For example, Hubspot promotes inbound marketing (online marketing) very successfully with ROI and metrics as a core deliverable. And as they eat their own dog food, they capture basic lead info before they give away their goodies. Yet, I can’t think of another company more generous with the depth of knowledge that Hubspot shares for free.

In exchange for an email address, a few datapoints about my company, and a follow-up call, I’ve taken advantage of their free webinars, whitepapers, ebooks, training materials, podcasts, et.al.

That requirement doesn’t’ feel like coercion, it feels like a fair exchange. I suggest it’s the followup steps in the cycle that businesses need to make sure is BS-free. When I decide to revamp my marketing to include inbound marketing campaigns, they’ll be on my short list of one to contact because of how freely they share their knowledge and how professionally they have treated us as a potential prospect.

As a business owner I want to know who shows interest in our CRM consulting services and what has driven them to our offering. I can’t see how it’s coercion, subtle or not, to ask someone to provide a minimal amount of information. Anyone is free to vote with their browser and not play. If they have sufficient interest to provide information, it’s then our job to use that information in a professional and respectful manner to gain new business.

Marketing has changed drastically thanks to social media. IMHO, the model of capturing leads and tracking the success of various campaigns and sources that drive business to a website is smart business (SB not BS, eh?).

I don’t dispute the value of putting information out there, and tracking who’s reading/sharing/reposting, etc., but that’s only one small part of the equation. Bottom line: you need both set of activities in order to ensure that you get value for your investment. And at the end of the year, you better have results showing value of new customers, increased sales to existing customers, and not just number of retweets.