Stick ‘Em Up. Now, Let’s Build a Business Partnership.

"Stick ‘em up."
"Let me steal your contact data."
"Now, let’s talk about building a business partnership based on mutual trust and respect."

This is ludicrous chain of logic, but it is exactly what is going on out there far too often. B2B lead generation activities, as discussed in my May 5, 2011 post, should be permission-based. “I agree to give you my contact information knowing that you will contact me in a respectful manner, in exchange for value-rich information that might help me to solve challenges I am wrestling with.”

Way too often, I see pieces of content gated with a registration form that should not be gated. Product spec sheets, marketing pieces and other documents of this nature should not be gated.

For most of us, buying a new car is probably one of the most “technical” purchases we make in our personal lives, so I believe it is a fair comparison to many B2B marketing activities for selling complex products.

I am absolutely not willing to fill out a registration form to access features & spec information for a new car. However, I would be willing to fill out a form knowing that my local dealer will likely contact me, to access objective technology and performance comparisons of hybrid, electric and traditional engine cars. If I filled out a form in good faith and end up being given access to a mere marketing piece, I will be much less likely to buy that brand of car - after being dupped once, why would I believe that my dealer or the car company will be honest as we have other conversations?

The other highly concerning activity, is publishers giving their advertisers full contact information for one of their audience members who clicked on the advertiser’s e-newsletter ad. As described in our Digital Pledge, a click is not a lead. There are interesting things that can be done with click data to serve an audience, but giving full contact information to an advertiser is not on the list. It is really data theft as I am confident that a typical audience member in our industry does not know that a click on an e-newsletter ad can result in full contact information being given to the advertiser.

The challenge is, generating value-rich content that can be gated with a registration form is not entirely simple. My next two posts will address our criteria for gateable content and ways we can help you to cost effectively generate content for your lead generation efforts.

The Silent Conversation of Lead Generation Content Marketing

Permission-based content marketing is built on a foundation of trust and reciprocity. The silent conversation goes something like this.

Potential Customer: I have a challenge for which I need to find a solution. Based on the description of your content, you seem to understand at least part of my challenge and it seems as though via your research, expertise and/or technology development you might be able to help me to solve at least part of my problem. I am going to trust that our exchange will be equitable, so I going to give you my contact information and answer your question or two. In exchange, I trust that I will be granted access to a rich piece of content that is inline with the quantity and value of the information I gave you.

Solution Provider: I ultimately need to sell my product or service and I believe that a great way to begin creating opportunities is to share my expertise and solutions-oriented information with customers and potential customers who have a problem I can help to solve. If I can solve a problem, I will have a solid opportunity to build or further develop a mutually beneficial client relationship. Because I understand that this opportunity creation tactic is built on mutual trust and respect, I will under promise and over deliver. The content I provide will be even more valuable than my customer or potential customer believes that it will be
prior to registering to access my content.

Potential Customer: I also trust that this solutions provider will respect my by providing information that is in-line with my needs, not spamming me and not sharing my contact information with other people without my permission. If that trust is broken, it does not bode will for our potential relationship.


I have a great number of concerns relating to this issue with the pharmaceutical manufacturing space of the b2b media industry. Trust is being broken; short cuts are being taken that ultimately are not good for anyone within the marketing value chain.

A series of three to five posts sharing thoughts, best practices and ultimately solutions on this topic will be posted during the next few weeks. Stay tuned!