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 instead of a free one
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 not there for its own money, 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