How to Create 25 Leads And Schedule A Sales Call In Less Than 24 Hours (From ONE Quick Social Media Post)

Gated content gets a bad rap.

Folks are quick to diminish its potential—but strong gated content can generate awesome results (as I explained in our recent 5 Quick and Easy Gated Content Tips blog).

In fact, I recently posted a link to some gated content on my music blog’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. Within 24 hours, I had:

  • 1 sales call booked and on the calendar
  • 1 band inquire about booking a sales call in the near future
  • 25 leads enter my automated email sequence

Not bad for a couple of posts that took less than five minutes to create!

Of course, these results aren’t exactly typical. 

Let’s look at what went right. 

Case Study Context

My music blog started as an SEO side project a few years ago, and it’s blossomed into a little community of writers and musicians who get jazzed about down-tuned guitars. 

On it, I have a 14-page marketing guide that explains how to market your band better through:

  • Social Media
  • Press Kits
  • Press Outreach
  • And More

Bands love it (a fact that we’ll dig into soon enough). The important thing to know for now is that I collect their name and email address. And then they can have the PDF. 

Easy as that. 

The guide is always available on the website, but I post about it roughly once a year just to remind people it exists. 

And they always clamor for it. 

So, what can you learn from all of this?

How to Make Your Social Media and Gated Content Work Together In 6 Steps

Here’s how you can turn your gated content into 20+ leads in only a couple of hours:

1. Build an audience. 

This is one of the most important steps. 

If you don’t have an engaged audience—either on social media, via an email list, on your website, or somewhere else—simply posting about your gated content won’t work. 

It just won’t happen. 

No one will see it. 

And the few who do either won’t care or won’t trust it. 

But when we have an active audience of dedicated fans who rally around your content on a regular basis, you’ll have a much easier time generating conversions. 

In fact, after my last post about my gated content, many of the people who downloaded were individuals who had started following my content and engaging on regular basis within the last year. 

2. Build trust with your audience. 

Monster Riff has established itself as a trusted and reliable source of new music, music critiques, and music resources. 

That didn’t happen overnight. 

By publishing roughly one article and two social media posts per week over the last few years, I’ve built a community of fans who look forward to Monster Riff’s analysis and insights.

But the most important thing I do is show up. 

Literally. 

On most Saturdays of the year, I publish a one-minute video recommending a few new bands that I’ve been listening to. 

This small, tiny act has gradually turned me into a sort of connoisseur (though that term is admittedly much too strong), and people have started to look forward to this little segment every weekend so they can discover new music for themselves.

But by showing up and offering a bit of my personality, I can make connections with people.

And that makes conversions easier. 

3. Create something people want. 

My marketing guide for bands was a no-brainer. Bands need help marketing, and many of the ways they can go about getting it—either with a label or by paying for expensive services—are challenging or undesirable for one reason or another. 

For the right type of DIY band, my guide is an excellent tool for your album and single releases. 

Your gated content should be equally helpful.

If you’re ever wondering whether your gated content is worth downloading, ask yourself this question:

How easily could someone find this information with a quick Google search? 

If they can quickly and easily find the information, you probably don’t have a valuable piece of gated content. 

4. Make your gated content (and landing page) work for you. 

Everything we’ve talked about so far is about getting you into a position where:

  1. People know about you. 
  2. People trust you. 
  3. You develop content people actually want. 

But that’s only half the battle. 

The next part is getting them to convert. There are two ways (and places) you can get people to convert.

  1. The landing page. This is the most important part, as the landing page needs to convert them to download. And without that download, your entire process has failed!
  2. The content itself. You also have full permission to use the content to pitch to readers. So, for example, a call to action somewhere within your gated content can help convert readers while they’re reading. 

Much of this revolves around great copywriting, so check out our copywriting services to learn more!

5. Automate the heavy lifting.

Once someone has downloaded your gated content, you’ll get their email address and potentially even more information from them. 

You or a salesperson should reach out as quickly as possible to turn them into a paying customer. 

But you can also enter them into an automated email sequence that works on your behalf. Instead of sending out an email every day or every week, you can preset a bunch of personable emails to go out without touching a button. 

And when this is done well, you can get great results! These emails can eventually turn into sales you never would have had the opportunity to make otherwise. 

Plus, it’ll give you a chance to make a genuine connection with (and impression on) your target audience. 

As an example, here’s a real, unedited email I received a few days after posting, from someone who had been entered into my automated email sequence:

Man, I must say, your newsletter is really a breath of fresh air! It all started with downloading the Monster Riff Guide, I saw an IG post and the timing was right we are going to release an album soon, so i was already on a look out. I enjoyed it a lot but then the emails started coming… Dude, that is the the first useful email subscription in my life! Well, maybe its a coincidence right now, but every email is right about what i need to do next and etc. 

Just wanted to say thank you, really, for the work you do and help you provide to the bands out there. …the amounts of bullshit i had to go through and all those sites “designed to help artists” in reality just trying to make you buy the pro subscription that you dont really need as a new band.

6. Promote your content. 

This is the most important step—especially for a project like mine. 

Unless musicians actively seek out my marketing guide, they’re not likely going to just stumble across it. 

You may run across the same issue. Even if you have a banner on your site promoting your gated content, visitors might not really see it until they absolutely need it. 

That’s why it’s so important to share your content on social media (and other channels where you have a captive audience). 

Remember Step 1? It was to build an audience. 

Step 2 was to get that audience to trust you. 

The reason those steps are so vital is because when you finally talk about your free gated content in Step 6, they’ll clamor for it—as long as all of the other requirements are also met!

Take Your Gated Content to the Next Level

To start turning your gated content into new business, contact us! We’d love to help you explore your options.

In the meantime, download your copy of The Strategic Marketer for even more insights!