In an effort to get more midsized companies as customers, Salesforce might soon offer free trials for its Marketing Cloud products.
At a press briefing yesterday, Salesforce Marketing Cloud CEO Scott McCorkle said the company would soon be under “tremendous pressure” to start offering free trials as it looks to increase the democratization of its platform. “We want organizations of every size to be able to use our platform,” said McCorkle. “The goal is to have an offering that is both easy for enterprises, and powerful for smaller companies to use.”
To engage the smaller companies that can’t afford the cost or the time commitment for a paid trial, McCorkle said the company is considering allowing them to take the products for a free spin so they can see the value for themselves.
“We could let customers map what they wanted the customer journey to be, and test it on themselves first, inputting their own phone number and interaction data,” said McCorkle.
A free software trial is a common demand in the software world, but you don’t see it all that much at the enterprise level. Even McCorkle admitted that Salesforce was hesitant to try it out since it would allow customers to use its platform immediately to send out sensitive information on their channels. But he said it was important for the company to be flexible with its platform, and engage all types of segments. “It would put our mindset back in the midsize market,” McCorkle said.
