Plum Subscription Checklist
Plum is on a mission to help people make more money with less effort.
Nov 2023 - Feb 2024 | 🟢 Live
Problem
Our Free Trial to Invoiced Subscribers conversion dropped 10% YoY, which contributes to a decline in MoM revenue growth since Aug 2023 by 0.2%.
“Not Worth it.”
Many users didn’t find the paid features useful or they cannot afford it. The value they've experienced couldn’t justify the cost they’re paying.
“I don’t use this enough. Nothing needed.”
“I don’t earn enough money to pay for the extra services this provides. Didn’t utilise any of them”
Lack of Awareness
23% of Invoiced Subscribers do not use any of the paid features during their free trial.
Our hypothesis is that many users are not aware of what features are included in their plan and the potential value they can provide. Our inability to engage couldn’t empower users to fully utilise the features and maximise the return.
Strategies
Since redesigning our subscription model requires more research to formulate a well-considered strategy, we needed an interstitial solution that could surface the value to new subscribers.
Looking into the data, we’ve observed that the Invoiced Conversion is proportional to the Feature Adoption Rate - the more features they enable, the higher their intention to pay for the subscriptions. The Free trial to Invoiced conversion increased by 84% when users enabled 3 features, compared to those who enabled 0.
Show me the worth
We want to provide a wizard that nudges users to unlock the best of their subscriptions with incentives. However, having a list of to-dos can sometimes be boring, when it requires too much effort and offers too less return. How can we ensure users are motivated to complete those steps, and rewarded with what they expected, within their 30-day free trial?
Make it a game that feels rewarding
Creating a holistic gamification system is not our intention, but we can utilise behavioural science flexibly. We calculated the potential monetary impact of completing all missions and brought it front and center. Creating a vision of what they can achieve and highlighting their progress helps to keep them motivated and feels rewarding.
We also made the expiry date visible (which apparently isn’t now) - We have a lot of users complaining about not being aware of subscribing and being charged without noticing it. We need to remove the forced continuity pattern and convert customers ethically.
-
__________________________________________________
Users unintentionally subscribe to premium services during free trials, leading to unexpected charges and frustration afterwards.
I had no idea I still had premium this whole time. Please refund me!
Didn’t realise I was being billed for using your services, I’m upset as I could have been saving with my bank free of charge!
I have never chosen to opt for subscription, I thought the payments coming out of my account were just deposit into my plum account. I’m furious!
-
Users appreciate having a wizard to get started and it’s motivating.
“The gamification made it funˮ
Endowed Progress Effect & Loss aversion
We found the particular features that drive higher retention and turned them into a contained list that still fits within people’s horizons - a trial shouldn’t be a heavy lift. Excessive tasks could overwhelm people and worsen the experience.
The first mission will be completed by default, to give users a sense of progress and ease them in smoothly - it also makes it harder to lose what they’ve achieved.
Notification Nudges
We crafted a set of push and in-app notifications to reinforce the loss aversion. Each will be sent on:
The first 24 hours after the free trial start
The 3/7/14/21/29 days
When the user upgrades or downgrades during their free trial
When the user achieved a milestone, i.e. Completed the 1st, 2nd, and all of the missions
Impact
+19.2%
Free Trial to Invoiced Subscribers Conversion
-4.2%
New Subscribers Churn in the same month
+13.4%
Free trial users activated more than 3 paid features
Key takeaways
Quick fix is just a quick fix.
Although the project brings a mild impact, it doesn’t address the underlying problem of paid features not being tailored and fulfilling user needs. A thorough, market-driven research should be conducted ASAP to dig out what their real needs are and what they are willing to pay for.