5 Quick And Easy Gated Content Tips
When I first started my career in content marketing, it seemed like gated content was all the rage. Agencies were selling gated content left and right, and clients were jumping all over it.
And then, suddenly, the entire idea was called into question.
As companies started competing more aggressively for SEO traffic, people started to ask: “Why would anyone want to give up their email address for stuff they could find online with a simple Google search?”
It was a fair point.
As gated content reached its peak, a new wave of thinking emerged:
“Wouldn’t it be better to ungate all of this great content so that it could be indexed by search engines and generate significantly more traffic and create brand recognition and trust at the same time?”
With that, content marketers flipped the switch. They stopped creating gated content and instead began writing incredibly robust blog content to compete for organic traffic through SEO best practices.
“Gated content is dead!” they cried.
That was a few years ago. And although companies have certainly cut back on gated content, it’s definitely not dead. In fact, with the right strategy, you can still gate content—and get plenty of leads in the process!
Let’s review a few quick tips for gated content so you can experience the best results possible—especially from great copywriting services either from you and your team or an outside writer.
What Is Gated Content?
First, let’s review what gated content is.
Gated content is any type of content (white papers, guides, PDFs, audio files, videos) that are “gated,” meaning they can only be accessed by sacrificing some sort of personal information—usually a name and email address.
Your target audience gets great content.
And you get their contact information, which turns them into a lead.
From there, your marketing and sales teams can reach out to these individuals and turn them into paying customers.
5 Gated Content Tips for Better Leads and Better Sales
Here are a few ways you can improve your gated content results:
1. Be sure you’re creating something your target audience actually wants, needs, and struggles to find anywhere else.
This is one of the biggest problems in gated content. Many times, marketing teams create gated content that’s already readily available through a Google search or other means.
If answers can be quickly found in other places, there’s little sense in “charging” people with their contact information.
But if you can promise to answer a question or deliver information your audience can’t find anywhere else, you can generate a steady stream of leads.
For Monster Riff, a Poetica Marketing side project and a website that covers the underground Rock & Metal scenes, this means offering bands help with marketing (which is something few other resources in the scene provide).
For your company, it may mean offering:
- Original industry research and surveys
- Behind-the-scenes look at industry processes or little-known best practices
- Hard-to-find but important information that is essential for potential prospects
If you can promise and deliver on something that’s incredibly helpful, you can significantly increase your conversion rate!
2. Create a compelling landing page.
There are endless guides online about how to nail your landing page.
In general, you should have:
- A snappy headline
- A list of key selling points/benefits of your gated content
- Trust signals (like awards your company has won, customer review quotes, or logos from major recognizable companies that are on your client roster)
The better your landing page, the better it’ll convert, as it’ll be geared toward your target audience’s wants and needs.
3. Use a simple download form.
It’s tempting to ask for a bevy of contact information (like name, mailing address, phone number, email address, and company name) to simplify your sales process.
But every line of data you ask for actually decreases the chances of someone signing up!
Instead, only request what is really necessary for your sales team to reach out and begin a conversation.
To borrow a line I heard when I worked in food service: When in doubt, throw it out.
4. Promote your gated content regularly—and listen to feedback.
Your gated content should get your target audience excited. Really.
Remember: Your end goal in creating gated content is to generate leads.
And your audience doesn’t want fluff.
They want something meaningful.
So, make them excited. If they’re not genuinely jazzed by it—or if they criticize it or never convert on your landing page—it’s time for a revision.
In addition, be sure you’re regularly promoting your gated content.
And by that, we mean doing much more than simply creating a link on your website. Simply posting it and hoping people find it isn’t good enough.
You should also think about:
- Promoting it on social media
- Creating digital ads
- Pushing it out via email
- Send it to old, stale leads
The better your distribution, the more leads you’ll generate!
5. Have a consistent follow-up process.
When someone engages with a form for your company, one advertising partner we work with recommends at a minimum:
- Sending a follow-up text message
- Sending a follow-up email
- Having a salesperson call the individual ASAP (if not immediately)
We love this! But we would also add that you should enter the individual into an email marketing funnel as well.
Putting them into a specific cadence of emails ensures they are consistently receiving contacts from you without you putting in any extra work.
Remember: When someone downloads your gated content, they are showing an active, engaged interest in the information you’re providing—and that means they’re ready to learn more.
That’s the perfect time to have a salesperson engage them and move them into your sales flow!
Get Help With Your Gated Content
If you need additional assistance with your gated content, contact us! We can help you put together a compelling piece of content—and we’ll build and execute on a strategy that helps it get noticed.
And if you’d like to dig even deeper into marketing, download a copy of The Strategic Marketer!