This artifact outlines the campaign structure of a sales-led free trial play we ran at the end of our Spring Cohort in 2023. The idea of the campaign was to drive virality inside of organizations through "post-cohort asset packs" which were summaries of what folks learned in cohort programs. This would help them create "lunch and learn" events and spread Reforge content internally. To take it to the next level, we attached a free trial offer to the campaign so that anyone inside of the org that wanted to see more could try Reforge for free. The following campaign outline / HubSpot automation shows how we kept this campaign organized and increased the efficiency of the trial motion for AEs.

Before this process, when someone requested a free trial, the rep would get an email, they would need to manually respond to confirm the right email address for the user's trial, open the trial in admin, confirm with the user that the trial was open, and then remember to follow up with that person at the end of the trial. This automated 85% of that process.

One limitation we faced was that we could not integrate our administrative backend with HubSpot, so we could not trigger anything off of the free trial being opened.

This campaign drove north of $10k of net new revenue. Our conversion from trial to purchase wasn't as high as we would have liked to see, but we got great feedback from the team about this process. We will continue to use this process for post-cohort asset pack campaigns, and will also use it if we ever choose to offer a free trial of our teams product through our website. A future iteration we are proposing is to drop the trial user into a warm nurture sequence at the end of the trial if they don't engage with sales outreach.

Chris Eberhardt

This framework automated a previously manual process of offering free trials of the Reforge platform as a way of driving paid user growth.

We will continue to use this process for post-cohort asset pack campaigns, and will also use it if we ever choose to offer a free trial of our teams product through our website. A future iteration we are proposing is to drop the trialer into a warm nurture sequence at the end of the trial if they don't engage with sales outreach.

People in five programs will be getting post-cohort asset packs so they can circulate their learnings internally. In the email, there will be a link where their colleagues can request a free one week trial.

Generate free trials to start new biz / expansion conversations. Circulate Reforge learnings / quality internally.

This process will help automate some of the free trial legwork, help the end user get started quickly in the platform, and automatically follow up with them for next steps after the trial.

2. User requests free trial from this form

         e. Sends lead an email to confirm their email address for the trial

 Once email is confirmed, AE should open a one week free trial in admin

 After trial is opened, AE should move the deal to “trial opened” deal stage

Send the lead an email that their trial has been opened and give some recommended starting points

After 7 days, the deal stage will automatically change to “ended” and the lead will get a 2 email sequence looking to connect about a call

Automated Free Trial Process in HubSpot

Post-cohort Free Trial Play

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