Marketers: White Papers Should Require User Registration, Study Shows
By Michael StelznerPop quiz.
What marketing tool are readers most willing to register for: demos, webinars, case studies, white papers or analyst reports?
The answer may not surprise you if you follow my columns: white papers.
A new study by KnowledgeStorm and MarketingSherpa reports that both marketing professionals and users overwhelmingly rank white papers as the content they are most willing to register for.
Said another way, this means that folks are willing to trade their personal contact information for a white paper. If you want to generate leads, white papers are your magic weapon.
Nearly 2400 readers ranked their willingness to register for items as follows:
- White paper (79%)
- Case study (62%)
- Analyst report (56%)
- Product literature(45%)
- Demo (38%)
Another important finding was that 72 percent of people that read white papers indicated a detailed summary of the paper will strongly encourage completing a registration form, while only one in four marketing professionals agreed.
This discrepancy between what readers want and what marketing pros deliver is one I have seen for some time. The solution: Be sure you offer many paragraphs of content as a lure to get readers to register.
MarketingSherpa said;
Users are very selective about the content they will register for, so it shouldn’t be surprising that providing enough detail to make an informed decision is important. But it appears that vendors don’t pay as much attention to this factor as they should. Take a look at the summary information you’re providing for your content and ask yourself if it will satisfy users’ need to know what they’re getting.
What are your thoughts about this study?
(5 votes, average: 3.8 out of 5)
Loading …If you're new here, be sure to signup for my newsletter and join 20,000 others. You can also follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
Receive email updates when new articles are posted.
