Is a CD a good marketing tool?

Over the last couple months I've purposefully looked at three different CDs that companies have given out, including one by a sister company. Today someone else asked me about my opinion regarding creating a CD. Seems some salespeople have asked for it, thinking it would be cool to give clients.

If you know me, you know that 'just because its cool' doesn't equal a compelling reason to do it. That ranks right up there with webcasting just because you can.

I think a CD is good for a few things:

• Companies that need to make a presentation to explain their products and its benefits


• Companies that have a lot of technical data that customers/prospects need to use
• Companies that have software to distribute


• Cost savings over distributing/printing catalogs (like the huge Digikey catalog I just tossed)

Most likely, if you have had a compelling reason like the above, you have already made a CD. If you haven't done one by 2004, you probably don't need one.

Okay, maybe there is one possible use for me that I've overlooked until now. A CD would allow me to distribute copies of manuals and other detailed product specifications that would be too bulky and expensive to email/snail mail. For now, we don't consider our manual a sales tool, but perhaps a CD would make it a cost-effective one. I would need to make sure the PDF files are ready for wide distribution, which they aren't. They need to be divided into sections, named properly, create hyperlinks, and more.