The Adaptive Marketer

Are You Playing Hard-To-Get With Your Content Marketing

Posted on 26. May, 2010 by Robert Rose in Content Marketing, Web Content

I’ve always had a theory about New Year’s Eve celebrations.  I called it the New Years Anticipation Law.  It goes like this: the bigger your plans, the more money you were going to spend – basically the more you anticipated the event, the more disappointed you would ultimately be at the end of the evening.  New Year’s Eve just never wound up being as exciting as the all the anticipation promised.

The same can be true with big movies right?  The Monday after the huge movie opens, your colleagues walk around raving about how amazing it is.  You buy tickets, brave the crowded parking, show up half an hour early to make sure to get great seats – and, somehow it’s not nearly as awesome as promised.  And, when asked by your colleagues you say “meh, maybe I set the bar too high”.

Turns out, we might be on to something – and there’s a great lesson for us as Content Marketers.

Because It’s Hard To Get – People May Like It Less 

Research recently conducted by Uzma Khan and her colleagues at Stanford University Business School discovered something really interesting.  Denying, or delaying, someone’s access to what they want will make them desire it more – but will also have the effect of making them less likely to want to keep it, or even like it.

This has a profound impact on the way that we use content to inform, and ultimately attract new prospective customers into our marketing funnel.

In their research, Khan and her team found that the long-held assumption that people “like” and “want” the same thing is wrong.  In their experiment, they told a group of people if they participated in a survey, they would receive a pair of Guess sunglasses (contingent on supply).  Then, some were told that they were out of sunglasses.  Then all of them were asked to rate Guess watches with Calvin Klein watches.  The people who didn’t get sunglasses rated the Calvin Klein watches much higher.   But (and this is the kicker) when the people who were denied sunglasses were asked which watch they wanted to receive – they chose the Guess watch.

That’s right – the subjects chose the one they rated lower.  They still lusted after it.   But, the more they wanted it, the less they liked it.

Playing Hard To Get With Your Content Marketing 

There is a never-ending debate about whether to make individuals register for content marketing material (especially B2B Marketing).  Joe Pulizzi wrote about this in April in a post called Content Headsets – where he pointed out:

“While there is nothing wrong with registration (to a point), your very best content has to be free so they understand what product or service they are missing.”

And, Michele Linn wrote about this last year in her post: “Three Reasons Not To Require Registration”.    She wrote:

“If you have designed content to be used earlier in the buying process, strongly consider not requiring registration as sales does not have much use for the leads (unless, of course, as stated above, you have a plan to nurture them).”

But then, interestingly, the exact opposite argument was given by a B2B Marketer in the comments of this post on MarcomInk.  There, the argument seemed to be that purely sales related content (e.g. collateral, case studies etc…) should be “free” – but the best content should be placed behind the registration form.

I think both arguments can claim some level of validity.  And certainly everyone has conversion rates to back them up.

Now, the Stanford research adds another layer to this debate – which is that beyond simple registration conversion and download rates – what happens to satisfaction *after* they’ve registered to get your content?

What’s Behind Your Velvet Ropes?

A very interesting question is what the subsequent engagement value of your content marketing is if you place it behind the velvet ropes of registration?

If we make our prospects “work harder” (I understand that’s a relative term) to download our content marketing, will the long-term effect be that our prospects will place less value on our content?  And, will they ultimately put less value on our product or service?  In short, will they like us less?

Certainly, these are not easy questions.  And, almost as certainly, they will vary by organization and audience type.

I think one of the key takeaways for me in deciding whether to put something behind a registration is asking how widespread I want the material to go.   Most of the time, I want the material to be as widely dispersed and forwarded as possible.  So, therefore no registration required.   But, other times – you may want to create an air of mystique about an event, a webinar, a piece of content (or a subscription).  And, therefore people will feel “special” about being a part of that.

But maybe the real key, and one of the real lessons that the Stanford research found, is in focusing on satisfaction.  We really need to focus on satisfying our customer’s needs instead of how many downloads we’ll get.  That may start to instruct us on which content to put behind a registration wall.  Remember, just because your audience wants you – doesn’t necessarily mean they like you.

And how about you?  What are you discovering (if anything) about the long-term satisfaction of your customers and your content marketing?

Photo Credit: Phil Sexton

Tags: Content Marketing, Joe Pulizzi, Michele Linn