“Fender Play” Free Trial Offer – Sales Page And Marketing Breakdown

Here’s What You Should Be Copying From The Fender Free Trial Offer

First off the design on this offer is great. The page looks solid and I’d recommend saving it in your personal swipe file for inspiration. The graphics are clean and modern, there’s a nice product mockup, and they have some big, bold graphics. They do a great job with the icons, having an uncluttered page, and not crowding with too much content.

The value proposition is also super simple. Try it for free, no credit card required… That line under the button “No Credit Card Required” in my experience probably doubled or tripled their sign up rate alone (which isn’t without it’s own challenges that we’ll get to in a moment).

Weaknesses And Areas For Improvement

First off, as mentioned above having a no credit card free trial offer can be difficult as you will add a ton of leads, but have a hard time converting those to a paid customer. With most products the harsh reality is that not everyone will take action and use the product, training, software, etc.

The reality is, the perceived value of your product will likely never be as high as at the time of signup. I’ll dive into this in a moment but for now just make the mental note that if you can… You really need to get the credit card number at time of sign up.

Finally this offer has tons of opportunity for order bumps, cross sells, and bonuses or add ons that raise the perceived value. When making a front end offer it should be bold and cater to both those who are just looking to put a toe in the water, to those who are jumping in with both feet.

In this example it might be someone who has been looking at that guitar and amp combo, needs some strings or picks, or even personalized 1 on 1 lessons or gear recommendations.

Three Things I’d Do To Improve This Free Trial Offer…

As noted above there are a few simple areas where this offer could be massively improved. First off require a credit card up front. The reality is it’s just going to make everything easier… And with the amount of trust Fender has built in the market they are in a good position to ask. By having customers put a little skin in the game (in the form of entering their credit card number) they will no longer have zero downside to just ignoring the product. In fact, in the case of a paid trial they will be working like heck to get their value out of the trial. (without needing to send me several emails a day to see if I still have a pulse)

Second is Fender should really consider offering some additional offers at time of purchase like a guitar starter kit, picks, strings, pedals, or any other of the many things a beginner to intermediate guitarist needs. Being a a guitarist myself I have happily lead my learning journey wallet-first buying all sorts of gizmos and gadgets I probably didn’t need and I’m sure I’m not alone there.

Finally I’d recommend adding a few “bonuses” for signing up. Things that go above and beyond and would be worth the cost of admission alone (assuming this is a paid trial). This might be a guide to picking the right guitar, exclusive lesson series, or a gift card towards a store purchase.

Overall Grade (C+)

Overall as with any offer review you’ll find on this site it’s better than the vast majority of them out there. For Fender I settled on a C+… Leveraging their strong brand and history of putting out great products, great design, and super clear messaging this offer definitely works. That being said by implementing a few changes listed above I think they have an opportunity to massively improve the results it is bringing in for the company as a whole.