What it looks like
- demo access or a trial element for a small amount
- a deposit to lock a price or a lead time
- a paid first consultation
What changes in how the team works
- Free advice for people who came to have a look disappears.
- The rep spends time on people who have already paid.
- A clear transition point appears: one job before the payment, a different one after.
- Conversion into the main product gets counted from people who paid, and becomes controllable.
On an accountancy training project we made a micro-transaction stage mandatory: a demo for 29 zloty, or locking the terms for 100. Planned conversion into the main payment held at 35% from a qualified enquiry.
Where it does not work
- low deal size: the micro-payment is comparable to the main price
- a product that cannot be shown in parts
- a long cycle with tenders and approvals
- when there is nothing to give in return for the micro-payment
The main mistake
Selling the micro-payment as a product in its own right and stopping there. It is there to change the person's status. If there is no separate conversation script about the main product after the micro-payment, the tool does not work.
What to measure
- conversion from enquiry to micro-payment
- conversion from micro-payment to the main product
- the time between the first payment and the second