"To Gate or not to Gate" Content

After months of research and writing, many great pieces of content are born but never see the light of day. They are locked behind forms with as little as one field (for email) or many more fields, so that the reader’s information gets routed to appropriate BDR. 9 out of 10 marketers say that this approach doesn’t work. As human beings, we hate forms, so why do we keep putting content behind the forms?

Here are three huge advantages of content that isn’t gated:

1. Great for SEO

When the research report or a guide is placed on the webpage and optimized for SEO, it will get found and consumed multiple times by multiple visitors. Great content can be producing results for several years before it becomes obsolete. This is a holy grail of any content marketer. 

1. Great for retargeting

Visitors consuming content can be placed into the retargeting campaign and continue to receive ads reminding them about the website they just visited. Various research confirms that multiple touches are needed across the web and dark social before someone becomes truly educated and engaged. With cookies going away, there will be some new tricks to learn, yet cyberstalking of web visitors isn’t going anywhere. 

1. Great for brand building

Producing content that gets found and consumed on a consistent basis builds a company's reputation as a trusted source of thought leadership and insights. Readers keep coming back for more and spend more time interacting with the company’s resources. 

Gating can be applicable to content built for ABM purposes for a specific company with benchmarking within a cohort. Everything else should be wide open. 

What are your thoughts on the topic?