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Global Marketers Channel by RuthNov. 19, 2018

To Gate or Not to Gate, That Is the B2B Content Marketing Question

There’s a spirited debate in B2B marketing about whether it’s best to give away information (aka "content," like white papers and research reports) to all comers, versus requiring web visitors to provide some information in exchange for a content download.  In other words, to gate your content or not to gate.  The debate involves aspects of both ROI and philosophy.  Myself, I lean toward the "gate it" camp, and here’s why.

I know that plenty of very smart and well-respected Internet marketing experts line up with dear old Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, who famously said in 1984 that information "wants to be free."  The underlying assumption there is that people buy from companies that they trust─a valid point, to be sure.  Casting a net through free─unimpeded─distribution of content encourages both trust and, perhaps more importantly, wide dispersal and sharing of information.  You’ll get to a much bigger audience, who will be educated on the solutions to their business problems, will be grateful for the free info and, one hopes, will think of you when they’re ready to buy.  So far, so good.

The problem is that this model─which lives under the umbrella concept known as "inbound marketing"─leaves marketers in a serious quandary.  We don’t have any way of knowing who is reading our informative, educational and helpful content.  We are left sitting on our thumbs, unable to take any proactive steps toward building relationships with these potential prospects.  All we can do is wait for them to contact us and, we hope, ask us to participate in an RFP process, or, more likely, give them more info and more answers to their questions.  Is that any way to sustain and grow a business relationship─not to mention meet a revenue target?  In my view, it leaves too much to chance.

Let’s look at the numbers.  The ROI model for inbound marketing says that distributing the content to a wide audience will eventually result in more sales than gating the content and marketing proactively to a smaller universe.  Let’s look at how these numbers might actually work:

To start the conversation, say that wide distribution would put your content in front of 10,000 prospects, via free downloads and pass-along.

In contrast, we might similarly assume that by gating, and requiring some contact information in exchange for the content download, we would only get 1% of that distribution: 100 prospects.  These are now legitimate inquirers, and we can conduct outbound communications to them.  By applying typical campaign conversion rates, we could predict that of 100 inquiries, 20% will qualify─producing 20 qualified leads.  Of those, we’ll be able to contact 50% (or 10), and of them 20% will convert, resulting in 2 sales.

But how many sales will we get from the 10,000 with whom we have no direct connection?  It’s hard to say.  When inquiries come in, we can ask where they heard of us, and certainly some will say they read the white paper, or whatever content we put into circulation.  But this data tends to be unreliable.  Inquirers usually don’t remember how they heard of you, or they just make up an answer to get the question out of the way.

This is exactly why business marketers debate the subject with such vigor.  We have data, and thus proof, on the gating side.  But we only have conjecture on the other.  So it boils down to which side you believe.  It’s tough to do sustainable marketing on faith.

Myself, I grew up as a marketer in the world of measurable direct and database marketing.  So it’s no surprise that I favor the gating side of the fence.  I like marketing campaigns that provide predictable results.  Where I can stand up in court and show a history of my campaign response rates, conversion rates, and cost-per-lead numbers.  And most important, where I can reasonably expect to deliver a steady stream of qualified leads to my sales counterparts, who are relying on me to help them meet their quotas.

So that’s my argument for gating content in B2B marketing.  I understand the logic of the other side.  And I see clearly situations where it makes sense to let the information run free─as a teaser, for example, to persuade prospects to come and get the richer information that is so useful that they’ll be falling all over themselves to give me their name, title, company name and email address.  But what about you?  Where do you sit in this debate?  It’s a biggie.