For me, the deliberation between gating or not gating content is tired. I’ve created enough content and client journeys to know what works. And here’s the bottom line answer…
…there is no bottom line answer.
The amount of interrelated, real-time variables i.e. the content depth, the persona description, the stage within the funnel, the analytics and what you will actually do with the collected information – is far too custom per each demand-gen program to claim a clear “do-this” approach.
Google “gated or ungated content” for yourself. You’ll find heartfelt and diagnostic pundits and posts to offer opinions.
However, this post is neither heartfelt nor diagnostic. I am a little incredulous towards the practice of slamming the gate shut on my fingers. I would like to know what consultant first suggested it.
What am I kvetching about?
The landing page forms that do not accept @gmail or other ISP email addresses. “You must use a business email address.”
We all know HOW this happened. Someone thought it was a great “lead qualifier.”
It’s not.
- What if I am a consultant, working on behalf of a client?
- What if I am at a corporation, but for my own, personal reasons, need your whitepaper on my private email?
- What if I am between jobs (ahemahem), but am looking for solutions to bring into my NEXT job?
You have shut down ANY AND ALL opportunity to follow-up. I will certainly agree that the likelihood of having a B2B sales person reach out to [email protected] is unlikely. But what about [email protected]?
By slamming the gate, right from the very first interaction, you have zero chance to drip Winelusher451 or smith.bradleymarketing more content. Remember, I am persona-less. You need to begin the process of uncovering who I am before deciding my value is zero.
Slamming the gate also prevents any retargeting. One of the key points I try to impress on my teams: the B2B customer is the same person EMOTIONALLY and DIGITALLY as a B2C customer. Let me in. Drop the cookie. Let me engage. I assure you, if your content motivates me, I will introduce myself. It may even be at your “analog” trade booth next month. I may just walk up and say, “hey, I read your whitepaper on…”
Another consideration: your martech may already have a cookie in my system that can be synched up with an existing activity record… where I did use my so-called business email.
BTW, you have created another problem.
Whenever I do get the gate slammed shut, I simply change my @gmail.com domain to @dell.com and I get the content anyway. (sorry, Dell, but your name is easy to type). Only a few sites use the “we have sent (@dell.com) a link to the whitepaper you requested” rather than a “download now” button.
Now, not only do you not have my actual contact email, your martech stack has a bogus email address that will log-in as a bounce.
Data is the new oil. Filter it after you get it in, not before.
There are serious real-world best-practices about gating or not, and I encourage you to sculpt a strategy to your unique services and product portfolio. However, by slamming the gate shut at the first interaction – you have functionally hung up the phone on a prospect who is asking for more information. An experienced sales person would never do that. A sales person would ease (engage) the prospect into a conversation (a relationship) to carefully qualify their value. That’s what top of funnel content is supposed to do. This is exactly what demand-gen planning and content strategy does.
Do you really want to risk not building a relationship with [email protected]? After all, I usually buy the first round.
PS: I am job hunting. Dig deeper at www.iBradley.com.