Dear Dave:

How can we keep prospects from filling in junk on our landing page forms, which prevents us from generating a lead and contacting that person again?

Signed,

Can’t sell to zzzyyyggyg

Dear ZZZYY …

Every company that drives prospects to the Web and offers valuable content such as white papers in exchange for contact information has met up with Ima Smarterthanyou, Heywood Youleavemealone, Mickey Mouse and zzz@xxx.com. Very clever.

One solution is to ask for a valid e-mail address and tell prospects you will e-mail them a link to the white paper or other offer they want to access. The approach I prefer is to just let it go and purge these invalid forms as soon as you get them.

I figure if the person is really a prospect and you are providing valuable content, they will contact you again when motivated to buy. If they’re not really a prospect, then lucky  them, they got away with your white paper.

For David Klein Marketing, I’m Dave