Straight-Line Onboarding: It's the minimum number of steps users need to take to achieve their First Strike. Creating a Straight-Line Onboarding experience is critical in getting more users to experience a product's value. You're in a race against time. The goal is to decrease the time-to-value (TTV), the amount of time it takes a new customer to realize the value of a product. A short TTV means customers receive a faster return on their investment of time--and that means they are more likely to stick around!

Post-trial survey emails can improve your free-to-paid conversion rate if you trigger certain events based on user feedback. For instance, if a user says the product was too complex, you can have a customer success representative reach out to walk them through the product. As in bowling, if you don't get a strike in the first throw, you have another shot. So, why not use post-trial survey emails as a way to rekindle the opportunity and provide an incredible experience? After all, these same users were interested in using your product for a specific reason. Let's help them out.

Post-trial survey emails can improve your free-to-paid conversion rate if you trigger certain events based on user feedback. For instance, if a user says the product was too complex, you can have a customer success representative reach out to walk them through the product. As in bowling, if you don't get a strike in the first throw, you have another shot. So, why not use post-trial survey emails as a way to rekindle the opportunity and provide an incredible experience? After all, these same users were interested in using your product for a specific reason. Let's help them out.

Will you share why you decided not to buy… • Still evaluating - Offer a trial extension. • Not a fit - Drop into nurture. • Too complex - Schedule a customer success call. • Too expensive - Provide a one-time discount. • Went with another solution - Send top-of-funnel lead-nurturing emails to stay top-of-mind if the other service doesn't work out. • Just doing research - Add to nurture (notice the nurturing trend?). • Missing product feature or integration - See if it's on your product roadmap; if so, let them know when it's live.

Post-Trial Survey Emails: To improve your free-trial experience, you need to learn why it didn't work out for some users. This is why I almost always recommend using post-trial survey emails. Even with the most amazing free-trial experience, most users won't convert. Some aren't a good fit. Some might not have had time to check out your tool. Others, well, they might have needed more time or someone to help them learn to use the product.

• If you have a freemium product, recap your premium features so that users can explore them right away. • Customer-welcome emails must be sent as soon as users upgrade. • The point of customer-welcome emails is to reassure users that they made the right decision, remind them what they can now do with the platform, and set expectations for what comes next.

When you buy something from a brand you don't trust, waiting for a confirmation email can feel like an eternity. Your new customers feel the same way. To reduce that anxiety, use customer-welcome emails: 1. Reassure users that they made the right decision. 2. Remind users of what they can do with the platform. 3. Set expectations for what comes next (e.g., will a customer success rep reach out?).