- Contain twenty too many, largely pointless fields
- Be a downright inconvenience to fill in
- Ask harder questions than a Mensa test
- Act as a cast-iron guarantee of an unwanted sales call
- Offer no promise of quality or usefulness
- Demand endorsements in return for downloads
- Expect prospects to think any of this was a good deal
Other ‘Diary of a Content Pimp’ posts
1) The Kick-off – why we’re doing this 2) Goals, Metrics & Fears – sticking our collective necks out 3) The Promotion Plan – how we’re pimping the Checklist 5) The Power of a Blog Series – why multiples are better than singlesEnjoyed this article?
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Comments
Nicholas Kontopoulos July 7th, 2012
Neil,
Reading you blog made me chuckle, for the right reasons.
See, I stumbled way onto your site via a blog post I was reading (can’t remember which one) that linked to one of your eBooks. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself only having to give away a comfortable level of personal information in exchange for what looked like some cool content, which I pleased to say lead me to wanting to access more. So, I was again pleased to see I was not asked again to resubmit my details because your site was smart enough to know I had already given this over – it gets my goat how many companies fail here.
So, I think your post is spot on in respect to the point of view you deliver and I look forward to connecting with Velocity in the coming weeks.
Thanks for the great content and cool insights you share via your blog.
Cheers,
Nicholas Kontopoulos
Neil July 7th, 2012
Thanks Nicholas,
We try to practice what we preach. When we were putting the new site together we spent some time sorting out the form action and structure to get it right. But, as with all things, it’s an ongoing process…
You might like the little piece Ryan did on our Facebook page to poke fun at some of the forms B2B marketers put together – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Velocity-Partners/306083362757573
Quite funny 🙂
Dylan Jones July 16th, 2012
This should become a classic post, I’ll definitely be sharing it with our tech vendor members because many are obsessed with forms for every item of content.
My biggest bugbear in the tech space is definitely case study or fact sheet forms as you point above, is there anything more insane than reducing your readership by up to 80% on the very document that should convince and convert prospects into requesting a demo or RFI/RFP etc!
Yet so many tech vendors do this largely because they have such limited content channels to generate any other leads opps.
One of the best blogs I’ve read in a very long time guys, absolutely first class content.
Neil July 17th, 2012
Cheers Dylan,
Really appreciate the kind words 🙂
I’d say we’re in a world where people know the power of data, they know they need to gather it, they know they need to use it: but there’s a lot of confusion on how to make it work.
We’re seeing a lot of mistakes. And this is a classic.
Checking out your site now. Looks really cool and in the right place at the right time.
Jessie Tracy July 30th, 2012
I’ve been advising clients to get rid of (or simplify) their forms for years because I’ve considered them a hindrance to downloads and ultimately response rates. For years I have had uncomfortable (yet passive) arguments over the same “to gate or not to gate” issue with every new piece of content where we dug in our heels over the same, tired arguments. I wish I had seen this post to reinvigorate both arguments much sooner.
Neil July 31st, 2012
Thanks Jessie,
I’ve been in that position many times myself. It’s like there are two options a) no form, or b) a form with more fields than Wyoming. I suspect the issue is that marketing is often measured by the number of leads they provide (rather than the quality). But I’m prepared to keep having the argument if you are 😉