These days, the internet is inundated with articles by marketers up in arms over the who, what, where, when and why of gating webinars, white papers, case studies, customer testimonials, and other value-adding assets your company has to offer. While hundreds of years of sciences haven’t garnered any hard or fast rules delineating the laws of “gateable content,” the best thing to do may simply to ask yourself the following five questions.
Who is My Customer?
It’s important to consider your audience. Different types of content will be of variable importance to various types of people. Are the folks visiting your landing page the ones wielding the company AMEX? Or are they the tired, huddled desk-jockeys yearning to breathe free? Although purchasing power alone is not a sufficient metric for determining your A1’s, it can be a powerful influence in deciding whether to gate that asset.
What Content am I Offering?
Another important factor to consider is the dang content itself! A white paper or a free trial may be worthy contenders of the form-first approach, but a thirty-second informational video may not sufficiently tickle your customer’s fancy to warrant a voluntary submission of their precious, personal data. Keep the content in mind when deciding whether to throw up the gates — it may make the difference between conversion and abandonment!
Where Along the Customer Journey is the Content Being Offered?
If you are running a complex campaign loaded with emails, forms, filters, waits, snaps, thingamabobs and doodly-pops then you may have several steps that offer up some slice of substantive digital goodness to your prospects. If this is the case, then consider tempering your stingier nature with a progression-based content gating schema. This could mean a full-fledged progressive profiling form that incrementally collects customer data over the course of several page visits, OR it could mean leaving early assets open and gating those appearing later in the campaign. The idea here is that you’re in a relationship with each email address in your contact record and that nobody likes a needy partner! So relax, take a deep breath, play it cool, and keep it fun for both parties!
When are you planning to offer this content?
This question aims solely to be sensitive to the fact that, in many cases, the customers with buying power may have a fluctuating amount of said power throughout the year. The bookends of each quarter and of each fiscal year may represent peaks or valleys of purchase potential, and if you’re #blessed enough to know any of this data about your clientele, then you’d do well to consider these fluctuations when asking yourself “to gate, or not to gate?”
Why am I gating this content?
The answer to this question is the conclusion at which you should arrive after considering questions #1 – 4. If you’re still not sure, take another pass. Take notes. Take a break. Take your time. A well-informed, data-driven decision about The Gate question is the only safe way to walk so fine a line.
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