marketing, market-research, educationAs a strategy to both further validate our app for the education market, and to later use the results for marketing, we’re considering approaching one or two mid-sized colleges and offering them a one semester free trial.
My question is how much of a difference the size of the trial - a large (entire college), a medium (one department) or a small (one class) - would make in terms of our goals for the trial. Would doing just one class be just as good as opening up to the entire school?
Would doing just one class be just as good as opening up to the entire school?
No. Students from one field won’t necessarily consume the same way as students from another. And students consumption habits change as they age and near entering the work force.
For similar reasons, consider trying multiple geographical regions. Insofar as I’m aware, consumers in NYC != SV != South != Mid-West.
And as fiprojects already stressed, there are marketing benefits in trying it out in many places at once.
If I were in your shoe’s, I would make the app available to 50 or 100 students at each college, regardless if the college is small, medium or large.
Why?
You are forgetting brand awareness.
Each trial opens a door into that college - It helps you directly promote the app inside that institution, reducing some of your marketing headaches/coldcalls (the success in one college may not automatically be recognised, known or even valued by another college).
The size of the college should be irrelevant - treat each college with equal respect (though by all means, charge them differently based on the number of user licenses sold for example). Each college is a potential customer - the smallest college could be in partnership with a larger institution. For example, I recently discovered a library in my nearest City in Northern Germany is one of five or six other colleges worldwide that hold a special relationship with both the UN and Harvard. Your smallest college could bring you the world.
In addition, first hand familiarity with your brand, your product, and any support the app might require will, in my opinion, open more doors for you than making a cold call to two colleges and recounting the great success at some other college.
Some experience I have that might interest you: I have an app and approached customers. I offered free, discounted and full price trials. No response. They have not tried the product, nor have they heard of me (or my business) so it is not that I have a bad reputation, it is because I have no reputation. I have struggled to find out why I got so little traction but believe it might be related to “something that is too good to be true is to good to be true” as my product offers more for less price than the competition. I suspect prospective customers think there is a catch or a trap that I am not revealing. My point here is getting your foot in any door will not be easy - it is soul destroying when you work so hard on something you can be so proud over - I see it as a numbers game - the more trials you reach out for, the greater your chance of one or two of them giving you a chance.
Best of luck!
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