What is Gated vs. Non-Gated Content?
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To gate or not to gate – that is the question. Gated content is an important element of inbound and digital marketing strategy, but knowing what and when to gate isn’t always obvious. In this edition of The Weekly Byte, we try and define gated content and answer these questions in fewer than 90 seconds!The Weekly Byte is a video series that provides quick, digestible tips and best practices you can use to help your business succeed. Get in touch with us via the comments section below if you have any questions about today’s episode or have ideas for topics you’d like to see covered in the future!
In this episode, we cover:
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What is gated content?
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Why do you gate content?
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What should you ask for?
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What should you be gating
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I have a simple way to gauge this....
gated content is for stuff not good enough to be shared where you have to charge for the content before people see it. Gates is more anonymous and for those not proud of their work.
non-gated content is where you put stuff with value, when you are proud of it and want people to see it and associate it with you. When you are not hiding.
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SolarWinds, Fluke Networks, they are some of the biggest "gaters" of content I've seen.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
SolarWinds, Fluke Networks, they are some of the biggest "gaters" of content I've seen.
I would be unaware, if content is gated I have no interest in it. If it isn't important enough to share, it's not good enough to read.
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What about gated free software?
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@Breffni-Potter said:
What about gated free software?
LOL, is it free if gated?
Do you mean like... do a bunch of sign up for spam crap and then we'll let you know if maybe there is something back here to download?
Yeah... I don't download that.
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@scottalanmiller this is how i feel. Sign up for our FREE whitepaper, webinar. how is that free if i have to give you all my contact info .
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So in theory when you download a piece of content, you should be getting more than what you're giving (your contact information). It sounds like that hasn't been the case. In having a good content strategy, the follow-up email communication should not read as SPAM. It should offer a deeper understanding of the associated topic focus, answering more of your questions and those questions that you have at that point in your buyer's stage.
So when you fill out a form and give contact information, it helps marketers determine what content they should send you more of. Is this not valuable to you?
You can read the rest of my response at this dedicated landing page.
Well, you need to not enable video thumbnails because that just took out all the fun.
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@kennym said:
@scottalanmiller this is how i feel. Sign up for our FREE whitepaper, webinar. how is that free if i have to give you all my contact info .
Exactly. That's not free and there is no way I'm giving up that info before I know if I am getting anything out of it!
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@kennym said:
@scottalanmiller this is how i feel. Sign up for our FREE whitepaper, webinar. how is that free if i have to give you all my contact info .
And how ridiculous is it to gate a whitepaper or webinar, for example? Those are just ads already. So gating your own marketing? That's nuts.
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my humble opinion is a lot of this gated content comes from the need to develop so called "leads" We need 100 names and addresses etc. I personally do not like this approach and prefer a congruent conversation in a relevant network.
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@MKM8DY said:
So when you fill out a form and give contact information, it helps marketers determine what content they should send you more of. Is this not valuable to you?
But that isn't what that does. Giving a marketer my info just adds me to a list to "attack". It flags me as a sucker who will hand out contact information in return for content I know nothing about. It doesn't, in any way, provide information that someone could use usefully to my benefit.
How do you propose that by collection my email address, for example, that you could tailor future communications? There is no future, because that would be a cold call. My email address isn't providing any insight beyond I want to read this one thing.
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@MKM8DY said:
In having a good content strategy, the follow-up email communication should not read as SPAM. It should offer a deeper understanding of the associated topic focus, answering more of your questions and those questions that you have at that point in your buyer's stage.
I think you are missing a huge point here... any follow up is spam. Why would there be a follow up? This is why we don't like gated content, it's not just getting our info, it is now the assumption that communications further isn't spam... but it is.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I have a simple way to gauge this....
gated content is for stuff not good enough to be shared where you have to charge for the content before people see it. Gates is more anonymous and for those not proud of their work.
non-gated content is where you put stuff with value, when you are proud of it and want people to see it and associate it with you. When you are not hiding.
This is how we helped change the online adult entertainment industry, and ... also make everyone pretty mad. We made everything freely available, video and all, and at the time this wasn't a normal thing, but it helped mess up everything.
Technically we were second to the show, but we did it better because we also provided free adult connections (compared to other sites directly designed for this) and tons of other things. Providing it free made us more popular than the ones which did not, and if anyone signed up for those costly ones, they were all terrible, and usually nothing but fake accounts.
In other words, akin to what you said, paywalls are a way to get something when you can't make money providing good content so you trick people into paying for it.
Ironically later on we did partner to provide HD and other video for money, I should clarify, but the rest is still all free, very little costs anything.
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I hate when vendors gate their pricing.
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@wrx7m said:
I hate when vendors gate their pricing.
If they don't tell you how much something costs right away it means it costs too damn much.
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@tonyshowoff said:
@wrx7m said:
I hate when vendors gate their pricing.
If they don't tell you how much something costs right away it means it costs too damn much.
That's what I always think.
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@wrx7m said:
I hate when vendors gate their pricing.
I find it simplifies things, it's like they have already evaluated the cost and are letting me know up front that it isn't worth my time. Very handy.
