Are you struggling to get more people to sign up for your product demos?

If you are, you may want to take a cue from the grocery industry. Here’s why…

Giving away a free sample can increase sales up to 2,000%, as it did for Marsh Supermarkets. In fact, 68% of their customers said it persuaded them to make a purchase.

A 2011 study by Carrie Heilman found that free samples can encourage someone to switch from their planned product purchase to the promoted product. It was found to “draw” people in and encourage a sale if they didn’t have previous plans.

But to get prospects to bite on these offers, you have to make it as easy and compelling as possible for the user to say “yes.”

That’s why quizzes are an incredibly powerful way of generating leads. In a recent example, the Worth Global Style Network used a “What’s your customer type?” quiz to generate 243 leads with just 1,415 visits.

We did this ourselves with a product wizard quiz and increased our client’s demo sign up conversion rate by 19.22%.

In this article, you’ll learn exactly how we did it and how you can use a quiz to achieve similar results for your product.

The Problem: Product Line Expansion Caused Confusion

Our client, a B2B software company, had recently acquired a competitor in their industry. This acquisition expanded our client’s product line from one to three.

This shift caused a huge brand confusion issue. Specifically, customers and prospects familiar with the old product weren’t familiar with the new ones.

From the new options being presented to them, the client’s prospects were confused on which product was right for them. To make matters worse, the product options weren’t exactly easy to explain, causing users even more confusion.

As you can see, users had to decipher the vague wall of text above to figure out which option was right for them.

Here’s the bottom line:

Potential customers were abandoning the demo sign up and not taking action because they were confused.

This begged the question: how can we clarify these options for users to reduce confusion, boost demo signups, and drive more sales?

The Solution: A Product Wizard Quiz!

We decided to make the demo sign up experience more intuitive (and enjoyable) for the user by guiding them to the option that was the best fit.

To accomplish this, we created a product wizard to ask users a series of questions that would help them figure out which product was right. As an added bonus, it allowed the user to give us information in a fun way, almost like a game.

At the end of the quiz, the user was offered a free demo version of the right product based on the responses they provided.

As a finishing touch, we removed the names of the products at the end of the quiz to sidestep the brand confusion issue.

The Results: Better Customer Satisfaction, Less Confusion, and More Demo Signups

Our usability testing showed that users found the quiz to be easier to understand and use. The clean progress bar helped as well, propelling users through a clear sequence of steps.

Even better, we achieved a 17.39% uplift in total demos signups and a 19.22% uplift in the overall demo conversion rate.

Not bad — but we weren’t satisfied. We knew that through a little bit of testing and tweaking, we could potentially achieve even better results.

So we aimed to improve on the original with a second version of the quiz. Here are a few of the key points we tested:

• “Smart” Quiz Options: Version 2 of the quiz gathered data from previous user answers so they would have to fill out fewer form fields at the end of the quiz. We were ultimately able to remove four form fields, using the “smart” functionality to input data the user had already provided. (Pro-tip: You can also get the form to pull in data dynamically through the user’s IP. Examples include the user’s state and country information.)

• Embedded Forms: In Version 1, the wizard redirected users to a separate page to sign up for the demo. This added extra load time, which increased the chance of users abandoning after being pushed to that page. Instead, we embedded a form directly into the last step of the product wizard quiz.

With Version 2, we saw another healthy increase in performance. Overall, the conversion rate of demos increased by 14% and demo submissions increased by 27%.

Conclusion

If there’s any chance your customer is confused by your product offerings, a product wizard quiz could be the solution you’re looking for.

If fact, if you’re looking to segment your audience in any way, a quiz may very well be the perfect tool for you to test.

Here’s why:

• It provides an immediate value proposition and clear path to solving your user’s problem.
• Users get a chance find out exactly which of your solutions work best for their unique situation.
• It removes distraction and makes it clear what the user’s next action step is.
• It helps and delights your audience, which is what you should always strive for.
• It makes your users even more inclined to sign up for your demo.
• It leads prospects to buying a conclusion rather than telling them what to buy — a powerful strategy that’s also more honest and ethical.

The truth is, your users don’t want to do any extra work. They want you to tell them what’s best.

This isn’t new advice — Companies have been using quizzes to great effect in SaaS and other industries for years. But we hope this article has shed some light on how you go about implementing quizzes on your website to boost your SaaS conversions.

If you’re ready to build a quiz for your site, it’s easier than you might think. For instance, we had our own developers create a product wizard without much trouble. And even if you don’t have developers, there are plenty of “plug-n-play” services out there that can do this for you, such as:

So, what are you waiting for? Try this tactic out for yourself & let us know what you think!

What obstacles have you had in your journey to boost demo signups? Have you tested quizzes as a conversion tactic and if so, what were the results? Let us know in the comments and we’d be happy to help.

About the Author: Will Chou is a digital strategist at WebMechanix, a digital marketing agency specializing in AdWords PPC marketing and focused on providing real business results. Get a free case study as a gift: How a Healthcare Company Tripled Paid Search ROI in Three Months.