Josh Einstein, the brains behind TEO, Tablet Enhancement for Outlook, offered up this comment on signing people up. Josh is a very smart guy running a successful start up. He makes some good points.
"You might hate this idea, but from a business perspective it actually makes sense. Here's what I do:
When you download TEO, there's no sign-up, no registration. When you install TEO, same thing. But the first time you run Outlook and attempt to use a TEO form, it asks for registration data. The stuff is optional, but the screen doesn't tell you this.
The way I see it, this registration data is very important to the business for upsell and upgrade notification. I don't really consider it evil, but it is a pretty good way to keep people from saying "ah forget it" cause once they already have it installed, if they really don't want to give me contact information, they'll just give me bogus information.
I'd rather they give me bogus information than just forget it all."
Josh does the right thing by getting the product downloaded as simply and as quickly as possible. That's the priority. His method of getting important customer data works for him. It is worth considering for your product/service.
Thanks for stopping by, Josh.
I think it would be better to let the user try the software for a while first. Then they clearly understand the benefits that it brings and are more likely to submit their details.
And people who don't like your software, or more importantly, for whom it does not solve a problem, won't bother. So you get more qualified leads.
Posted by: Richard Rodger | August 29, 2006 at 07:36