How to lead with creativity and value instead of black and white thinking
It’s one of the oldest and most persistent questions in demand marketing: should we gate our content to gather more leads, or make our content open to expose it to as many people as possible?
As you may have discovered yourself, there’s no consistently correct answer to that question. The right path will depend on the value and purpose of your content, what you want to achieve with it, and the market context you’re publishing it into.
But what if there was another way? What if you didn’t need to choose at all?
Luckily, it turns out that the decision isn’t so black and white. You can have your cake and eat it too. It all depends on the type of content you’ve created, how well it’s performing, and what kind of gate you place on it.
Let’s start by debunking a myth. According to The Scoop, “80% of B2B content marketing assets are gated (require registration to access)”, but is all of this content generating qualified leads?
At one point, gates were a reliable way to gain qualified leads. However, the ‘gates = self-qualified leads’ equation isn't working as well anymore. Generations are getting better and better at entering email addresses like noname@nomail.com to view content.
Fill it in – why not?
Give some phony information
Leave – I’m out
It depends on how hooked I am
We’re more likely to trade our details for something which we’re sure we won’t be able to find elsewhere, and which will help us solve a particular problem.
That means that gating is less likely to be successful in high-level content, like blogs, case studies, and infographics—unless they contain original research.
In depth information, such as white papers or eBooks, tends to see much more success when it’s gated, because it typically includes data or insights which are original and highly sought-after.
Infographics and case studies are less likely to be gated, but over 90% of B2B marketers find them useful to increase brand awareness and demonstrate results among existing leads”
Gating and un-gating content can be a useful iterative element of a content strategy. If a piece of content is underperforming, un-gating can lead to higher traffic. That means that gating a piece of content is by no means an irreversible decision.
Chris Barr, Director of Marketing for Taradel and Every Door Direct Mail, suggests reviewing performance metrics, weighing up your options and adjusting your gates accordingly:
“If gated content is performing well, never un-gate it. This is especially true for content that is research-based or has a high value associated with it. If gated content has high visit-to-lead rates, it’s working. Conversely, if gated content is functioning as a bottleneck or a detraction to users, then it’s probably best to reduce the number of form fields or un-gate completely.”
It’s also essential to think about gating in terms of where your reader is in the buyer journey.
Gating content is typically less successful at the awareness stage. This is due to the reader being unfamiliar with your brand and the value your content offers. As you prove your worth and relevance to them, they might be more inclined to offer something in return.
Regardless, you should ensure you offer content that reflects the stage of a given visitor. Someone at the awareness stage is unlikely to access a gate to a product-heavy guide. Whereas someone at the decision stage is unlikely to access a gate to a more general content piece. They’re past that and looking to learn the details about your product.
Matching the right content with the right people at the right time is key to increasing a gate’s success rate.
Once you’ve decided whether you’re going to gate your content, you have two more decisions to make: where you’re going to place your gate, and whether to use a hard gate or soft gate.
The most common place to gate content is right at the beginning—meaning the reader can’t access it at all until they provide their contact details. But one alternative to consider is placing a gate deeper within a content piece, enabling you to showcase the value the reader is getting, then capture their details once they’re hooked in.
Hard gating means that readers cannot view the content until they have filled out the required fields.
Soft gating means that readers can navigate away from the form and continue to the content. With soft gating, entering their details is optional.
At Turtl, we experiment a lot with hard and soft gating. When we promote content with third parties, we’ve seen more conversions from soft gating.
For us, offering something for free to the reader that they get genuine value from makes them more inclined to reciprocate by sharing their details later on.
The best way for you to decide between soft and hard gating is to run a few tests with your audience and see how they respond, but generally speaking, there are three key advantages to soft gating:
Better quality leads: If a reader has the option to remain anonymous but offers up their contact information anyway, they’re clearly much more interested in the subject matter than someone forced into it.
Lower bounce rates: Many people will outright refuse to engage with you when you hard gate something, which is why soft gating encourages people to stick around and check things out.
More engagement: A soft gate allows even the most risk-averse readers to take the time and engage with your content, increasing your chances of persuading them to take action further down the line.
