While creating content for your website with lot of efforts, you obviously want to get more or something from it. 80% of B2B content marketing assets are gated and lead generation is one of the major objective.

What is a Gated Content?

Gated content is any types of content that viewers can only access after exchanging their information or email ids. Companies generally use this information for generating leads and increasing sales.

Gated content is an effective way to drive your inbound marketing campaign. It is named as gated content because it lives behind the virtual gate and that entrance can be opened, if visitor provide his contact details.

Usage of gated content through eBook, whitepapers or webinar is increasingly popular, with 4 out of 5 using it for lead generation.

It requires a user to complete a form or purchase subscription prior to gaining access to the content. User information collected, thereby helps in understanding their interest and target for sales later down the line.

Purpose of Gated content:

Gated content isn’t used for brand awareness or visibility campaign as the nature of hidden content do not allow for high traffic.

Gated content can increase lead generation whereas ungated content, in the form of blog, YouTube videos, can improve SEO and increase brand awareness.

Apart from promoting sales gated content also provides analytics and insight into your customer and allow for email list segmentation.

Here are some examples of Gated Content.

1. White Papers & eBooks

eBooks and whitepapers are most common content format, as they are the staples of inbound marketing. eBooks are used by B2C while white papers are norms of business targeting founders and CEOs.

If your content is packed in the form of whitepaper or eBook it can deliver enormous value to your visitors and establish you as trusted brand.

Whitepapers make you industry expert on a topic and enable more people to download your offer. eBooks are used to build trust as it is used to create awareness and consideration stage of the buyer’s journey.

Both are the great way to identify which viewers is interested in your business and provide lead list for follow-up.

2. Content Upgrades

Giving someone a taste of what to come next can be a powerful way to engage them.

You can share a snippet of a compelling article or a portion of a colorful or fact filled info graphic and encourage the reader to sign up to see the rest.

3. Templates

The perceived value of a template is much higher than that of an eBook and whitepaper.

This means the audience is more likely to input their contact information to receive it. Providing template is a tactical actionable piece of content.

If you could provide a template that helps busineness,people will love to download and start using it right away.

This type of gated content is mostly preferred by online marketers.

4. Webinar

For prospects that are in decision stage of the buyers journey webinars are an excellent gated content offer.

Businesses have seen higher conversation rates from webinars as it has high perceived value which enables theaudience more likely to fill up the forms.

Webinars also help marketers to quickly add 100 plus subscribers to their email list in real-time.

But to encourage users to sign up for webinar you need to promote on different platforms.

You can use a standalone landing page to capture leads and users who sign up for your webinar.

5. EmailSeries

Email series and courses are excellent choice for gated content.

You can lock valuable email content by delivering it to users who sign up in the form of an ongoing class or course.

You can schedule an email to be sent out each day or twice a week to your subscribers.

Moreover, you can target the audience to capture email addresses and follow up later.

6. Product Demos

Product demos work really good when you are a SAAS company or a new startup.

Scheduling demos, and giving people taste of your product gives you opportunity to convert free users into your customers.

This is most effective after people have signed up for your email list.

You can use this technique if you’re looking for qualified leads that will turn into your customers in no time.

7. Analysis and Experiment

If your organization conducts analysis or experiments you can easily add new subscribers to your email list.

Sharing the results you got from analysis is a great way to provide premium B2B content and generate new leads.

But don’t share it for free instead lock the content.

8. Free Trials

Most people who visit your website are not ready to spend money.

So companies can offer free access to their product, articles or content and limit the number of access to content online prior to giving up your information and in some cases paying a fee.

Free trials that don’t request credit card tend to convert better than those with credit cards.

9. Quiz Results

This is excellent use of gated content as every one of us love taking online quiz and polls.

You can easily ask for email address into a form before starting quiz or seeing the results.

You can use this information into your marketing automation plan and offer various types of content in future based on their needs.

How to use Gated content to generate & nurture leads:

1. Pay attention to buyers journey & create content:

The buyers goes through three main stages ,awareness ,consideration and decision stage. During each stage your audience must have content that can help along the way. For instance visitor in awareness stage is interested in reading eBook and at decision stage may prefer demo or webinar. So if your gated content is aligned with their journey you will get more conversations.

2. Complete a competitive analysis:

Always know what your competitors are doing and find the type of content they are creating. Look out for what is gated content versus ungated as it will give you an idea of what content of your should be gated.

3. Provide Incentive:

Your content should not be long blog post instead it should provide actionable and valuable content. When your content is relevant it gives your audience an incentives to fill out that form and share details.

4. Build a strong landing page:

Creating strong landing page is best practice of gated content. Let the reader know exactly why they should download your content and what it will enable them to do that benefit them and their business.

5. Keep your form simple:

Don’t expect the prospect to spend 10 minutes to complete a form that results in a download that takes two minutes to read. Test your entire end to end process to make sure accessing the content is fast and simple.

6. Measure the analysis:

When you have decided to gate a certain piece of content it means you can now track your conversations. This analysis will help you understand your audience better and improve your content strategy.

Conclusion

These gated content examples are powerful in capturing email leads and increasing your sales funnel. Being able to email your prospects whenever you want is Holy Grail of online marketing. Why not turn your visitors into solid leads. Each sign up is open door for interaction so build your relationship with your potential customers today.

Want to start using gated content to grow your small business, website and engagement with your brand, tell us below in one click. We will help you design your gated content in best way.