Has gated content lost its magic?
In the past, I’ve happily followed the methodology and principles of inbound marketing (perhaps most famously promoted and embodied by the folk at HubSpot). You could say I was a bit of a ‘fan girl’; the internal voice advocating for its use in whatever marketing team I was in.
As it happens, the general ‘ethos’ behind inbound has always sat rather well with me, because it’s an approach that encourages:
Interactions with your audience that involve providing them with valuable content rather than content that’s disguised as a pushy sales pitch.
A different attitude from marketers (and the wider organisation) towards their audience. You don’t go on about your brand or your product/service— instead, you focus on the needs of your audience.
A more targeted approach to delivering content; serving up the right content, to the right people, at the right time.
More careful consideration about what content is created in the first place.
And instead of pestering people in an unsolicited manner, you’re proactively attracting prospects —people who already have that ‘live’ need or desire for what you’re selling — through relevant, engaging, valuable content.
At the time this all started to permeate the B2B marketer’s psyche, it was a very, very exciting, progressive thing. It made perfect sense...
Gated content: inbound’s most renowned tactic
‘Gated content’ simply means that you’re putting a form in front of a piece of downloadable content (a whitepaper, report, toolkit, etc…) so that the user has to hand over some details about themselves before they can get their hands on that content asset.
It can be a very effective tactic for attracting inbound leads; filling the funnel is the first hurdle to get over and to get the old pipeline going.
As we know, this type of transaction is common and conventional these days. It’s about letting the prospect come to you — not stalking them, hounding them or harassing them with cold calls and marketing emails.
We already know that a significant proportion of users don’t particularly mind handing over a few details about themselves (name, org, email, job title, etc.) when they think the content asset on ‘the other side’ of the form will be worth the exchange.
What might have changed?
I’ve decided not to name and shame anyone here, but frankly, there’s some right crap out there masquerading as ‘valuable content’. And let me tell you, this has been going on for quite a while now…
These days, rather than being a content marketer, I am now in the position of being more on the receiving end of all these content offers.
I happen to work in a role (I work mainly as a strategist for an agency) where it’s pretty standard to be handing over my professional details in return for insight-laden papers, reports and guidance docs. As a strategist, I rely on high-quality insight, data and intel to inform and guide what I, in turn, might recommend and produce for clients.
I’m finding that it’s not uncommon for me to feel a bit disappointed — or even misled — after discovering that what I’ve just downloaded is actually quite weak and/or irrelevant and/or ‘shallow’ content.
“4 in 10 Final Decision-Markers say that the market is oversaturated with thought leadership content.”
Landing page experiences aren’t universally better either. Before you even get your hands on the content you’re after, you might be faced with working out if you’re even on the right page. Where’s the form? Oh, right at the bottom… 🤦🏻♀️
This is over the course of a time period of nearly two years. Eventually, you start to feel a bit more wary and suspicious of the gated content you’re seeing promoted to you on social, via email, etc. It’s now clear as day to me that a high volume of organisations have basically abused elements of content marketing; utilising gated content as their default strategy, without properly satisfying all of the necessary requirements to execute it properly.
It means these organisations have been consistently underdelivering on their promises to users/the end audience as a result.
That means me. And that means you too.
One of the main ways this misuse can materialise is via the endless barrage of marketing emails and social media messages we’ll receive, following that first-ever touchpoint we have with them — a completed form.
What can be even worse is when you’ve not even ticked any GDPR-related boxed to grant the permission to remarket to you, and they do it anyway (ergo, was there really any reason to fear the launch of GDPR back in May 2018?).
In parallel to what I’m thinking maybe the case, there’s a steady flow of research findings and studies that suggest that B2B buyer behaviour is changing — and it’s evolving to a point where gated content might have now outstayed its welcome.
“Only 25% of B2B buyers say that they’re willing to share contact details to access interesting content. Why? The nature of people driving B2B tech buying has changed. The way that tech buyers want to engage with providers has changed.
“They want to be anonymous and experience the traditional buyer journey on their own terms.”
All of this has led me to question whether gated content is now on a downward trend and losing its ‘shine’. Where I was once a firm advocate of this approach, I am now jaded by the constant overuse and misuse of the tactic. What’s more, I feel that over the past several years, it has served to detract from the attempts of those organisations actually doing an excellent job with their gated content.
It’s clear I’m not alone. You only have to take a quick look around the virtual marketing community to witness an increasing number of peers on Twitter thinking in a similar way:
Other marketers are expressing a general ‘weariness’ about gated content — it’s now a hindrance to their general practice:
And there’s been more discussion than ever this year about the ‘gated vs. ungated’ debate — particularly on social. B2B marketers are taking more time to consider exactly what reasoning and which circumstances justify the use of the tactic in the first place.
Content heavyweights like Ann Handley have been writing about it too.
“Marketing used the presence of a gate to communicate value: “This is so valuable that I need something in exchange for it.” And the email address was a fair trade.
“The problem is that too many bad players have exploited that exchange.
“And people (you, me, our customers) are hyper-aware of the value of our data now.”
Whether or not this is just a blip in what some of us think about gated content remains to be seen.
Me? I’ll be watching with interest, whilst continuing to carefully weigh up whether I fill in that next gated content form — or not.
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