By AJ Hall

YNOT – For decades marketers have known that low risk increases sales. Whether the offer is a money-back guarantee or a free trial, it’s bound to help attract customers.

The goal of a pay site is to attract visitors and convert them into paying customers. Many times the visitor doesn’t intend to become a paying customer. A solid tour combined with a solid trial area is a very powerful sales strategy.

The concept isn’t new. Trial areas have been around since the infancy of pay sites. You’ll find a low-priced three- or five-day trial option on most sites’ signup forms.

Timed trials are the norm. The premise is simple. A visitor joins for a trial, gets to see everything inside the site, watch and/or download as many videos as they wish and then decide if a full membership is worth paying for. The problem with this is that it’s too easy to say no to a full-price upgrade, and most trial users don’t convert.

The modern alternative to this is a limited trial that lets you market a “no-risk” offer. We’ve been installing limited trial areas for Elevated X customers for the past four years with great results. Limited trials are so effective that it’s really surprising more sites don’t use them. Sites that don’t employ these tools are missing out on sales.

A limited trial represents a win-win situation. You get to give a trial member something of value and at the same time limit the amount of content they consume. The member is happy because there are no surprises and they’re getting something for free (or cheap) with virtually no risk. You still have the ability to bait and tease them prior to convincing them to purchase or upgrade their membership.

You might choose to a offer limited a limited trial that allows access only to photos. When someone clicks a video link, they’re shown a page letting them know they must buy or upgrade their membership for access to videos. Or maybe you’ll only shows the first one or two video clips in each update. Or maybe a trial member gets to download only one movie per day, five per day, 10 per week, etc. Many different configurations can be tested to maximize your conversions.

Something to consider with free-trial areas is that you have a unique opportunity because you have a captive audience. By keeping a person on your site, you’re giving yourself more opportunities to sell that same user. On a timed trial, the user’s trial period simply ends and they no longer have access to your site. You’re relying on them either coming back or joining during the trial period. You’re giving yourself a very small chance of converting that member. As an example, if someone has access to download one high-quality video per day or per week with a limited trial, there’s a high probability they will come back for more the following week.

Whether you run your sites using an adult content management system that gives you the ability to offer trial areas or you choose to build trial areas by hand, this is a powerful sales tool that every pay site owner can add to their bag of tricks.

AJ Hall is a 12-year adult industry veteran and the co-founder and chief executive officer of Elevated X Inc., a provider of popular adult CMS software for the online adult entertainment industry. Hall has spoken at industry trade shows and is a contributing writer for several trade publications. Elevated X powers more than 2,000 leading adult sites, has been nominated for industry awards six times and won the 2012 XBIZ Award for Software Company of the Year.