"TrialPay - Pay By Trying Something New"

"TrialPay - Pay By Trying Something New"

That's what the tag line says. TrialPay is a company with a simple, clear defined purpose - they pay you for getting customers to to try new leading brand products.

Thanks to Mr 47 Hats for pointing me at this one.

There are a couple of ways this could work. From what I've read, if 100 potential customers download your product for a trial, maybe 5 will purchase it; if you're lucky. What if each of the 95 non-buyers were offered a second chance? What if you could email them to say "If you buy something else from one of these other big name companies......you can get the product for free!" Now wouldn't that be nice?

TrialPay works on the premise that to a company like, say, American Express, a customer may be worth on average $1000 over their life. So giving $49 to you as a reward for introducing them seems worth it, doesn't it?

Another aspect of TrialPay that I find fascinating is this - the offers are targeted at the person and their location, and the payment to the merchant varies accordingly. So if their web site is anything to go by, a new customer for ebay in China might net you $5, whilst a new US customer for Amex might net you $49. Simple eh?

But here's the nifty bit. The monetary value of a piece of software is almost always defined as what a customer in the US will pay for it. I, for example, might charge charge $39-95 for my first product. It's not much to a US citizen, and it's even less to a Brit (weak Dollar + strong Pound = UK export misery). But what about the gazillion emerging Chinese computer users, or Indian, or Brazilian? Will they fork out $40 for a piece of software? I doubt it. The fact that TrialPay targets its offers to the affluence of the potential customer's region means take up rates should be reasonably consistent across locations. OK, getting $5 for your app instead of $40 might rub, but if the alternative is $0....

It is with this in mind that I might offer this form of payment straight away, at least for personal sales. Probably doesn't work for B2B sales. I like the idea of all customers being able to afford to buy my wares, not just the affluent ones. Maybe it's just the raging lefty in me.