Holy cow... We've reached a new level of lead generation craziness.
I saw a press release from BrightCom announcing a customer win. Good for them. Since it's related to web conferencing and potentially of interest to my readers, I went to add it to the Industry News page on the Webinar Success website. My policy is to attempt to link to the press release as posted on the vendor's site when possible, rather than to the newswire version. I just think it's a courtesy to them to drive the traffic directly to the source. Unfortunately, many companies don't get their own news page updated fast enough to make that possible, but that's neither here nor there.
Anyway, I cruised over to the BrightCom press release page and clicked on the latest listing. To my amazement, I was presented with a screen saying that I would have to supply my first and last name, email, phone number, and company name before being allowed to read the public press release that had already been distributed over the wires. What's next? A lead gen registration form presented as a barrier before seeing a company's home page?
Folks, take it easy on the registration requirements... Give people some public information before you go demanding their identity (with the clear implication that you will use it to badger them later).
Technorati Tags: lead generation, BrightCom
