Ellie Mae, a firm creating and selling Encompass software for mortgage brokers, was featured on Marketing Sherpa. The company uses guerrilla software marketing techniques to not only increase conversions but also subvert the competition.

From the time a user register for free trial download, the software firm tracks every progress including installation. As soon as the installation finishes, free trial user would get the second drip of emails, which offers training and course on using the program.

What’s probably interesting is the fact that many computer users have personal firewall installed on their computer nowadays. To overcome this, they offer CD-ROM of the trial via postal mail. Some users also want to install the software on multiple computers.

To build relationship with competition’s customers, they create a useful plug-in for the competitor’s software. By using direct mail and search marketing, they offer the plug-in, wait 90 days until the relationship was right before trying to cross-sell the users with a trial offer for Encompass.

Eighty eight percent of prospects who download the file or insert the CD wind up installing the software. Of the trial installations, 68% take the next step and either take some training or simply test the software themselves.

They also test different price point to see which converts best. When the price was at $195, prospects converted at 10% rate.

Read the entire case study at Marketing Sherpa.