Dmitriy N. Full-Stack Developer

What is gated content: a hero or a villain for marketing

How many SEOs does it take to change a light bulb? Enter your email address and we will send you a reply. Familiar? This is the so-called gated content.

Gated content is a popular lead generation marketing tool, especially in the B2B sector. But deciding whether to use it is not so easy. There is often confusion about what is closed content and what kind of content should be closed at all. There are also some tricky pros and cons that you'll have to contend with.

What is gated content?

Gated content can only be accessed through the lead capture form. Typically, a site visitor must provide contact information and possibly answer a few questions. After that, he will be granted access.

This type of content tends to be longer, more practical, more informative. This content is always free. Marketers can use the contacts they receive to send out a series of newsletters, conversion-focused content, or directly contact a potential client.

Why is gated content a controversial tactic?

The thing is that people are used to the fact that content can be obtained freely and without restrictions. Not everyone likes to provide their data to receive content. This makes such content harder to consume. Therefore, you should not start a relationship with the audience with gated content. You must woo your readers first by showing that your content is worth their time and then their personal information.

Where does gated content fit in the customer journey?

When a client seeks information or assistance, their needs fall into three main groups (or stages): awareness, consideration, and conversion. Each group is a separate step in the customer journey. To plan this customer journey, you need a deep understanding of your audience. This will help you develop gated content that solves real customer problems as they arise.

Content at the awareness stage. At the awareness stage, people discover a problem. As a rule, they do not know what solutions are available to them. Thus, users are looking for information. Their questions and search terms tend to be quite broad even in B2B scenarios. If they stumble upon your site in the search results, the content they see will most likely be their first interaction with your brand.

For this reason, most marketers avoid separating content at the awareness stage (that is, informational content that answers common questions). You haven't gained trust yet. What's more, very few content consumers are willing to go to any lengths at this stage of the customer journey. Instead, it's better to provide value and give them a reason to consider your solution.

Content under review. At the stage of consideration, the customer knows a number of solutions. Now he is weighing his options and looking for more specific content. People can explore webinars, guides, white papers, or even toolkits to help them reach their goals.

At this point, the clients are more focused on a specific need. This means that they are more likely to give you their email address. However, they will only do this if they see the value of the content you offer. Gated content is more common during the consideration stage than earlier in the customer journey.

Content in the conversion stage. At the conversion stage, the customer is almost ready to make a final decision or make a purchase. Your website's landing pages, presentations, product demos, and other product-focused content come into play.

Gated content as a strategy, not a tactic

There is another way to look at gated content. You can make it the basis of your entire content strategy.

The Hustle approaches it this way. It immediately directs users to its CRM in an original way, relying on FOMO (fear of missing out), clear value propositions, and social proof. Hustle's landing page immediately establishes a value proposition: "Daily news straight to your inbox", "in 5 minutes or less". The call to action is also simple and engaging: "Join for free." Along with that, the creative shows sample content. Now the website visitor knows exactly what to expect:

What happens if visitors refuse? There is an exit popup that tries to more clearly amplify the value propositions, highlight the call to action, and create a FOMO feel: Would you like to join 1.5 million subscribers? The site then displays user reviews as social proof.

Gating ALL your content this way is a bold move. Although it clearly works for The Hustle , most content marketers will want to use gated content more sparingly.

Creation of high-quality gated content

How your audience reacts to gated content depends on the following factors:

- What stage of the customer journey is your website visitor in?

- the types of problems or questions he has;

- value and exclusivity of content;

- your overall content marketing strategy;

- whether you need more traffic or more qualified leads.

But most importantly, the success of your closed content depends on its quality and how interesting it is.

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