Sometimes good ideas come to an end – and that seems to be the case with free reports or “white papers” as they are sometimes known.

It is not that they are not read at all now, but rather that so many people have caught onto the idea that it is vital to make the reports more catchy, more interesting and basically more vital.  Too many people have offered very boring reports that are little more than adverts.

Estimates are that “white papers” are getting 22% less take up, as are “case studies”.

What is interesting however is that the vast majority of companies have not responded to this change and are staying with the strategies they already use.

But the big under-utilised asset for companies remains the web site which many who study the business see as the ”clear leader in online lead generation” 

According to Demandbase many firms still report that their corporate site is their top source of leads – more than report emails this way.  That doesn’t mean email marketing is not on, but rather that web sites work better – and the emails must be promotions that lead to web sites.

Eden Platform in another survey found that a standard web page can deliver much more value than most sites realise.  

In this study each page on a small business website produced an average of 55 unique visitors during the measurement period.

Amazingly, adding one new page of content to a business website each week can be as effective as having a £50,000 advertising budget, the study concluded.

Of course it is never quite as simple as this, because the site has to engage the potential customer and get matters moving from this point on – but that can only happen when you are adding new material all the time to the web site.

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