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Enhancing Landing Pages With Spoken Words

By Michael Stelzner

Can you couple audio with white paper landing pages and improve online registrations?

Read on to find the answer.

I was recently hosting a teleclass with lead generation expert Brian Carroll. One of the attendees asked about marketing strategies with white papers.

Brian brought up an idea I had not heard and frankly I think it is brilliant. He said:

I interviewed Paul Dunnay, who’s senior director of marketing at BearingPoint and asked him how he uses white papers.

One of the cool things BearingPoint does is they have a little bit of an executive summary that’s done as recorded podcast.

What’s really cool is it gives people a preview and we find that there’s a bit of a buzz factor there.

So the idea is this: Create an audio abstract that readers can listen to.

Paul explained that by including the audio abstract he can increase the response of white paper registrations by 200 percent!

If you want to listen to the podcast with Brian and Paul, click here.

Take this one step further: You can also embed audio into your PDF files!! See http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/tutorials/pdfsound/

What are your thoughts about audio introductions to white papers?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 5:23 am and is filed under Lead Generation, Marketing, Writing White Papers. 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.

  • Tom - That is precisely what I do. I also use a plug in for Windows that publishes your podcast in RSS. - Mike
  • Michael; I'm looking hard at audio. You have any tips for recording/editing/broadcasting the stuff? Is it enough to use a microphone, the sound card on your PC, then edit with something like Audacity software?
  • Okay, I went to the www.bearingpoint.com site, and listened to the podcast. It was very good, and I can see the benefit. I have to say I am a sight oriented learner rather than hearing oriented, so I would like to see a text option also, but the podcast was good.
  • Okay folks;

    To see how this works, follow this URL:

    http://www.bearingpoint.com/EDM

    Paul, thanks for providing this!

    Mike
  • SEO Diva;

    Yes the abstract should also be available in written form.

    The idea here is provide an option that can be listened to.

    Seems like it is worth a try.

    Mike
  • "So the idea is this: Create an audio abstract that readers can listen to."

    The abstract is a short summary to let readers know if this white paper is something the really want. It's not an animated talking head. It's not "whitepaper podcast". It's a simple preview of the whitepaper. If you like what you hear, then you are more likely to fill out the form to get the whitepaper.

    The other option, most often, is to say, "Read Our Whitepaper...(but give us your personal information first)." That can be a real turn off, because you don't know what you are getting in the whitepaper. A preview can help get over that hump.
  • Hi Mike,

    But then, I don't want to watch or listen a case study, I want to read it. So shouldn't it be available in written form also?
  • SEO Diva;

    If you listen to the podcast linked above you can hear the case study.

    BTW, I think this was an option that someone could click on to listen to.

    Mike
  • No offense intended, but when I reach a page that has a "talking head" I immediately click out. I polled our office of Internet specialists and got the same response from them. I'm truly surprised at the 200% statistic. Is there a study you can point to?
  • Seems like such a simple idea. Often the most effective ones are. BTW, Mike, I like it when you use audio in some of you posts as well. I think it's a nice touch.
  • Hey Paul;

    Thanks for your response and for stopping in!

    Can you please provide a link to one of those white paper landing pages with audio?

    Would love to see(hear) an example.

    Mike
  • thanks for the mention Mike - we are still seeing results like this and higher at some points which is a sign of a good "give to get" marketing program - the user gets free audio and a sense for what the white paper is about before they give us their registration information.

    also check out my blog at www.buzzmarketingfortechnology.com for more ideas on using new media in your marketing mix

    pd
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