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Asking Too Many Questions of Prospects? The Magic Number is …

By Michael Stelzner

What is your name? Can I peak into your wallet? Can you also open your trunk while you are at it?

Some of these questions seem pretty intrusive.

Recent research revealed that asking too many questions before allowing someone to receive a white paper or newsletter, actually scares folks away. Duh!

What is interesting, is that some research has shown that there actually is a magic number of questions you can ask to increase registrations. Read on…

A recent article in BtoB stated:

While it’s important to know who your prospects and customers are, asking too many questions when someone signs up for a newsletter or one-time communication can discourage them from completing the process, said Gil Ben-Dov, senior VP-marketing and sales at marketing automation software company Market2Lead.

“We completed a case study this year and found that people average 17 questions in front of their white papers. This resulted in a less than 10% response rate,” he said. “We increased [response rates] by 40% by shortening the forms to six questions. We use an analogy of meeting someone out at a bar. Is the first thing you do before you shake hands to ask for a complete medical history? No.”

Here are six questions for you:

  1. Do you require registrations for your papers?
  2. How many questions do you ask?
  3. What type of response are you getting?
  4. Have you tried altering the number of questions?
  5. What is your take on six questions?
  6. Do you have any other tips to increase registrations?
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This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 9:54 am and is filed under Lead Generation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Wow! I guess us writers need to take an active role in what happens with our work after it passes from our hands, eh?
  • Uh oh, Michael's hit on a Chandler Hot Button. Time for a rant (it's a highly rantable subject).

    A few years ago I crafted a pair of killer B2B direct campaigns for an enterprise software client. I did the concept, loved the offer, wrote the copy, saw the layouts, and figured we'd kill.

    Both times the response rate was far below my best guess.

    After the second, I did what I should have done anyway. I responded to the mailer URL.

    I found two pages of questions standing in the way of the offer. Two.

    A similar fate awaited those who called.

    After asking a lot of careful questions, I found an IT guy who didn't want to be specific, but said the log suggested a questionnaire abandon rate in excess of 90%.

    Ouch. In other words, we were only doing marginally better than if we'd put the wrong URL and phone number on the mailer...
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