You Ask, I Answer: Gated Content Outdated Marketing Tactic?

In today's episode, Sarah asks, is gated content now an outdated content marketing tactic? What should we be thinking about for B2B marketing in 2023? No, no, it's not outdated. But it is misused a lot. It is uh ineffective for a lot of marketers.

And here's the reason why. Gated content, which means content that's behind some kind of registration wall where you have to fill out a form to get at it, is it's a sale, right? It's another kind of sale. Instead of asking someone for money, you're asking them for data. And with all the change and coming privacy regulations, it might be argued that the commitment to giving someone your data could be in some cases higher than the commitment to actually buying something.

So it is a sale. Which means that if the content isn't worth the value of the a person's data, you're not going to sell very much of it, right? What do you have that somebody wants so badly that they are willing to buy it with their personal data, right? Because when you go to a form and you fill it out, you know what's going to happen. You fill out that form to get your download, and you know in seconds is going to be an email from you.

In 30 minutes or less, a salesperson is probably going to call you. And then there's going to be endless calls and emails saying, hey, just check it in. How about that piece of content you download? Any questions about it? Are you the right person to be talking to about this sort of thing, right?

You know, you know the drill. And that's a hassle. It's not a huge hassle because I guess it depends. Like I'm antisocial, so I just tell people on my voicemail message, I never answer the phone. Um, send me a text.

No one ever does. Um, but the point is that that's a sale. You are selling something and asking someone for for their data as as the condition of sale. That is the currency being used, their privacy. Is what you're selling worth that?

Is what you're selling of equal or greater value? And that is the determinant about whether or not you should gate content, right? Is a download worth the hassle? Right? Now, if you are a company that doesn't have a strong sales team, it might not even be worth gating content because you're not going to have anybody to uh to call these people back, right?

Um, so there's that consideration as well. But generally speaking, the rule of thumb that I go by is if a piece of content could you legitimately get someone to pay money for it? If the answer is yes, it's probable that you could get somebody other than your mother to pay money for that content, then gate it, right? Because you see economic value there. If you didn't work for your company, would you see enough value in that piece of content to buy it?

To get out your credit card and buy it. If the answer is yes, it can be gated because you're trading value for value. If you look at your last piece of content and go, pfft, I I wouldn't pay, I wouldn't even pay like a dollar for that. Then no, don't gate it. Because if you wouldn't pay for it, why do you think anybody else would?

And when we're thinking about what we're asking somebody to give their privacy to us, is their privacy worth whatever piece of content you're offering them? If the answer is no, don't gate it. So it's not a question of whether gated content works or not, it's a question of value. The reason why we're asking is gated content an outdated tactic is because a lot of content isn't worth it. It's not worth the sale.

You wouldn't pay money for it. Right. If I see someone saying, hey, I've got this new paper on 43 ways uh, you know, uh agencies can make more money using TikTok. I'm not gonna buy that. Yeah, but there are certainly people who would and they would see value in that and they would pay money for that.

For me, no. If somebody said, uh, here's 43 ways to train your sales team better to win deals in complex sales without high pressure sales tactics. Yeah, I might pay money for that. I might pay a dollar or five dollars or nine ninety nine for that or more. But that's content that you could gate because I see the economic value in that.

I see what's in it for me as the customer. I know what's in it for me. I I'm gonna sell more stuff if the the paper's any good. Um, I can give it to my sales team and I can sell more stuff, right? There's a clear what's in it for me.

My I used to work with a sales guy a long time ago who said the radio in people's heads is permanently tuned to one station, W I I F M. What's in it for me? And he was right. He he is right. Look at your gated content.

What's in it for your audience? What's in it for them? Are they going to learn something new? Is it uh, you know, think about the the the YouTube creator framework that Google announced way back in 2014? You know, hero hub help.

Hero content is sort of like a big picture why? Why are we even talking about this thing? Your hub content is what is this thing? Your help content is the how do you do this thing? Look at your gated content.

Does it answer one of those three questions? Why do I care about this thing? What is this thing? How does this thing work? And what's in it for me?

There are any number of, you know, I recently I've been seeing papers on you know go-to-market strategy. You know, people saying the go-to-market strategy is the new account-based marketing. And I'm like, yeah, but what's in it for me? Right? I know how to go to market.

I may or may not be great at it, but I know how to go to market. Um, are there new tips that will help me go to market better, charge more money, keep customers longer? And from the papers I've downloaded so far, the content I've downloaded so far that has been gated, I've been like, this didn't help me. There was no value in here. There's nothing in it for me that I didn't already know and that I wasn't already doing.

It was fake thought leadership, uh, trying to repackage cliches as as some novel thought. It was kind of absent uh any any new ideas. And so there wasn't value in it for me, which means that the next time I see that company offer content that's gated, I'm probably going to give it a miss. There was nothing in it for me. It was just a sales pitch for your company services, and I don't need that.

So gated content is not an outdated tactic. Crappy content is. Crappy content is outdated. Your content that you're giving away in one form or another, or asking people to buy with money or with privacy has got to be worth it. If your content's not worth it, it's not going to sell.

And then, yes, it will seem like gating content as a tactic is not working, it's out of date, but it's not. It's crappy content. Anyway, thanks for the question. Talk to you soon. If you like this video, go ahead and hit that subscribe button.