Does gating content make sense in 2024?
In B2B content marketing, tension typically arises between marketing and sales teams over how much (if any) content should be gated. How much content should be accessible only to those willing to provide contact information?
The debate about gating content has been hot for as long as I can remember. Sales teams rage that content should be gated because that’s the only way the business can drive qualified leads and opportunities. They say it’s the only way content marketing can be measurable. That’s wrong, of course. It’s not the only way.
Some marketers rage back and say <a href="https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/articles/gate-content-brand-trust/">gated content always loses because it makes engagement more challenging, can’t be indexed for SEO purposes, and acts as a barrier between audience building and selling. That’s wrong, too. Some engaged audiences do come through content gates.
Recently, a new player has entered the discussion: AI search. Should you protect your most valuable content behind a gate so it doesn’t show up as a “no click” answer on a search page or in someone else’s AI-generated content?
There’s no good answer. #TheStruggleIsReal.
Content gating isn’t a yes or no question
Let’s be clear. There is nothing inherently wrong with gating some content. First-party data acquisition is a clear and present priority for B2B marketers. And it’s not just the qualified lead or contact information that provides the value. The insights you can glean from the first-party data help optimize many other parts of the journey.
Gated content can produce leads, opportunities, and sales. And it’s often the first step in a successful buyer’s journey. Awards have been given, case studies have been written, and budgets have increased because content marketing campaigns that led to gated assets produced results.
However, positive results also come from content marketing, which supports an audience journey. These audiences are typically filled with people who provide their contact information because they’re genuinely interested in a future relationship with your brand — carried out by consistently delivering valuable content.
Wait a minute. Should we care about their audience journey if these people aren’t destined to become buyers?
Absolutely. That’s because audiences (and the insights they provide) are one of the most valuable attributes of a successful marketing operation.
Gating content isn’t wrong. Promoting content downloads through short-lived, paid promotional campaigns (advertising) isn’t wrong.
The question is how to balance content creation, distribution, and promotion for the different journeys you design to support your business goals.
Are you building or moving audiences?
As a part of my consulting and advisory practice, I ask B2B clients about their focus. Do they want to build audiences, move them, or both? Their usual response: “What’s the difference?”
Here it is in a nutshell.
If you want to build an audience: You’ll work to amass a group of people who want your communications and value your content whether they buy from you or not. These people may represent longer-term opportunities. Or, they may never buy from you. And their value to your marketing operation lies in the data and insights you gather from studying how they interact with your content.
If you want to move an audience: You’ll work to continually and efficiently move people through the journey (i.e., becoming a qualified opportunity, becoming a buyer, and remaining a loyal customer).
In other words, some content efforts feed short-term campaigns to move audiences from one part of the buying journey to the next. And some build and satisfy an audience along one step in its journey — even if it never progresses to the next step.
It’s not an either-or choice. It’s a “yes and” choice. But they’re inherently different goals.
So, how should you balance your efforts between them?
Look to what I call (with my tongue firmly in cheek) the “three laws of audience motion.” Like Isaac Newton’s laws of motion, these three foundational concepts help you better understand (and measure) how audiences behave when entering and traveling along the buyer or audience journeys.
I call them laws not because they are absolute but because the world we all work in would recognize them as “normal” circumstances. And, yes, there are exceptions to these laws.
Let’s explore.
1st law of audience motion
Content value consistency is the key to audience engagement
A content consumer will either remain disengaged or become increasingly distant unless they are consistently provided with content experiences they find valuable and that are delivered regularly.
I wrote a piece late last year about why your audience isn’t the same as your marketing database.
Personal data is emotional. You don’t build audiences with gated content — you move them (hopefully). When you get accurate, trusted information from a simple gated content transaction, the content consumer is emotionally, if perhaps not intellectually or financially, ready to move to the next step of the buyer’s journey.
When you’re building an audience, on the other hand, you’re attracting people who are not necessarily ready to move.
People who provide their information to subscribe after free and unfettered access to content are not subscribing to what they just received. They are subscribing to the promise of future value inherent in the content they have already received. In other words, they just became customers — not of your product, but of the ideas you’re evangelizing.
Think about it this way: Would you rather have the contact information of 100 people who may or may not be interested in buying but will fill out a form to get a piece of content? Or would you rather have 50 people who may or may not be on the purchase track but signed up because they read ungated content and want more?
Which result would be better? Your answer probably depends on the objective.
Once either relationship has been set, your success in keeping it requires you to build on that expectation you set continuously. If your first action after someone signs up for your thought leadership newsletter is to have a sales representative call, you violated the first law of audience motion — and you can bet the content consumer will be set in motion away from you.
2nd law of audience motion
Once you start moving an audience, you have to work to keep it moving
If the initial content experiences guide the consumer into a buyer’s journey, then the likelihood of that buyer becoming a loyal audience member depends on the consistent progression they make throughout the journey.
The true benefit of building an audience is either that you engage a pool of people who can help you reach others who are willing to move or that you and your brand will be top of mind when people are willing/able to move.
One of the primary purposes of advertising, cold calling, or any sort of external campaign to move audiences is to find (as quickly as the campaign is designed to run) some number of people who are ready, willing, and able to move into the buyer’s journey.
But many things may stall their progress. So, creating smooth off ramps to move people from the buyer’s journey back to an audience where they can “rest” can be productive. Then, move them back into the buyer’s journey when they’re ready and not before.
And while your amazing, persuasive ad copy, brochure, or campaign call to action may convince them to move sooner, the further along in the buyer’s journey someone is, the more likely they’ll become valuable audience members.
For example, I worked with a global enterprise B2B software company that launched a thought leadership email newsletter. The call to action at the end of each newsletter directed people to its website to speak with a consultant who would give them a quote. That effort fell flat on its face.
Then, the marketing team noticed that many cold leads from its other sales campaigns subscribed to its newsletter. So, they switched the newsletter content to be more how-to and stopped selling to this audience. Instead, the team included calls to action for other thought leadership platforms like webinars and physical events).
This cold-lead audience ended up sharing the webinars and physical events at twice the rate of customers. The group also answered polls and provided excellent data for keyword and SEO benefits. And, over the long term, many of those cold leads returned to become buyers.
3rd law of audience motion
The longer an audience member stays engaged, the more likely they are to purchase
If the initial content experience engages the consumer as part of your audience, the likelihood of them influencing a purchase increases exponentially, depending on the size and quality of the audience.
One of the main benefits of audience building is that it establishes a more trusting relationship from the outset. By delivering valuable content, you immediately position your company as more differentiated and valuable.
But the value of an audience as a corporate asset has many facets. I’ve discussed the examples and definitions of audience value before. But the key, generally speaking, is to look at the value of audiences as a multiplier of value to influence purchases. Engaged, subscribed, and measured audiences typically buy faster, buy more, stay longer, and evangelize more frequently.
A few years ago, I worked with an enterprise software company that deals with long buying cycles and an even longer time between purchases (think decades). The company’s original research and thought leadership platform helps professionals in the industry get better at their jobs. It’s a long-term audience-building strategy focused on pooling likely customers and letting them become leads on their schedule. Today, nearly a third of all their leads come from subscribers to this platform.
Balancing the laws
If you build distinct business goals for the types of content you create, you can segment and balance the types of value expected from each approach (moving and building audiences).
This chart illustrates the business value of both moving an audience and building an audience:
Each conversion point illustrates the business value you can measure across either journey or when they cross into one another.
The diagram shows these conversion points for moving an audience:
- Filling out a gated content form
- Qualifying as a lead
- Going through a nurturing process
- Transacting/making a purchase
Conversion points for building an audience include:
- Filling out a subscription form
- Becoming part of the modeled audience
- Becoming part of an audience segment
- Becoming part of a measured audience
For example, moving an audience follows a classic direct marketing funnel value, where you measure:
- Optimized behavior
- Number of leads (identity value)
- Lead value
- Opportunity value
- Transaction value/average selling price (ASP)
- Customer value
However, if our goal is to build an audience, you can deliver similar conversion points to measure the value of the audience as it grows:
- Contribution value (the multiplier effect on extended reach or influence)
- Competency value (the ability to leverage data to provide insight into marketing)
- Campaign value (the multiplier effect on pooling willing but not ready prospects)
- Customer value (the creation of better, higher-value customers)
- Cash value (the ability to generate revenue or cost savings)
- Audience value (the value of the audience asset monetized in multiple ways)
Both journeys culminate in a business asset. Moving an audience creates a customer asset. Building an audience creates an audience asset.
Together, they form three categories:
- Audience members who will never be customers
- Audience members who are customers
- Customers who aren’t audiences.
That gets us back to two questions: Where could you add the most value? Where do you add the most value?
If you can balance moving and building an audience, the answer to those questions would ultimately make the overlap of those circles so big that it becomes one large group of customers and audience members.
So, take your time. Figure out where the business needs the most value now and how you might begin to reinvest in a better balance between the short-term benefits of moving an audience and the long-term benefits of building an audience.
It’s your story. Tell it well.
Updated from a July 2020 article.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute