You’ve undoubtedly run into gated content many times while browsing online. It’s content that is “gated” behind a form you need to complete in order to gain access. When implemented properly, it’s a great way to increase marketing conversions and drive leads and sales. Conversely, when done poorly it can just as easily turn off potential customers.
The best gated content is valuable, relevant to our audience and not too self-promotional. We should be creating content our audience wouldn’t be able to find elsewhere online without having to dig deep. Whitepapers, webinars, toolkits, checklists and cheat sheets can be effective gated content.
In areas with a lot of traffic, content gating can help us separate our most interested and committed visitors from everyone else (see flow chart below from Uberflip).