Registration behavior: should you provide more information?

It's not just email marketing experiences that offer insights on email marketing. Reading through a recent study on technology buyers yielded some tidbits of value to the email side of things.

Hundreds of such buyers were asked about their behavior when faced with a registration form that gives them access to content (typically a white paper.)

Two key facts popped out:

1. 43% give a personal -- rather than work -- email address on these forms.

The main reason is to keep their work email free of vendor solicitations. But 37% of those using personal addresses said it was because they use this personal account to organize their research. And 12% did it to ensure they got the emails, as their work account has a spam filter that is too aggressive.

What this means: If you're in B2B, don't reject Gmail, Hotmail and other "consumer" addresses as worthless. The growing sophistication of webmail means such addresses are not as throwaway as they used to be.

2. 74% wanted to see at least a paragraph of overview information about the content before submitting a registration form.

What this means: Is there a parallel to an email subscription, here? Do we make enough information available to prospective subscribers for them to feel comfortable exchanging their email address for email content.

Many websites provide just a one-line sentence about the content of the emails they send out. Is that enough for prospects? Would a simple link to more detailed information boost sign-up rates?

My anecdotal evidence: 34% of new subscribers to the Email Marketing Reports newsletter only sign-up after visiting the "more info" link embedded in the standard newsletter registration form that appears at the main site...

More on list building | Tags: email marketing, list building, email subscription forms

Permalink | June 12, 2007 | 0 comment(s)
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