Be visible when and where customers are considering solutions
Jinfo Blog

By Ann Marie Plankey

Abstract

The marketplace for content and information products gets more complex every month. The FreePint Buyer's Guide was established to help our own editorial team make sense of what we learn all the time about new products, categories of products and how customers use them. Vendors can leverage this resource with enhanced listings.

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One of the key services FreePint provides to customers is to help them understand, evaluate and purchase information and content products. From in-depth product reviews to useful tips articles to support both new and "power users", FreePint resources offer guidance that corporate information managers and researchers appreciate.

But product reviews are only useful once a manager has narrowed the field. When assigned a new area of research, or new type of content to acquire, information managers can now turn to the FreePint Buyer’s Guide to get an immediate overview of the products that serve that area of work.

FreePint's job is to keep track of which vendors and which products fall within different areas… and it's hard for us to do, which prompted the establishment of the FreePint Buyer’s Guide. The concept was to create a relatively simple environment in which we could document which vendors produce which products, and which products fall into which categories content.

Users can browse the Buyer's Guide by category or by vendor. Or, if a user needs to look up a specific product, he or she can use "FreePint Search" to find the product and then select the "FreePint" tab on the search results to focus on Buyer's Guide listings.

Vendor messaging

Because the FreePint Buyer’s Guide is primarily driven by our own research needs, the listings are very basic. Our process includes researching and fact-checking basic listings, and we are careful to include only factual information for basic listings (view an example of a basic listing).

Vendors who would like to have more control over their messages can opt for an "enhanced listing" (view an example of an enhanced listing). With an enhanced listing, a vendor has complete control over the message, can include a logo, and can link directly to its landing page to capture leads for further nurturing.

Since customers use the Buyer's Guide early in their research process to understand their options for deeper evaluation, the enhanced listing – positioned higher on the category page and with more detailed information – is likely to capture their attention.

Other enhancements

Enhanced listings also get greater visibility throughout FreePint Family publications. We include a FreePint Buyer's Guide page in all PDF reports, showing the enhanced listings for relevant categories. For example:

• A product review of a competitive intelligence product will feature a Buyer’s Guide page of enhanced listings in the "competitive intelligence" category
• A report on tips and techniques to improve the corporate intranet will feature a Buyer's Guide page of enhanced listings in the "intranet services" category

Our aim is to put relevant information directly in front of our corporate customers at the time of need. When reading a review of a particular product, it's helpful to have right there in the report a list of other products that meet similar needs.

Buyer's Guide Reports

The Buyer's Guide also offers us a mechanism for building customer lists based on particular practice areas or areas of interest. Buyer's Guide Reports are created around topics we know are of interest both to FreePint and to our sponsors. We include premium content within the Buyer's Guide Report (e.g., tips articles, extracts from product reviews, etc.), but give the PDF reports away at no cost to professionals who complete a registration form.

This process enables us to quickly and easily assemble a target list of anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand professionals who are specifically interested in such areas as:

• Intranet management
• Integration of social tools in the enterprise
• Competitive intelligence
• Regulatory compliance
• New content acquisition

Or just about any other topic.

In the full report, we include all enhanced listings for relevant topics. Email me to request a sample.

We also offer the opportunity to become the lead sponsor for a Buyer's Guide. The lead sponsor also has a full-page advert in the report, as well as access to the generated mailing list for further lead nurturing. A single lead sponsor slot is available for any of our Buyer's Guide Reports for an additional cost.

Value priced

To upgrade up to 3 products from basic to enhanced listings for 12 months is only £895 +VAT. This price gets your listing to the top of the category list and included in all relevant FreePint publications for the year, including Buyer’s Guide Reports.

Lead sponsorship for any Buyer’s Guide Report is and additional £695 +VAT, on a first-reserved basis.

We offer discounts for vendors who subscribe to the Vendor Research Briefing series or have a VIP Subscription.

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