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What Is Gated Content?
Gated Content is any online material that requires the user to perform an action before they can access it—usually submitting their email address. Some examples include free templates, ebooks, whitepapers, checklists and case studies.
Why Use Gated Content?
Odds are that at some point, you’ve come across a page or a resource that you aren’t able to access until you volunteer some information about yourself by filling in a form.
While some organizations are content to simply ask for your name and email address, depending on the specificity of what you’re trying to access, you may be asked for the size of your organization, the sector in which you work, your monthly budget, etc.
Gated content is primarily used as a lead generation tactic: Create something valuable, offer it to potential customers in exchange for their contact information.
Having access to this information can be valuable, but be careful not to overwhelm visitors with form fields. The more information you ask for, the lower your conversion rates will be in most cases.
Conversion Rate Impacts
If you find that your gated offer isn’t converting at the rate you’d like, there are a few things you can start testing:
- Reduce the amount of form fields
- Adjust the offer to better align with customer pain points
- A/B test your landing page
As with many things in marketing, there is no single right answer, but there is always the ability to experiment and iterate until you find a solution that works best for your company.
Once you’ve gotten a prospect to visit your site, the value of the gated content should be high enough to convince them to offer their information and convert.
Still—no matter how valuable the content in the offer is, not everyone who visits is going to convert. Maybe it isn’t the right time, maybe the offer isn’t what they’re looking for, or they may just not be interested.
After a visitor does submit their information and become a lead or customer, make sure you have a system in place to reach out right away with a confirmation. Usually, this can be done through marketing automation with a drip campaign that triggers automatically after they convert.
In most cases, you’ll use this confirmation message to deliver what they downloaded. You can also offer them any other materials you have that could be useful. If your gated content was a webinar or video, send them a link to a downloadable copy.
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