EBlog

Increase whitepaper registration by giving a preview

May 5, 2008 | Posted by: Lee

B2B technology buyers spend a lot of time trolling the web for content, and they want content that "educates" such as whitepapers.  But how do you drive up registration for your content?

One of the simplest ways is to provide buyers with a preview of what they'll get. 

Buyers want information that helps them do their job better.  80% say the type of content is the most important factor in determining whether to register for content or not (see study by KnowledgeStorm and MarketingSherpa).  The content must be relevant to them before they'll give you their info.

In order for buyers to evaluate what you're providing, they have to have some idea what the whitepaper is about.  While titles are important is grabbing someone's attention, they aren't always sufficient in moving a prospect to action.

75% of buyers want to read at least one paragraph before providing registration info.  Interestingly enough, only 48% of marketers provide this type of info.  By adding a small preview, you can increase registration.  

Speaking of registration.  Another way to increase registration is to ask for only the most critical information - name, company, email.  How many of us have bailed at the registration form because it asked for too much info?  While it's important to know who your prospect is, your top priority is getting prospects into the pipeline to begin with.  Reducing the amount of info you ask for will increase conversions.

As far as the information you get, the good news is most registrants provide real names (72%) and emails (68%).  Many use personal emails instead of work related emails, but these are still good leads as most reported using them to help separate vendor emails from work related emails.