What if you could get away without using a squeeze page?

A squeeze page is a single web page with the sole purpose of capturing information for follow-up marketing.  You can recognize a squeeze page by its content.  They typically use success stories people will relate to when making a buying decision. They also use things like color psychology, catchy sales copy, audio, video and keyword rich text placed with SEO (search engine optimization) in mind. Aggressive marketers will usually present visitors with free incentives in order to obtain their contact information.

Since the goal of the page is to obtain the visitor's email address and additional information could distract the user or cause them to "click away", the content is minimal. Hyperlinks are almost always absent from typical squeeze pages. The absence of links is used to focus visitors' attention on one choice: register for the email list or leave the site. Savvy internet marketers have discovered that convincing a visitor to sign up for an email list provides an opportunity to present that visitor with multiple sales messages over time, develop a relationship, and even cross-sell other related products.

Squeeze pages are often used in conjunction with an email autoresponder,     (will be touched on in another post), to begin delivering information as soon as the visitor confirms their email address. The autoresponder may be utilized to send a series of follow-up emails or to provide an immediate download link to get information. Promising information upon completion of confirming their email address has proven to be an effective method of increasing opt-ins using squeeze pages.

Though I realize these are key tools in internet marketing and building your "list".  I also can't help but relate it to the old bait-and-switch technique.  I'm very aware when I've stumbled into this situation and presume others would be as well. Rather than developing the "relationship" with the consumer this method is supposed to, it would seem it would create more a feeling of insulting their intelligence.  Why can't you just put a page out there, state what it is you're promoting and lead your customers to the location to purchase?  Is it really necessary to play the cat and mouse game to get your desired result?  Wouldn't it save time to skip this tactic where the risk of turning people away is equal to the potential of drawing them in?

In the end, though I'm not certain progress can be made without utilizing this approach, I am certain I'm more comfortable skipping it for now.

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