Set Your Content Free.
One of my least favorite marketing tactics, particularly in B2B marketing, is to gate content.
This is the practice of putting a piece of content behind a form. Anyone wishing to download a piece of content — a research report, how-to guide, etc. — must provide their name and email address first.
From the marketing team’s perspective, it sounds great, right? It’s an easy way to collect prospects at the top of the funnel.
The sales team loves it too: more leads to cold-call!
But for the prospect, it sucks.
To explain why, here’s my experience as a prospect myself. Perhaps you can relate.
In my work, I very often scour the internet for research purposes. This inevitably leads me to content I want to look at — gated by a form.
I may have no actual interest in the products or services offered by the company providing the content. I just want the content. Therefore, I’m not really a prospect.
Regardless, I want the content, so I fill out and submit the form.
Invariably, I start to receive email after email from this company, trying to sell me a product or service I never wanted in the first place. Annoying.
In some cases, I actually get a phone call from a salesperson — sometimes minutes after I’ve downloaded the content — to see if they can answer questions about their product or service.
I think this is incredibly lazy sales work. And a major turn-off to prospects.
Let’s review the marketing and sales funnel:
If I have casually visited a website landing page as a result of an internet search as part of my research, I am still in the awareness part of the funnel, a.k.a. the top of the funnel. I am by no means a qualified lead. This is not the time to engage me with any sales effort — neither by email nor phone call.
That’s an instant turn-off to the prospect. It’s the equivalent of striking up a 30-second conversation with the stranger in front of you in the grocery checkout line and then asking them out on a date.
Now, if I actually have interest in the product or service being offered, I will likely visit other pages on the website, and might actually fill out an interest form — if not on this visit to the site, perhaps during a subsequent visit. That would put me in the interest phase of the funnel. That is the time to start sending me thoughtful emails based on my expressed interest, at a pace that feels respectful to me, rather than pummeling me with messages.
Based on my interaction with those emails, visits to associated landing pages, and actions I take, the marketing team may ascertain that I am close to the point where I am ready to make a purchase decision. (Any good marketing automation platform will help you divine that.) I have made it to the desire stage.
Then, and only then, should the marketing team consider me a “marketing-qualified lead” and hand me over to a salesperson to contact me.
Ideally, that salesperson will have reviewed my history of visiting webpages, filling out forms, and consuming content before calling me.
If this friendly, helpful, non-pushy salesperson closes me, I will have graduated to the action phase of the funnel — purchase!
From there, the customer support team will take over, making sure I remain a satisfied customer and incentivizing me to become an advocate for the company — an unpaid salesperson.
Why I suggest not gating your content (and why I won’t gate mine):
I like to remove as much friction as possible for my prospects, at every touchpoint.
In fact, I want anyone and everyone to have access to my content. The more, the merrier.
Because the larger my pool of content consumers, the more likely that some of them may sooner or later become prospects for my offering. (In my case, that’s high-level brand, marketing, and communications services.)
That’s exactly why I didn’t put access to the content you’re reading right now behind a form.
And if you are indeed someone who may someday need my offering, I have four goals with my content:
- Inform and/or entertain you (the two goals of any content)
- Establish myself as a credible expert who can meet your needs
- Entice you to keep coming back to my website for more content
- Cement my position as the provider you want to call when you’re ready to purchase the type of offering I provide.
I don’t need to fill my prospect list with the names and email addresses of people who will never need my offering.
I’m only interested in true prospects for whom I can provide real value and with whom I am a bona fide good fit.
If I do a good job of providing content desired by my true prospects while clearly communicating the value I can provide to them, truly interested leads will keep coming back to my website. They will self-progress to the desire stage of the funnel at their own, comfortable pace.
At that point, a contact from me will be welcomed.
That’s why I say, don’t be afraid to set your content free.
Your true prospects will reward you for it.
To your marketing success,
Note: No part of this blog post, or any post on this site, was written by A.I. You’re getting pure human writing based on years of professional experience.