Web Ink Now

DEBATE: Totally free content vs. requiring registration

The debate about gating valuable content (such as ebooks, white papers, research reports and the like) behind a registration requirement comes up again and again.

Readers of my books and blog know that I come down firmly in the make it free camp along with Seth Godin and Tom Peters.

But my friends over at HubSpot, including VP Marketing Mike Volpe argue for registration. HubSpot is wildly successful. So there’s something there.

Mike and I decided to debate the issues.

To squeeze or not to squeeze. Here are the options

Making the content totally free with no registration required. Value comes from many more people consuming and spreading your content.

David Meerman Scott: "The analysis I have done around form versus no form has suggested that there is a 50:1 ratio whether people will download or not. For example, if a behind-a-form offer enjoyed 1000 downloads, that same offer would have gotten 50 000 downloads if it were not behind a form. Why not spread your ideas to as many people as possible?"

Requiring an email address (and other personal information) prior to your buyers being permitted to download content. With a gate, each person downloading becomes a valuable sales lead.

Mike Volpe: "At one level, yes, it's great to have your content spread far and wide as much as possible. On the flipside, though, most marketers have goals in terms of the number of leads they need to generate and you are responsible to your boss," says Mike. In order to support the sales team adequately and give them something tangible to follow up on, a business has to use forms to generate leads.

Watch video of the entire debate between me and Mike.

Download an ebook version of us debating the issues.

Who is right?

Please consider commenting on this blog post or tweeting your thoughts using hashtag #HSDebate. What have you experienced? Is there a "right" answer?

Image: Shutterstock / monarx3d

Disclosure: I am on the board of advisors of HubSpot. In addition, I serve the company as "Marketer in Residence" spending about a day a month in their Boston-area offices helping with marketing strategies.

How real time communications drives measurable ROI at Fortune 100 companies

UPDATE November 2, 2010 - Partly as a result of the buzz generated by this ebook release yesterday morning, over the past 24 hours, my new book Real-Time Marketing & PR has ranked between #6 and #22 overall of all the millions of books books sold by Amazon.com. Thank you to all who purchased a copy.

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In a new free ebook releasing today, I describe my research of the Fortune 100.

Breaking news!

Interestingly, the Fortune 100 companies that engage in real-time communications beat the S&P 500 stock index on average while the companies that do not communicate at speed underperformed.

Download Real-Time: How Marketing & PR at Speed Drives Measurable Success now.

I name names.

In my research, I contacted the communications departments of the Fortune 100 companies and found that only 28 percent engaged with me in real-time. Many of those 28 companies have comprehensive real-time communications programs in place, which I describe in the ebook.

Download the ebook

Download a package of real-time images to use in presentations and on blogs

I'm using hashtag #RealTimeMPR

What is the ROI of real-time communications?

My research is an attempt to answer a simple question: How much of an effect does real-time communications have on the performance of companies?

Watch an interview of me talking about the research.

Comparing the closing stock price of each Fortune 100 company on December 31, 2009 through closing prices on September 3, 2010 (when my book manuscript was due to my publisher - John Wiley & Sons), I found that the stock prices of 67% of companies that operate in real-time were up, while only 42% of those that do not were up in 2010 year-to-date.

In the ebook I provide much more information from the research including those companies that responded with helpful and relevant responses, such as State Farm Insurance and Boeing, the companies that did not respond at all, such as Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobil, and those that simply sent automatic, canned auto-responses with irrelevant information, such as Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance and Walgreens.

Portions of this new ebook appear in my brand new hardcover book, Real-Time Marketing & PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Consumers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now, which is released by Wiley today.

Social Media Metrics

Jim Sterne has written an outstanding book called Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment which releases this week.

This is the third book in my New Rules of Social Media book series (following Inbound Marketing and Get Seen).

Readers of my blog and those who have seen my talks will know that I am very critical of the old "ROI" version of measuring marketing. You can hear my Epic ROI Rant where I go off on the topic for a few minutes (resisting the dropping of F-bombs the entire time).

A decade ago, I was vice president of marketing and PR for a NASDAQ-traded business-to-business technology company. We measured success in two ways. Our lead generation programs were measured via "sales leads": the number of people who requested a white paper or who tossed a business card into a fishbowl at the trade show. Our public relations programs were measured via a PR "clip book", a gathering of all the clippings of magazine and newspaper articles written about the company. The book represented a month's worth of clippings and was usually bound for us by our PR agency.

Fast forward to 2010.

Social media gives everyone—not only B2B companies but also consumer brands, consultants, nonprofits, and even rock bands, churches, and colleges—a tremendous opportunity to reach people and engage them in new and different ways. Now we can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an e-book, a Facebook page.

But how should we measure?

A debate has raged in recent years. On one hand, people tried to adapt old (but successful) offline measurements to the social media world. For example, many marketers slapped squeeze pages onto practically all content, generating "leads" but preventing people from sharing. On the other hand, a cadre of social media proponents argued for no measurement at all, since "social media is just different."

Fortunately, Jim Sterne came to the rescue with this terrific book.

Jim Sterne knows more than anybody about how to measure marketing investment. He is the producer of the international eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summits and is the co-founder and current Chairman of the Web Analytics Association.

I particularly like that Social Media Metrics is crammed with examples from real-world companies for you to learn from.

Far from an academic tome on regression analysis, this is a practical book packed with ideas you can apply to your business today.

This is certainly an important and timely book and I thank Jim for writing it and for doing it as part of my series.

For a fun overview from Jim's perspective, read his article in ClickZ about Social Media Metrics called Don't Buy This Book

If you are struggling with how to measure your investment in online marketing, I hope you will consider Jim's book as a place to turn for help. If you do, let me know what you think of Jim's ideas.

JASRAC wants to charge YOU for tweeting song lyrics!

In a completely boneheaded move, the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) announced that they want to set up a system to charge people who tweet any part of song lyric.

As reported (in the Japanese language) on J-cast news, they haven't decided on the details yet, but JASRAC insists it's the law and everyone has to obey with their decree.

"We want everyone to recognize that Internet is not your private place," JASRAC says. Even in the world of 140 characters, the law must be obeyed.

Yikes!

Music artists I know like Amanda Palmer (who has 400,000 Twitter followers) love when people tweet their stuff because they get more fans!

Here is what JASRAC is in the business of doing according to the JASRAC English language site: "Collect royalties from users of music in Japan and from foreign copyright societies and allocates them to trustors or transfers them to eligible foreign societies."

They are copyright cops.

Note that JASRAC is not in the business of helping artists. JASRAC is not in the business of advising on or provide services to artists to better market their work to new audiences. JASRAC does not help artists maximize income.

Here is a video called JASRAC wants my money made by Zemichi who says: "Apparently, JASRAC goes around the internet sending cease and desist to people that use ANY content that's protected under them. A quick search tells me that they've sent C&D's to LYRICS TRANSLATION sites too."

Note that JASRAC says it is okay to tweet the titles of the songs. (Thanks!)

JASRAC hasn't decided how much they'll charge when you tweet a lyric. "We are currently considering the handling in full compliance with the Act on Management Business of Copyright and Neighboring Rights," JASRAC says.

This just pisses me off.

Yes, I understand that artists need to make money. I get it: I make part of my income from royalties on books. In fact, the Japanese version of The New Rules of Marketing & PR falls under the JASRAC Stalinist control. (Thanks but no thanks. Can I get out from under you, JASRAC? I don't want you representing me!)

This Twitter policy from JASRAC is just plain wrong.

While I get that artists need to be paid for their work, putting draconian rules in place only seems to serve the JASRAC kingdom and keep them in power, it does not serve artists.

Artists are best served when people learn about their work from fans. And fans love to share on Twitter.

Please jump in to this one with your opinion!

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UPDATE March 4, 2010: Steve McClure, an expert on the Japanese music business, provides an update on the situation.

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Image credit: Shutterstock / Alexander Chaikin

DSBtheMovie: Crowdsourced film created quickly and with zero budget

While in Amsterdam where I keynoted the Marketing Pioneers event, I met Jan Willem Alphenaar, Producer and Director of DSB the Movie.

The film tells the story of the Netherland's DSB Bank NV which was declared bankrupt by court in October, 2009.

Amazingly, Jan crowdsourced everything for the film including the film's logo, producer, scriptwriters, soundtrack, editor, camera, actors, and publicity. The film will be completed in just four months and with zero budget.

Here is my interview with Jan which includes the film's trailer at 0:55.

Direct link to my video here.

Direct link to the film trailer here.

Jan tells us that no money changed hands in producing the film! People wanted to be a part of the project and to get a credit in the movie.

He put out the call on social networking sites including Twitter, LinkedIn, and Hyves. Then the media picked up on it from the social networking and the project scored a front page story in the largest newspaper in the Netherlands which then generated even more media coverage and social networking interest.

When Jan put out the call for logos, he had 42 submissions to choose from!

Just think about the normal way to do a film. It takes more than a year and a large budget. Jan did his film in just a few months and at no cost.

I agree with Jan that crowdsourcing has huge potential for marketing projects. (I’ll share another example in a few days.)

“Your audience is willing to help you,” Jan says. “They don’t need money, they just want credit.”

Here is some great information (in English) on how Jan created the film.

Crowd Sourcing And Humanistic Psychology

View more presentations from JW Alphenaar | Power PR.

Thank you to Remco Janssen for introducing me to Jan Willem Alphenaar.

Note: When I asked Jan if he had an English language site for the film, he responded to me via Twitter to say that he had crowdsourced a translator and an English language site will be up in a few days! (How fast is your site creation effort?)

48 ways to explain Twitter to skeptics

On Christmas Eve with my family, my brother Peter brought up Twitter and expressed skepticism.

Rather than try to explain Twitter myself, I tweeted to see what others had to say.

I just love the answers that came back! I'm still laughing at some and others are simply profound.

Isn't it amazing how nearly 50 people can answer something, each in 140 characters or less, and in just a few minutes you have a better explanation than any one person could possibly think of in a lifetime! And people jumped in from all over (Coogee, Australia and Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic to name two).

Here are the answers I received.

I've pasted them reverse chronological order (like a Twitter stream). A few times I jumped in (with Peter over my shoulder) so I made those replies italic. A few people proposed links which I made easy to click.

The reply from Henry Posner was especially interesting to Peter because he met Henry at the very speaking gig in NYC that Henry mentioned.

Peter is still skeptical. But he understands more about Twitter than he did before.

My original tweet
My brother Peter doesn't understand Twitter. "It's weird - who cares what you do?" Can you guys help explain please!!

Replies (newest to oldest).

CoCreatr: @dmscott those who wish to help you care what you do. Pure magic, mostly. Happy holidays.

cfcs: @dmscott Try the 61 word message defining social media; now shorten it to 140 characters!

ProfS: @dmscott It's a conversation with friends....

jennselke: @dmscott I don't care so much what you eat for breakfast as your thoughts on business and social media. Merry Christmas my Twitter friend.

TinaValant: @dmscott Tell him to go to Target & get Twitter for Dummies in the $1 section!! Really helped me!

sdanielleon: @dmscott it's not what you do but why you think.

ctanowitz: @dmscott it's a search engine for life. You want to find people who like to do what you do? Search, listen and connect.

mab397: @dmscott we're more interesting than you Peter ;-)

Brainzooming: @dmscott Twitter's great because I have thousands of smart, cool people pointing me to smart, cool ideas! BTW see you at #bma2010!

heykeenan: @dmscott it'll take more than 140 characters!

StarrGazr: @jelias27 @dmscott ...or is that weirdly fascinating? ;)

StarrGazr: @jelias27 @dmscott Fascinating and weird. :)

chris__pc: @dmscott twitter is like personal hygiene. You only find out about the benefits after you start...

chad4404: @dmscott I like to learn, it is like taking advice and learning from experts 24/7

askymi: @BarbaraNixon @dmscott Tell him it's a community, a conversation. If you don't want to talk, there's a lot of interest to find as well.

JohnKinATL: Tryng 2 expln 2 relatives myself! Via @BarbaraNixon: RT @dmscott: My brother doean't get Twitter. "who cares what u do?" Can u help explain!

angelaguichardo: @dmscott Hi friend, tell your brother, believe it or not everybody cares and love to know what other people are doing! Merry Christmas!!

nigelwalsh: @dmscott what's his fav hobby/interest & who are the key people in it. Are they on here? Has he ever spoke directly with them? now he can!

victor_ruiz: @dmscott Twitter is not weird. It's another communication channel, broader, without control, honest, but not weird.

DR4WARD: @dmscott Cheers

emironov: @dmscott it's gone far away from its original rather foolish concept. Used right, it delivers the right information. We all need information

michaelflavin: @dmscott My brother doesn't understand Twitter either...

EtchUcateChris: @dmscott Have you shown him your following? If that doesn't make sense to him nothing about twitter will.

dmscott: @DR4WARD Not at all - we're still looking

barbaranixon: RT @dmscott: My brother Peter doesn't understand Twitter. "It's weird - who cares what you do?" Can you guys help explain please!!

patrickbjohnson: @dmscott show him the benefits of it. I show my friends how its a community rather than a status feed and that changes their mind.

DR4WARD: @dmscott 0ops. Too late

victor_ruiz: @dmscott Twitter is the largest focus group in the world, and also free! You can know exactly the thoughts of your prospects in real time!

JuliaMak: @dmscott because it's not exactly about what you "do" but what you think, what you have to say, and how its relevant to what interests me

admore: @dmscott Tell/show him how to find people that talk/discuss topics that interest him. Give tweepsearch a whirl.

kseniacoffman: @dmscott Hah! it takes a while -> perhaps: Twitter gets you access to ideas from 100s of ppl - in any topic that interest you

DR4WARD: @dmscott does your brother appreciate the value of professional networking, continous learning & improvement?

kvashee: @dmscott Communication and connection with like minded people

dmscott: RT @StarrGazr: Nope, he's right. It's weird. We're weird. Life is weird. There we go, full circle. ;)

kvashee: @dmscott Share and discover interesting stuff, find interesting people and follow their interests - filter best stuff out

dmscott: Thanks all. Not convinced yet, but making some progress.

DonnaTocci: @dmscott It's a great way to share ideas and connect with all kinds of interesting people. And, it can be fun. Happy holidays.

AdamSparke: @dmscott it's not so much about what you do but more around what you think.

clintonskakun: @dmscott To really "get it" I think your brother needs to try it out. Most people think we're a bunch of fanatics until they try it themselv

bandhphoto: @dmscott I recall being on a panel of yours w @gregverdino at NYU and saying the same. A year later I have 1000+ followers and 1700+ tweets.

mosterman: @dmscott One thought: Twitter is the replacement for the people that you'd like to talk to and learn from when you can't be there with them

nigelwalsh: @dmscott check out what I have discovered about Twitter here. Part of the #montwit experiment

Zbijelic: @dmscott Information at your finger tips if you are following the right people & sources (ex. CNN, NBA, HBO, Blogs, etc) Amazing tool!

clintonskakun: @dmscott The simplicity makes it easy and quick to use, especially for busy people.

MattMcGee: @dmscott If he's into sports, show him the @espn stream. Or @nytimes if he's into news.

clintonskakun: @dmscott Twitter, for me, is more about quickly sharing ideas and picking brains of other people.

patrickbjohnson: @dmscott its not what you're doing but what engages you! whats happening vs. what you're doing

StarrGazr: @dmscott Nope, he's right. It's weird. We're weird. Life is weird. There we go, full circle. ;)

UpbeatNow: @dmscott Replying just to show Peter that people are listening :)

doctorious: @dmscott Twitter is like mingling at a party with some people you know, others you don't, and many more you have yet to meet.

clintonskakun: @dmscott The twitter community has swayed the way we use Twitter in a different direction.

dmscott: @smrosenberg Good one!!!

isaacramirez: RT @dmscott: My brother Peter doesn't understand Twitter. "It's weird - who cares what you do?" Can you guys help explain please!!

techpr: @dmscott It's not about caring what ppl do, it's about caring who they are. Twitter helps with that.

smrosenberg: @dmscott hmm. has he read your book? ;o )

rickbraddy: @dmscott It's socializing without getting drunk (online) :)

wimrampen: @dmscott search #MonTwit and you'll find plenty of good reads that explain.. good luck :)

dmscott: My brother Peter doesn't understand Twitter. "It's weird - who cares what you do?" Can you guys help explain please!!

Please feel free to add to the ideas here. But if you comment, how about doing it in 140 characters or less?

How Richard Regan uses Twitter to make million-dollar trading decisions

When I visited the CME Group historic Chicago Board of Trade trading floor earlier this week, I spent time with Richard Regan to learn how he uses Twitter as his primary real-time news service to make million-dollar trading decisions.

Richard relies on a core group of about 40 people who he follows on Twitter. These are people that he trusts to have spent the time to comb through news and identify the stories of importance.

"Twitter has worked out to be a great provider of real-time news," Richard says.

The part about how Richard uses Twitter to make million-dollar trading decisions is at 4:20 in the video. Note the video may take a few moments to load. Direct link here.

Richard developed Pro Trading Course, a real-time online virtual trading room service for up-to-the second instruction on trading futures markets. Traders follow along on the actual screens Richard is using and hear Richard explain via streaming audio as he makes trades live from the floor of the CME Group in Chicago.

It's amazing to learn about the interesting ways that people are using Twitter.

Richard Regan transformed his business with Twitter, and he's in the financial markets.

Amanda Palmer did too – she's the lead singer of the Dresden Dolls and a punk cabaret force of nature.

How about you?

Have you transformed your business with Twitter?

To gate or not to gate? Data from an ebook offer

At my keynote speeches, one of the most frequent questions I get is around my position that it is almost always best to make valuable content (such as white papers and ebooks) totally free vs requiring an email address to download.

The essence of this raging debate is that with a gate, each person downloading becomes a valuable sales lead, however making the content totally free with no registration required means many more people will download and spread your content via email, Twitter, blogs, and the like.

Frequent readers of this blog know that I write about this topic from time to time, most recently in a post called Say NO to squeezing your buyers.

I'm always interested in metrics to support the various positions in this debate and am excited that John Mancini, President of AIIM has agreed to share his experience with us. AIIM is a non-profit organization representing the users and suppliers of document, content and records management technologies.

On October 1, 2009 Mancini released the organization's first e-book 8 Reasons You Need a Strategy for Managing Information -- Before It's Too Late. They made the ebook totally free, with no registration required.

In just one month (October 2009) the ebook was downloaded 5,138 times. In addition, AIIM also created a presentation version of the book and posted that, also with no registration, on SlideShare. This version has had 3,353 downloads for a total of 8,491 downloads in the month. Pretty darned good result, for the first month of an ebook, I’d say.

"Making the e-book available for free and totally without registration was a new approach for us," Mancini says. "These results for unfettered access are particularly impressive when considered against a couple of more traditional examples (i.e., content requiring a registration on our web site)."

Mancini says one of the most popular pieces of content are AIIM Industry Watch research papers. "We require registration for these papers because they are also used as a lead generation program for the sponsors," he says. "During roughly the same period as the e-book, there were 1,282 page views of the research, which translated into 513 actual downloads."

So this data suggests that unlocking content at AIIM means more than a sixteen-fold increase in the number of downloads.

Mancini is convinced that the more forward looking of their sponsors will start to realize that the future lies in creating as much visibility as possible for their content rather than viewing this through the prism of name acquisition and lead generation.

"We have learned some production things along the way," Mancini says. "For example, it is not an easy process to simply produce the book in multiple formats. We learned that most people seem to want PDF. And we learned that to get a screen-readable version that also minimizes page count, it is better to format horizontally (landscape) than vertically so we'll be republishing in a landscape format in the next few weeks."

The actual content of AIIM's e-book was built in an unconventional fashion, tapping into its network of experts to solicit contributions for the book through its Digital Landfill blog and through Twitter rather than through a more traditional authoring process.

"Based on the success of the past month, we plan to launch 3 more e-books in the next few months," Mancini says. "We are convinced that providing easy access to content like this is key to our evangelical mission."

Thanks for sharing your experience John!

How about you? Do you have any gate vs. no gate metrics to share?

When marketing in the Netherlands you need to get Hyves

While in the Netherlands conducting a full-day seminar and presenting at several other events last week, I had an opportunity to learn a bit about Hyves.

The reach of Hyves is amazing.

Radio Netherlands says one in three Dutch are on the social networking site. It is the second most visited site in the Netherlands after Google, but in terms of time spent, it is certainly tops. And Hyves has more users in the Netherlands than the other major social networking sites Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter combined.

If you do business in the Netherlands, you need to consider Hyves in your marketing mix.

To learn more about Hyves, I spoke with Remco Janssen, a journalist and PR 2.0 expert. We spoke in a beautiful cafe in Amsterdam and I captured part of the conversation on my Flip video camera.

Direct link to the video here.

I'm always amazed at how marketing in different parts of the world requires adaptation. I lived in Asia for nearly ten years, most of that time as Asia Marketing Director for Knight-Ridder. When working in Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Honk Kong, Australia, and the other countries in the Asia-Pac region, it always required going local in some way.

If you're in the global markets, localization is important. Yet many marketers assume that one size fits all.

Do you have any other examples of localization to share?

Sleazy opt-in email tactics from otherwise reputable organizations

UPDATE
About three hours after I sent the post below, I was contacted by Deb Collins, VP of Sales & Marketing at Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts. Please be sure to read her comment (the 5th one below my original post).

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ORIGINAL POST
I've been noticing more and more people playing fast and loose with email opt-ins. Maybe the tough economy forces otherwise reputable organizations to go close to the edge? Or maybe email marketing programs are relegated to junior marketers who don’t know better? Sure, one person may buy your product, but is it worth annoying thousands? Is the economy really that tough?

Readers of this blog know I am a fan of the Apollo moon program. Obsessed is a word my family would use. Need proof? Here’s my Apollo Artifacts blog.

I've been to Kennedy Space Center in Florida several times, most recently to watch the launch of STS-117 and to attend events with Apollo astronauts. So that I am alerted to upcoming Space Shuttle launches, I signed up for emails. Here’s what I signed up for:

"Get the latest on upcoming launches. Sign up for free e-mail updates and we'll send you the latest information on launches and Kennedy Space Center events throughout the year."

I got this in a return email:

"Thanks for signing up for information on launches and events at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. We are excited to have you as a member of our distinguished online community and hope you find our website user friendly and informational. We will update you throughout out the year on special events, promotions, newsletters, and discounts. Thank You!"

So far so good.

A typical email signup that happens millions of times a day. I wanted information and KSC agreed to provide it.

But some time later, I received this email

"FROM Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

SUBJECT Last-minute summer escapes from Delaware North

At Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts, we realize what summer is all about. It's our chance to get away from work and home as we search for a little adventure, reconnect with nature and forget about some of our responsibilities. That's why you'll find a number of affordable summer packages, unforgettable events, fun activities and more at all of our destinations this summer.

Beat the heat as you hike or bike your way through the High Sierra at Yosemite, Tenaya and Sequoia. Treat yourself to a spa treatment at Gideon Putnam. Or saddle up and ride to an old-fashioned barbeque at Yellowstone. Choose a category below to find out how we can help you satisfy your sense of adventure."

I feel abused. This is not what I signed up for.

Turns out Delaware North is a resort operator that runs the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

It seems clear that the fine print of what I signed up for with the Shuttle launch emails from Kennedy Space Center entitles Delaware North to pimp their other properties.

Yes, the Delaware North lawyers were satisfied. But that does not make it right to abuse fans of manned spaceflight by hawking a trip to Finger Lakes Gaming & Racetrack? No. Of course not.

When I went to opt-out, I had to click on 14 different check boxes (each one returning me to the top of the page) which took more than a minute. [NOTE: Click the image to enlarge.]

What makes marketers at Delaware North think that because I want to know when NASA is launching a Space Shuttle that I might also be interested in Southland Greyhound Park in Arkansas? Obviously the only connection is Delaware North and for that reason this is an abusive practice.

Seth Godin outlined permission marketing best practices ten years ago in his book by that title. Yet these sleazy practices still go on.

Delaware North should re-think their email marketing strategies.

Or perhaps NASA should re-think Delaware North.

What about your email marketing practices? Are you playing fast and loose?