In one of the LinkedIn discussions, someone posted a link to a "free e-book" on rules for marketing. Always on the scout for good marketing information, I clicked through. I learned something all right. The title to the post said "Free e-book,"  but below the post headline in the post itself it said "free excerpt," which is something different. Sure enough, when I clicked through, it was an excerpt only. Immediately, the marketer's credibility took a hit. Still, I was curious. It was free, after all. The "please tell us a little about yourself" page went all the way to the bottom of the screen. They had a fill-in box for everything. But hey, if people will to give marketers all that information, they're willing to take it, right? I didn't see which fields were required, so I filled in my name, email, business title, things like that. When I hit "submit," it gave me an error. "Publisher requires 11 more fields of information." Are you kidding me? My address, phone number, and who knows what else was required for this free "falsely advertised not full PDF download but excerpt" on marketing. At that point, I bailed. It got me thinking about all of the new responsibilities printers are taking on as marketers. If you create a white paper, should you require registration before people can download it? If you don't, you risk losing a great opportunity to gather leads. If you do, how much information should you ask? Ask too little, the information isn't worth very much. Ask too much and, well, look what happens. The same issue arises with surveys for personalized URL campaigns. Most PURL campaigns include a survey page. How much information should you ask? How should you order the information (normally, you ask the least intrusive questions first, then build slowly to more intrusive questions)? How should you word the questions? All of these things have a powerful impact on respondents' willingness to complete the form. Whether it's self-promotion or a campaign for a client, be sure to track not just hits to the landing page, but also the form completion rate. If a high percentage of people are going to the landing page but not completing the registration or survey, you know something is wrong. This allows you to get in there and fix it. As printers-turned-MSPs navigate their way into the world of marketing, this kind of balancing act is critical. It starts with being sensitive to the issue, then tracking and monitoring behavior until you get that balance right.