I was recently talking to a prospect about their content marketing strategy when they asked me for my opinion on the best way to use gated content as part of that strategy. It’s a tough question to answer on the spot, because you really need to have a solid understanding of a company’s specific content marketing strategy in order to know the best way for them to make use of any given strategy – or whether including a certain strategy is even right for them.
Nevertheless, it got me thinking about the pros and cons of gated content and all the ways a business could leverage it to generate high-quality leads. I tried to keep my answer brief in the conversation, but if you’ve read any of my other blog posts, you know I tend not to keep things brief here, so let’s dive right in.
Table of Contents
- What Is Gated Content?
- Pros of Gated Content
- Cons of Gated Content
- How to Use Gated Content to Generate Leads
What Is Gated Content?
Gated content is content people can only access by providing their email address or other contact information. I’ve even seen marketing websites that require users to pay for a subscription before accessing articles or blog posts. That’s certainly one way to fund your blog, but then it’s not a marketing tool, it’s its own source of revenue, which may or may not make sense for your business.
Pros of Gated Content
The obvious pro of putting up a gate to accessing content is that it’s a great way to gather information on high-quality leads. If they’re willing to give you their contact information, that demonstrates a level of trust, and then of course there’s the fact that you can use that contact information to get in touch with them at a later date and continue leading them through the buyer journey.
Cons of Gated Content
There are a couple downsides to requiring contact information in exchange for accessing content, the first being that a lot of people are still hesitant to hand over their contact information, so it could turn out to be a way to repel leads when you want to draw them in.
The other potential problem that comes with gated content is that, if you’re not careful, you could risk violating the GDPR, as we mentioned in last week’s blog post on lead magnets.
How to Use Gated Content to Generate Leads
Now that we know what gated content is, as well as the pros and cons, let’s talk about how you can get the most out of your gated content by leveraging the benefits while minimizing the risks.
1) Know Your Industry
Gated content is primarily used in B2B industries, so if you’re in a B2C industry, you’re probably better off not using gated content as part of your content marketing strategy. The only exception to that rule would be if you’re in a professional services industry, such as financial services or legal services, because those industries tend to resemble B2B industries in that they tend to have a longer buyer journey.
2) Choose Your Content Wisely
The first step to using gated content wisely is to make sure you’re only putting the right kind of content behind a virtual gate. For example, blog posts, infographics, and how-to videos are all great ways to generate brand awareness and position yourself as a thought leader in your industry, but creating gates for those kinds of content can inhibit your ability to achieve those goals because fewer people will be willing to hand over their contact information to someone about whom they know nothing.
On the other hand, white papers, ebooks, reports, and webinars are all great candidates for gated content because that’s the kind of content you tend to create for prospects who are little further along in the buyer journey. They’re already aware of you and your company, but maybe they’re not yet ready to buy, or maybe they’re in the consideration stage and just trying to figure out which company they want to patronize. That’s where gated content can help you seal the deal, not only by giving you access to their contact information, but by making sure the content is sufficiently high quality and in depth to convince prospects you’re the expert, which leads nicely into my next point.
3) Create Content with Tons of Value
If someone is going to be giving you their contact information in exchange for access to a particular piece of content, you’d better make it worth their while. That means it has to be high-quality content with information they can’t get anywhere else, which is why white papers, ebooks, reports, and webinars make such great candidates for gated content. Those types of content tend to cover a topic in depth, answering all (or most of) the prospect’s questions on the topic, and getting answers to all those questions is usually sufficient reason for someone to hand over their contact information.
4) Get the Most Out of Your Ungated Content
Ungated content should also have a place in your content marketing strategy, but just because it’s ungated doesn’t mean you can’t use that content to capture leads. Every piece of content you create for your business should have a relevant call to action (CTA). The kind of call to action that’s right for that piece of content will depend on where the reader/viewer is in the buyer journey when they encounter that piece of content.
Just because your ungated content doesn’t require users to hand over their contact information as a condition of accessing the content doesn’t mean you can’t ask for their contact information as your CTA. If they read all the way to the end, it’s a sign they’re pretty interested in the content you’re producing (especially if it’s long form), so take advantage of that interest by asking them to sign up to receive more content from you.
You can also use ungated content to promote gated content. For example, if you generated a report by surveying your audience, you could write a blog post summing up the report, then prompt readers to access the full report in exchange for their contact information.
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If you need help determining whether gated content is right for your content marketing strategy, or if you need help creating a content marketing strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out.
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