
Ask: How do you design the sales funnel for products - johnmurch
Say you are building a SAAS application. How do you design your front end sales (beta accounts, free month, ebook, etc.) which leads to backend sales (consulting, yearly contract, etc.)<p>In terms of gamification - building viral loops like finishing profile (80% complete, e.g. linkedin) how do you keep track of those viral loops and integrate/design for them in product.<p>Hopefully it make sense, just looking for some tools/sites/ideas other than a pen and paper
======
sdotsen
Note, I'm not an expert, I just run a free SaaS application
(<http://www.ikeepm.com>). When I first started I tried 2-3 designs. There
were certain words I was using that didn't yield good results. Ultimately, I
tried copying what seemed to work for other SaaS companies. I tried to be
original but I'm not a CSS/HTML expert.

Two things I learned, people like photos. So I added large photos showcasing
some of the features. I also added larger buttons but the most important
factor was not requiring the user to confirm their email addresses. Sure I get
fake accounts, but I'll take that over losing customers who get frustrated
over "lost" emails or not being able to get started within minutes.

I changed my signup process by requiring just their email address and a
password. Once they signup/login, they can immediately use the service. I plan
on rewriting the app soon and putting out a new design. It can definitely be
better, but I just havent found the time to do it. So far it has worked well
for me.

------
grep
I'm also very interested in this question.

