Chief Executive Officer at Bordeaux & Burgundy
getty
You would think that, by now, there would be an answer to the question “gated or ungated?” but this question comes up at every organization I’ve ever worked with at least twice a year. The reason this question arises so frequently isn’t due to a sales executive taking his monthly opportunity to teach marketers about marketing because his cousin’s wife works at a major advertising agency. I believe it comes up because most of us don’t see the full picture when it comes to the buyer’s journey.
The problem originates from the departmentalization of marketing, which is often driven by managerial practicality and not by the ambition to create the best marketing. For example, we might split a content marketing team into a separate department to focus on researching and developing white papers, reports, blogs and videos—so we treat these things as “content marketing.” The fundamental issue here is that a white paper without ads promoting it or SEO-optimized landing pages will do nothing (unless you label it as sales enablement and get your sales team to send it in an email). More importantly, it means that marketers see social ads, landing pages and paid media as a separate thing than “content marketing”—when, in fact, all of these things are the “marketing” part of “content marketing.”
“What does all this have to do with ungated and gated content?” When you’re looking at the content to gate and leave ungated, ask yourself what journey you’ve taken your prospect on. I imagine the discussion usually goes something like this: “They won’t just download something right off the bat; we need some top-of-funnel ungated content to educate the buyer before asking them to download anything.” There are two things I’m really conscious of here:
1. How many times have you clicked on a link with an interesting title, read a blog, then thought “this has really encouraged me to go download something and I’m now willing to fill out a form”? I think this journey is often a retroactive rationalization that suits marketing processes but doesn’t explain the actual journey of a buyer. The reality is that whatever the link or ad you initially clicked to reach the blog was what gave you the motivation to engage with the content—not the blog itself.
2. What you class as top-of-funnel ungated content is a blog or something “light,” but this doesn’t take into account the graphics or copy in the ad that promotes the ungated piece. For example, if you have an advertisement leading to a white paper that offers a taste of what’s inside, a shocking statistic or engaging point of view on the landing page, then you’ve already provided some ungated content. The difference is that you have used that engagement to capture information, not just have some unknown person read your blog and leave your site in the hope that in three months they will download something because of a blog they may not remember reading.
Now, this said, plenty of B2B content marketing assets are already gated (meaning they require registration to access). I personally think more of them should be, as you’re here to generate sales, which requires leads. And if you’re concerned with brand or awareness, remember that you won’t build your brand with a white paper or solutions brief alone, so putting a form in front of it is unlikely to damage it.
An important point to make here is that you can’t just gate everything because I’ve said it’s best and then expect results. You should also improve the quality of your ads, which usually just means spending a bit more time with them and ensuring that the key standout pieces of information in whatever asset you are promoting are front and center in the ads; this will likely create enough motivation to fill out a form and download the asset.
In summary, if you zoom out, remain aware of your buyer’s journey from first touch to content, and optimize this journey, you may quickly realize that it’s a no-brainer to gate content. You will also notice when you focus on how you’re promoting content and not just the content itself that you get more results for longer from the content you have been producing. Additionally, you should ensure that while your marketing function is split into relevant teams, they remain aware of the impact they have across the whole marketing department. The best marketing is present in all aspects of the buyer’s journey.
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