This was originally posted 7 years ago. Opinions, facts and reality may have changed.
If every time you tried to enter a branch of Marks & Spencer they asked you for some personal information before letting you browse, you’d quickly find somewhere else to shop wouldn’t you?
So why do so many websites ask for your email address before they’ll share their promotional material?
White papers, ebooks and the like are a great way of demonstrating a company’s expertise in a specific sector or field. Essentially the message is “look how much we know about this stuff, next time you want an expert in this, you should probably give us a call.”
And it works.
But only if potential customers can actually see the information.
Why hide this highly-effective marketing behind a demand for information?
In my opinion, it makes even less sense when the information is a promotional brochure: “oh, we’d like to tell you about all ourselves, maybe even bring you on-board as a customer but first we want your email address.”
Sheer madness.
Whilst it’s undoubtedly true that high-quality white papers have some monetary value, if you’re not charging cash money for it, then why hide it away?
People don’t value things that are free? To some degree that’s true. But what we’re talking about here is a piece of literature you’re making available through your website to encourage people to become customers. You’re literally giving it away, so why put potential customers off by making them jump through hoops?