Who will buy? Research results from FreePint
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

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If your content isn't unique, you may have trouble even giving it away.

That's one of the results to come out of the latest FreePint Research effort, in a project examining buying and use patterns particularly for pay-per-use and free resources. Over 220 information managers and decision-makers completed our survey in a project jointly sponsored by Alacra, Elsevier, Hoover's and Leadership Directories.

The resulting FreePint Research Report: Buying Patterns builds on knowledge developed through last September's VIP Report: Economic Impact Research, which indicated that one way information centres were coping with budget pressures was to reduce their reliance on expensive subscriptions in favour of pay-per-use or free resources -- opting for 'just in time' rather than 'just in case'.

But not all content is created equal, and even free resources have to earn their place in the content portfolio.

Respondents were asked to rate a number of factors on a 4-point scale (1=not important, 4=very important) when they are selecting free content. At the top of their list, with an average of 3.48 on the 4-point scale, is unique content.

Similarly, for pay-per-use resources, unique content topped the list of requirements, with an average rating of 3.4.

A somewhat surprising result was how low respondents rated the vendor or publisher brand in selecting pay-per-use or free resources. Vendor brand earned an average of only 2.28 for pay-per-use resources and slightly higher (2.76) for free resources.

Respondents report that they are most likely to find resources of interest via professional newsletters and open web searching. Least likely avenues of discovery include online advertising and print advertising.

The full report includes detailed lists of respondents' preferred resources for different categories of pay-per-use content (e.g., company information, people information, market or industry studies, etc.), as well as data and discussion on the current state of content budgets.

VIP subscribers can access a full copy of the report by logging into their FreePint Master account. Non-subscribers are welcome to request a free copy of the full report.

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