The problem with most companies that do this is simply that they want ultra-qualified leads. Truthfully, it's tough to determine whether a sign up is going to be worth $10 or $10K/mo. The other problem is, depending on the product, the sales cycle can be long. It's not that any B2B company wants to spam you, but it's that they want to remind you of their existence as much as possible so that when you start thinking about your options, they are first on your list.
Here's the logic re: Alex's points:
1. Requiring a sales call helps qualify real leads.
2. Lack of trialing the software is in part due to wanting to have a conversation with you.
3. Hiding your pricing is simply the way to have a conversation and to qualify leads. It makes price discrimination also possible. Think about selling a startup vs. IBM.
4. Whitepapers are just old school. It's useful for when lower-tier decision makers need to present something.
5. Newsletters are simply a way to be in the conversation with your company prior to when you buy--constantly.
6. Larger organizations sub-divide their resources into people who can do X or Y. Where X sometimes primes the customer for Y. It's not done to the customer's benefit, but rather to the organizations.
7. Old school.
8. Well, the truth is, cold calling can work even though it has a fairly low conversion rate. You have to start somewhere.
I am not saying we do any of this at Mixpanel necessarily, but it's the simple logic of enterprise.
I was searching for a library that does something. I found various options, commercial (approx 7,000 per server)and open-source.
Getting my hands on one commercial library for testing was like pulling teeth.
1. Register for download which requires filling in loads of company information before being given access to a download.
2. Download the trial library (Only allowed to download either windows 32 bit, windows 64 bit, linux 32 bit or linux 64 bit..want more than one? tough)
3. (Wait 2 days) Sales guy sends me licence file (Forwarding the Salesforce "You have a new lead!" email no less which really annoyed me, "I am not a lead, I am a free man!") and I start testing the library
4. Find out the company I downloaded the library from (You can only download from their US based, English site) had partners in my (Non-English speaking) country so I got the sales guy speaking to me in a different language than what I expected (or wanted).
5. Asked to be put in touch with an English speaker because I had some technical questions.
6. (wait 1 days) Get an English speaker, ask some questions, get told they will be passed to technical guys
7. (wait 2 days) Get replies.
8. Ask about how I get the different library versions. Get told I have to re-do the ENTIRE process from step 1 just to get a different version of the library due to "Legal reasons".
So, it took 2 days just to get my hands on the library for testing and being told that I have to jump through more hoops just to get different versions.
Compare with the open source library:
1. go to sourceforge and download the library for any OS and start playing with it in about...oooh, 5 minutes.
2. Want to try a the library on a different OS? another 5 minutes.
3. Questions sent to the developer answered slightly faster due to not having to go through sales guy (although to be honest this was not a huge difference in response time).
The hassle of getting my hands on the commercial library soured me on the whole idea of using that company. If just getting an evaluation license is such an arse I do not see us having a happy relationship with the company had we bought the license.
--
On a side-note. I recently had to bug fusion-io because they had their webinars behind a registration wall. Really? You put your marketing information behind a closed door? I am researching your technology and I don't want to have to sign up to yet another site just to see some information.(Although to be fair they fixed this quite quickly after I had a moan at them on twitter)
Here's the logic re: Alex's points:
1. Requiring a sales call helps qualify real leads.
2. Lack of trialing the software is in part due to wanting to have a conversation with you.
3. Hiding your pricing is simply the way to have a conversation and to qualify leads. It makes price discrimination also possible. Think about selling a startup vs. IBM.
4. Whitepapers are just old school. It's useful for when lower-tier decision makers need to present something.
5. Newsletters are simply a way to be in the conversation with your company prior to when you buy--constantly.
6. Larger organizations sub-divide their resources into people who can do X or Y. Where X sometimes primes the customer for Y. It's not done to the customer's benefit, but rather to the organizations.
7. Old school.
8. Well, the truth is, cold calling can work even though it has a fairly low conversion rate. You have to start somewhere.
I am not saying we do any of this at Mixpanel necessarily, but it's the simple logic of enterprise.