Should You Gate Your Content? Answer These Questions To Find Out.

Posted by Stacy Williams on Nov 11, 2014 10:53:30 AM

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istock.gate.245Lead generation today relies heavily on creating quality content aimed at addressing prospects’ pain points and questions as they go through their buyer’s journey. Fantastic!

Now that you, Ms. Marketer, have created all this wonderful content, an important question looms … should you gate it? That is, should you require interested prospects to fill out a form before giving them the content, or should you make it freely available to everyone? 

It’s a fair question, and one that should be considered carefully. The answer depends on what your goals are for each particular piece of content.

  • Are you trying to distribute the information as widely as possible?
  • Are you trying to capture folks at the top of the sales funnel?
  • Is it a thought leadership piece?
  • Is the goal to increase your brand awareness?

If the answer to these questions is YES, then I recommend NOT gating your content and making it available to the general public. According to The Content Factor, content is up to 50x more likely to be downloaded if it’s ungated.

In addition, depending on the format of the information, search engines may index it, display it in search results, and distribute it even more widely for you. Search engines can and do read PDFs, for example. (Side note: be sure to optimize the content!) As smart as Google is, it still can’t fill out a form, so only ungated content will ever be indexed.

But, you protest, I have worked so hard on this content! I don’t want to give it away to just anybody … I deserve to get some information back from its consumers!

  • Is your primary goal lead generation?
  • Are potential readers at a mid-funnel stage where they already know you and would be willing to take the next step?
  • Is your priority a smaller number of high quality leads rather than broader distribution (which may generate a larger number of unqualified leads)?
  • Are you indifferent to having your content found in search engine results?

If the answer to these questions is YES, then, by all means, gate your content!

Just keep this in mind … the amount of data you require on your form should be commensurate with the value that your content provides. That is to say, if the content is an infographic (we’ll set aside the debate as to whether or not you should bother to gate an infographic), then you may only want to ask for a name and email address. But if the content is a beefy, proprietary research study with valuable information that’s only available from you … feel free to ask blood type and astrological sign (not really). You get the idea.

Don’t forget about the power of progressive profiling. If you are a content-generating machine (and you should be), and your prospects come back to your site for more content frequently (which is ideal), then you can ask a few questions at a time. Start with name and email address, for example. The next time they visit, add the company name and title. Then ease into questions about the prospect’s goals, needs or challenges to help you qualify the lead.

Savvy marketers use both approaches, offering ungated “top of the funnel” content to the world of folks who may need educating about the solution to their problems, as well as gated “mid-funnel” content to selected prospects who are ready to engage. Conquer this dual approach, and your sales team and bottom line will thank you.

Stacy_Williams.160Today's guest blog was submitted by Stacy Williams, CEO, Big Drum, a B2B Conversion Agency. Stacy can be reached via LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/stacyswilliams and/or by email at stacy@bigdrum.io.










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Topics: Lead Generation, Inbound Marketing


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