What Drives Prospect Registrations?

By Kirk Crenshaw

What will get prospects to give up their information? – Give them what they want.

Marketing Sherpa and  KnowledgeStorm have just released some interesting data from a survey just completed with 427 B2B Marketers and 2,394 content users. The focus of the survey was around  what type of offers encourage registration.  The results may surprise you:

• White Papers vs. Webcasts: What Prospects Prefer – New Data

Here are two snapshots that really caught my attention:

#1 – What content is worth registration?
Copyright 2007: Knowledgestorm, Inc.

The most surprising finding here is that users did not find webcasts as compelling as vendors had thought.  77% of vendors felt that webcasts would be a compelling reason to register, while only 31% users shared the same opinion.   KnowledgeStorm did offer this advice:

"Archived or on-demand webinars do better than live events in the
KnowledgeStorm network, but still don’t generate as much interest as,
say, a white paper or case study. So, if you’re a marketer trying to
syndicate a webcast or webinar, one approach that could capture more
registrations is to create an event transcript after the fact that
users can download and read on their own time." 

Another thought that I’d like to add is that those who download white papers tend to be doing more research than shopping.  That is, they are earlier in their purchase cycle, so, a white paper is a small commitment on their part.  I’d also be sure to have a form that correlates to that level of commitment – focused on name, email and company…anything outside of that may cause potential prospects to pass you up.  On the other side of the table, webcasts tend to be considered a higher commitment – more time needs to be blocked out to get through one.  I’ve noticed that those who do register for a webcast (be it live or recorded) tend to be further down the purchase cycle.  As a result, many of these people are willing to give up a bit more information on the form.

The other surprising finding here, is that almost half of the users will register for product literature. Wow!- That is pretty surprising.  But, as pointed out in the article:

"Most vendors probably have this information somewhere on their
websites. But if you’re not putting it in a portable format, such as a
PDF, you could be missing an opportunity to gather more registrations
from customers and prospects. The trick is to make sure it’s thorough
and well organized, so its quality is on par with the other
marketing-related content you produce."

Finally, case studies came up big for users (#2, behind white papers).  This makes sense since many prospects want to know how other companies (like themselves) can benefit from your product or service.  Prospects value the experiences of their peers over anything.

#2 – How Often Do You Provide Valid Registration Information?
Copyright 2007: Knowledgestorm, Inc.
This actually jives with what I have seen in the past.  One can generally expect names, emails, company name and industry to be correct – but, ask for phone numbers, and you will increase your odds of getting bogus data.  That is why I prefer to make phone numbers optional on most of my forms.

In the end, what it comes down to is that you must be sure to provide content that your prospects are looking for, provides value add (not just a promo piece), ask the for the right information at the right time (Does it correlate with their purchasing process?), and make sure that users know exactly what you are offering .