I know that my previous company did get more customers when they were advertising a free 30 day trial than whey they were not. I am certain that enough of the customers stuck around after 30 days to make it worthwhile.

The business was very much customer-service oriented. Every new customer got a phone call to ensure that they were properly set up, give them a 5 minute or so introduction to the product, and personally invite the customer to a weekly live training webinar.

They catered to less computer-savy people mostly, but even the technical folks seemed to appreciate the personal touch.