Gated content is one of the best ways for content marketers to measure conversions and generate leads for their business. This type of content is, however can take a lot of blood, sweat and tears (not to be dramatic) to put one of these assets together.
Therefore, nothing is more disheartening than seeing your pride and joy live on your site, only to see a dismal number of downloads from customers and prospects. John Perelman, Head of Digital Ventures at ICM Partners, said one of the now most quoted content marketing sayings of, “If content is king, distribution is queen and she wears the pants.” Particularly for gated content, this couldn’t be more true and important.
So if you’re planning on launching a gate piece of content, and hope for more than your co-workers and your mom to download, here is a 6-step distribution checklist to ensure you reach your audience.
1. SEO-Optimized Landing Page
SEO is an incredibly important aspect of content marketing since most buyer journeys begin with a simple Google search. Therefore, if you’re creating a gated piece of content that is intended to answer your customers’ questions (and hopefully you are), an SEO-optimized landing page is an important platform your asset needs to be found by early-stage buyers.
2. Email Announcement
The most impactful way you generate downloads for your gated piece of content is to send an email announcement to your customer and prospect newsletter subscribers. This is an audience who has opted-in to receiving and presumably likes your content. This audience is your lowest hanging fruit and your best chance for high download conversion rates.
3. Download Email Confirmation
The experience someone has with your brand shouldn’t stop once they hit the download button. Automating a powerful download confirmation email is another opportunity for you to recommend additional content or to sign up for a demo on your site. Leverage this interaction wisely and don’t throw away an opportunity to continue the conversation with your customers and prospects.
4. Website CTAs
Hopefully your site receives some amount of traffic from other ongoing marketing initiatives, such as social media, SEM, organic search or even direct visitors. Don’t forget to let these visitors know you have a new asset to offer. Make sure you update any calls-to-action on your site to promote your new gated content. On Bluecore’s site, we have four different call-to-action banners that we always update with our latest.
5. Paid + Organic Social
Social media can be an incredibly effective way to spread the word about your new content. Depending on your industry, some channels may be more effective than others. For Bluecore, we distribute on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and find Facebook to be our most effective (we’re still testing and optimizing so this may change in the future).
If you’re still testing out your social channel distribution, be sure to allocate the same budget and same goals for each campaign. That way you won’t end up comparing apples to oranges. It’s also important to install each channel’s snippet to your site, so you’re able to effectively measure conversions.
6. AdWords
Unfortunately, even the most SEO-optimized landing page requires some time to earn its Google juice and find its way to the top of organic search results. AdWords is a great way to kickstart your branded and unbranded search traffic and help give your landing page an extra boost.
