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A Vancouver-based software developer has made a Portable Document Format-based electronic commerce application designed to help companies generate sales leads from their Web site. Vitrium Systems Inc.’s Docmetrics software can be used to track who is reading PDF documents companies are posting online, such as white papers, data sheets and case studies.
The software saves documents in Adobe Systems Inc.’s PDF format and lets potential customers open them with the free Acrobat Reader software, includes in-document forms which can record the readers’ name, contact info, occupation, responses to survey and other details.
These forms can appear in a layer that partially obscures the document itself, and users have a choice of requiring readers to complete the forms to access the content, or to skip the forms if they do not wish to fill them out.
“I could actually present you a PDF where there is no limitation of you accessing the content,” said Peter Nieforth, Vitirium’s chief executive officer. “Then maybe on page 3 or 4, I’m going to ask you your company name how many employees you have and are you a decision maker? And then maybe I’ll let you read on some more.”
Anyone can download Docmetrics and try it free of charge for 14 days. After that, pricing varies, starting at $49 per month, with an additional $2.80 per lead generated. Nieforth said the initial target market is high-tech firms who are trying to get sales leads from white papers, case studies and data sheets published on its Web site.
The in-document forms in Vitrium Docmetrics can appear with a white paper or other PDF document published on your Web site. They can collect reader data, including their demographic information, such as name and contact information. They can also be setup to collect “qualifying details,” such as occupation and business needs. They can also collect information on how the content is read and what is forwarded to colleagues.
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