite owners: how do you deal with surfers buying a trial and then canceling right away?
 

so these assholes buy a $1.95 Trial and then proceed to cancel right away

is this normal?

Yeah pretty normal, turn off trials.

That's the reason why we don't offer trials...

what's a generally-accepted monthly price for a membership?

Summed up nicely.
:thumbsup

Most for the purpose of raping your entire website. They then proceed to post your content on message boards with down-loadable links. DMCA take down notice, four days later it's re hosted on uploading.com or Oron.com.

It depends greatly on your website - what you have now, the quality of those videos / photos and how often your site is updated. Do you offer extras beyond the normal videos and photo galleries? All of these things add up to answer that question.

Otherwise people would just randomly pulling a number out of their ass that has no real meaning.

A site with 1000s of videos and updates all the time obviously can charge far more for a membership than a site with a few hundred videos that may only update once a week.

http://www.gfy.com/images/icons/frown2.gif

how can these huge-ass programs afford to offer $1 trials and then even payout affiliates?

don't they get fucked over too?

Just don't cancel it. It's your word against theirs!

in case you haven't figured that out yet, you have 20 or so merchant accounts, cycling the good with the bad. And while thats going on you're getting 20 more.

Cross sales, and upsells.
:2 cents:

Ever hear about crossselling?
Trials only attract people that want a quick jerk and a huge percentage cancels right away.

Without cross sales, no trials.

i m amazed that you are asking this question.,

but anyways ., they do xsales and fuck customer , so they can pay to webmaster at 30-50 pps on $1 trial also.

i don't fuck my customers with xsales, at least on my brand-able domain.,

but when i need money, i just dont care.,coz its money at the end.

good luck.

some program owners even have , what is called as aggressive billing solutions.,
i know a program which uses this tactics.,

i tried them by creating vcc of 10 bucks and tried registering with them, and next minute when i tried to cancel that vcc, it wasnt an option., thats called fucking aggressive billing.

p.s.it was only for testing purposes.

Cross-sales are against my religion. I'm not in the business to fuck people over.

My trials are $9.00

So I'm fine with it ;)

So how do you do it? Offer no trials?

Or offer a trial with a severely limited access with an option for them to upgrade to full, once they see what's inside?



For how many days?

2 days.

The result is more sales of monthly AND more people who buy a trial recur (likely because they feel they already invested 9 bucks)

Me neither but that wasnt your question.

That's something worth to try....nice idea ;)

If your paysite is shitty you will probably make more using % programs or pps than even bothering with a crappy paysite.

Fuck what suits the customer. This is what we want and they can fucking lump it.

Some of you are living in 1998.

The customer is king. Today if you don't offer him what he wants he won't buy. Because he doesn't have to buy. End of story. Some don't know Tubes exist. :1orglaugh

A lot of customers don't want 30 days in a site. And they won't pay $30 for a day either. They want to jerk off now and don't mind paying $30 to do so. If your site is good they will come back time and time again.

Customers also know that many trials aren't as honest as sold. They pay their $1-$3 and find there's nothing but thumbs and samples in the site. Or they click on something and billed $40 for it.

Or they sign up and find the site is full of crap porn.

After years of fucking the customer some seem to think they can carry on doing it. :Oh crap

Don't offer real trials and let more of them come to my site. :1orglaugh

Top notch.

Paul Markham.

Now you're catching on grasshopper.

Clip stores.

.. .....

Porn Beer.
:2 cents:

so what's your point?

Have a separate trial members' area that takes the member to an upgrade page when they goto view a gal or download a video, don't give any content for trial members. If you have a good member's area and a good presentation you should be able to convert 40 to 70% of them to full members, otherwise you are lucky to get 15%.

One thing that is working for me is a 7 day trial. I can charge more for it because it's 7 days. ($9.95)

Also because it is 7 days, customers don't feel the urgency to cancel immediately, they put it off and are more likely to forget to cancel and you can often get at least one re-bill out of them. (I am guessing based on my own tendencies and the trends I have observed)

Also for a single site and not a network all access pass the sweet spot seems to be anything at or under under 24.95/mo recurring. The lower price greatly reduces buyer's remorse, keeps credits and charge-backs down, and the lower payout scares off fraudulent affiliates.

You should not assume that he's an asshole or is out to scam you. Instead, always assume that he is a qualified customer who liked what he saw on your tour or pitch pages, and decided he wanted to join.

What then, made him cancel?

What you need to do is go through your tour pages very carefully. Does your members area deliver everything that your tour promises? Are you sure? Are the models that appear in your tour also in your members area? How about the photo sets or clips? Scenes? Etc?

The best way you can answer this question of course is to send an email to this person (and everyone else who has ever canceled their subscription). Just be honest and ask them what you as a site owner could have done to keep their business longer.

Site owners think that 3-day trials are an easy way to hook new customers but I would say that the exact opposite is true. Think about it: Your site's members area has to now be PERFECT to keep this customer. If anything, you are creating a kind of a pressure on your website, on yourself, and on your customer to convert him AGAIN from a 3-day user into a recurring monthly user. I think that in order for this to really work, your site has to go way beyond what was promised now to keep him happy.

Good luck!

You are just relizing this now?.wow.:Oh crap

My point is obvious. If you don't offer him what he's willing to buy he won't buy.

If you don't offer cheap trials or short term memberships he will go to those who do or to Tubes.

Very few have anything that's irresistible so giving him what suits you and doesn't suit him, means you lose.

I live in 2011, just wish it was 2005 like so many. But it's not and I realise it.

After years of giving customers what suited us because we thought he had no options it's all changed. The customer is KING. You're doing what he needs or he's going elsewhere to get it from someone else.

If you're still not clear try practicing flipping burgers, it might come in use soon.

never ever offer a trial membership. I learned early on that a surfer attracted and interested in your content will pay whatever your membership fee is.

The message boards, with downloadable links is killing it big time.

I remember going to a message board trying to upload some sample clips, and got banned instantly.

However when joe schmoe uploads my full length movies after removing watermarks he is rewarded with brownie points and given message board "GOD" status.

i suspect most if not all have up-sells within there sites.

ie, you join for $1 but to access all the sites in the network you have to pay the extra.

Plus links to other sites.

Ie, they promote sites within the mebers area.

So if somone join then they may join another site or even several inside your members area.

Also some sites make it hard to cancell.

I have joined sites on a 3 day trial. Often you can download what you want in the first day.

the best method with tials is have a limit. ie if they join on a trial then they only access a very small amount of content.

paul i would not offer trials.

people can slag of my sites but i get lots joining www.rosecabs.com and stay mebers for moths. most cases that cancell are credit card payments fail.

just becase your sites do not sell, do not presume others also do not sell.

So why do so many sites spend so little on content?

Piracy has always been a problem. The biggest problem is the industry is still thinking it's like 1998. And it's clearly not.

If downloadable links are a problem, don't sell pre-recorded content. If the content is what makes the surfer join. Don't sell cheaply produced content that's the same as every other site in the niche.