Seth was swinging his guru-hammer awfully close to me today: Seth’s Blog: Promiscuous dispersal of your email address:
“I just went through the hassle of trying to get some B2B firms the details needed to give me an informed quote on a project.
I visited eight sites. Six of them hide their email address. They use forms of one sort of another. …
Email contact is like a first date. If you show up with a clipboard and a questionnaire, it’s not going to go well, I’m afraid. The object is to earn permission to respond.”
Sure, we B2B companies hide behind registration forms instead of a very public email address. And as a guru, Seth has a right to question why.
The most direct response is that it IS a lot like a first date. (I’ve actually blogged on that before.) But if I act like a slut, and let any prospect contact me nilly-willy, it only lowers expectations and makes for poor starting relationship. And a risk of wasting my salespeople’s time trying to clarify the prospects requirements (and figuring out who they really are).
In the end, B2B marketing is about the niches. There is a higher loss-factor in putting up a form to fill out. But that is a necessary filter to help keep you within that niche.
I’ve made it very easy for my site’s visitors to find what they want. That helps qualify them. And by that time they are willing to fill out the form. More than willing. They even call us, which is even better than an email or form-filling.