The death of registration page

This has been happening to me for the last couple of years.Whenever I found interesting articles or information on the web and click the link, I am always led to a registration page to access this information which is really frustrating to fill - almost most of the time. I  never fill it up. I close the link and move on or I look at the star( information critical to complete registration) fields, fill some junk to get the info.

This has led me to wonder on the following questions:

1. Do companies believe every information seeker is a prospect?
2. When and how do such information seekers turn into prospects for these companies?
3. How does genuine information get converted as hot/warm follow-ups by companies?

I believe that as web becomes all pervasive, the registration page will become extinct. In fact, if you are an aggressive web user, you almost hate registration pages. Alternatively, you will connect with people of similar interest and get this information anyway. It's time for companies to redefine their registration page strategy. 

Here's an interesting perspective on this point by Jeremiah Owyang:

Most marketers don’t know why they want prospects to fill out registration pages, they’ve been doing it for so long, they’ve forgotten why. I’ll remind you, there’s only two reasons: 1) To get their contact information so they can bug them. 2) To get demographic and other data so they can bug them more effectively (target marketing). That’s it.

A technology will emerge that will allow users to pass only as much of their social networking profile information as they want over to a CRM system, how much? It’s up to the user. A new social contract will appear that will encourage users to give as much information as they want, and in return the brand will reciprocate. The more information the user gets, the more the brand will give back in return, I call this a “Social web contract”. Since the data will come from the profile information within a social network, there won’t be a need to have a collection web form, instead information will be passed through connective tissues. Obviously this flips a marketers world upside down as they are ultimately measured in most cases on generating leads and conversions, there’s a pretty radical mental shift that will need to take place...

Comments

[Ajay Kelkar]

Jeremiah Owyang's prediction may seem brave and even reckless according to conservative marketing groups. However similar, negative outlooks were offered for Open Source services and are yet being offered for free media file sharing (media piracy). But it'll be only time that will reckon the evolution of the marketers according to the markets.

The rules are simple: Market to the market that is not to the market that was.

[Jason Price]

This was really an useful article on the importance of death of registration.

Jason Price
jprice@walkersresearch.com
http://www.walkersresearch.com/emaillists.asp