Traditional reasons for gating content
Fortunately, the above example is unlikely – but it raises a valid point around the value exchange in marketing. What are we really willing to give away for what’s being offered in return? As good as you feel your content might be, do your potential customers feel the same way? Traditionally, gated content has been a cornerstone of B2B marketing campaigns, but traditions shouldn’t always be upheld for the sake of it.
Personal data is a precious commodity, and today’s internet users know it. If they’re going to part ways with their valuable data, they’ll want something valuable in return. If you can’t offer that value, you should consider ungating your content.
Reasons to consider ungating
There’s tonnes of reasons to ungate your content, and here are just some of them:
1. Benefits to your website SEO strategy
You’ve worked hard on this eBook, it’s got loads of relevant industry and product messaging which you know will resonate with your audience. The only problem is you’ve gated it, so none of the content crawls or is indexed by search engines. If you take extracts from the asset or publish the whole thing ungated, you’re boosting your ranking for key terms, and increasing the value for your site users.
2. Shareability
It doesn’t really matter how far and wide they share it, because it’s got your logo all over it, and your great thought leadership within it. Plus, if you’re tracking your links correctly, you’ll be able to see how far it goes online. Maybe it gets downloaded by a junior member of the team, but then shared online with the CTO you’ve been trying to get hold of for months. Make it easy to share and who knows how far it will go?
3. Perception of value
If you give away some industry insights for free – you look great. Engagement on these free assets helps you gauge the warmth of your prospects, it also helps you create bespoke retargeting lists based on user behaviour. These lists are the perfect way of maximisng your paid activity spend further down the funnel.
4. Thought leadership
Finding your niche is one thing, becoming a fountain of reliable knowledge for that niche is another. If you’re ungating your content, you’re getting in front of more eyes. More eyes on industry-leading content means more shares, more followers, and ultimately more credibility.
It doesn’t have to be one extreme or the other
Look, we get it. Telling your board that you plan to delete all the forms off your site and stop collecting lead data might not go down too well. But there’s still a place for collecting good quality lead data on your site. In fact, you’re much more likely to get higher quality leads once you’ve taken prospects on a journey from early ungated content, through to high quality content, which they’re willing to part ways with their data for.
How to get started
Ungating content on your website is a big undertaking. It requires input and sign off across various departments. You’ll need to persuade the board of the value of the process, and when they will start seeing the benefits. Rather than ungating all of your content right away, consider beginning with a pilot test.
The board is more likely to sign this off, and there will be less upfront work required for your team. As part of this test, you can provide clear guidelines on which metrics should be measured, as well as expected performance. You could either test ungating specific pieces of thought leadership content, or test gating content after a specific amount of preview copy has been scrolled past.
If the test is successful, you’ll be able to use the results to advocate a sitewide rollout.
Ad types which support ungated content
We’ve been helping some of our clients fulfill their ungating strategies, and activation is at the forefront. LinkedIn document ads are a great way of getting thought leadership content in front of an engaged audience. Because the user can preview the document in the feed, as well as having the option to download the asset, there’s a clear value demonstration without having to leave the platform.
Ways of measuring engagement without form fills
If you’re not collecting data at this early stage, how do you prove it’s worth and keep your budgets for next year? There are several things you can focus on here:
- The size of the generated retargeting audience,
- Impressions,
- Ad engagement,
- Social shares; and,
- Follower growth.
All of this gives you an indication of what content is working, which audiences are most engaged, and where you stand amongst your competitors in the market.
In short, there’s always a need for lead capture, but ungating can actually increase the quality of the leads you’re capturing, as well as improving your brand perception.
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Related reading: 7 steps to a powerful content strategy
