Gated content: Doing lead generation the right way
Lead generation is a big part of content marketing as it’s one way to measure your content marketing’s success as well as help out your sales team with qualified leads. But is gating content the only way to do it?
Not always.
Gating content can throw up barriers to lead generation or engagement with your content if the content isn’t worth trading in contact information. Plus, if everything is gated, people will give up and find the same content elsewhere. Or worse, you gate things that aren’t worthy and people don’t return to your website as they no longer trust you.
As marketers, we have to find that right balance between gating quality content to drive leads and providing free content that builds trust and shows our authority.
Plus, it’s important to keep in mind that not every person that fills out a form for a gated piece of content is a marketable lead. It’s not ideal to have a database of leads that aren’t marketable.
So, how do we as marketers decide when to gate content?
Gate content that’s further down the funnel, like your MOFU and BOFU content or extremely high-quality TOFU content. Gating content that’s further down the funnel helps you identify potential customers that are qualified to pass onto your sales team instead of sharing a prospect’s contact information that is nowhere near ready to make a decision.
Types of content to gate:
- Ebooks or guides
- Upcoming webinars or webinar recordings
- Events
- Templates
- Case studies
- Newsletters or education by email
I approach gating content by making sure that the value is worth the person’s information. The last thing you want to do is disappoint a prospect with poor gated content. Certain things, like webinars, pretty much demand to be gated to enroll the contact into an email series with reminders and post-event information.
Obviously your gated content needs to be quality but it’s just as important to provide quality free content as well.
Bring balance to your gated content by offering plenty of free content, like:
- Blogs
- Videos
- Infographics
- Interactive webpages
- Testimonials
Things to keep in mind when gating content
When it comes to creating gated content it’s also important to think of the gate itself.
Don’t ask for more than you need and try to only collect the contact’s name, email address, company, and country if applicable. Progressive profiling can really help with your form fills as you ask for more information as the contact gets more familiar and trusting of your brand.
You should also have a thank you page that thanks them for filling out the form, allows the contact to continue exploring related resources, and sets the right expectations of follow-up from your brand. Was that the end of the transaction or should they expect an email in their inbox? Tell them what’s next on their journey with your company.
What’s your opinion on gated content for marketing? Tell me what kind of content you gate in the comments below!
