[Sigia-l] Site registration

[Skot Nelson]

On Aug-23-2005, at 12:52 AM, Stew Dean wrote:

> The idea of registration, especially for microsites, is a crazy one  
> outside of site that turely offer great indepth content and are  
> almost a daily visit or are transactional and have to track orders  
> etc.

I don't fundamentally disagree - the transaction goes like this:

- I provide information
- I sell advertising
- You want information
- I need more information for you, so I can sell more targeted higher  
value information

And I think an Internet wide protest against "registration" is a bit  
silly. We all need to get paid, and delivering targeted marketing  
information is one way of doing this.

The level of fraud (or, expressed more gently, false information) in  
these transactions is usually a lot lower than is often joked about.  
The New York Times probably has far more accurate information than  
inaccurate. In any case, this is just a single factor in the cost of  
doing business.

What nags at me is how many sites collect this and don't appear to DO  
anything with it. If I register, and give you information, you should  
USE it. Why is it that when I tell people I'm Canadian, I keep  
getting American advertising (and why can't you correct the spelling  
of "colour" for me while you're at it.)

I fought for this ten years ago: the reason my colleagues gave then  
was lame - the reality was, MOST marketing organizations haven't got  
the collateral to support that level of targeting, and aren't willing  
to develop it for online only delivery. If your target market is  
"Males 18 - 55" and your secondary market is "Females 18 - 55" no  
amount of demographic information is going to help you target a more  
specific audience.