1214: Should You Ungate All Your Content? w/ Kathleen Booth

WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.280 --> 00:00:10.789 Are you struggling to come up with original content weekend and week out? Start 2 00:00:10.830 --> 00:00:15.470 a podcast, interview your ideal clients, let them talk about what they care 3 00:00:15.509 --> 00:00:21.109 about most and never run out of content ideas again. Learn more at sweetphish 4 00:00:21.190 --> 00:00:30.219 MEDIACOM. You're listening to be tob growth, a daily podcast for B TOB 5 00:00:30.339 --> 00:00:34.380 leaders. We've interviewed names you've probably heard before, like Gary Vanner, truck 6 00:00:34.420 --> 00:00:38.289 and Simon Senek, but you've probably never heard from the majority of our guests. 7 00:00:38.929 --> 00:00:42.929 That's because the bulk of our interviews aren't with professional speakers and authors. 8 00:00:43.490 --> 00:00:47.329 Most of our guests are in the trenches leading sales and marketing teams. They're 9 00:00:47.369 --> 00:00:52.840 implementing strategy, they're experimenting with tactics, they're building the fastest growing BB companies 10 00:00:52.840 --> 00:00:56.039 in the world. My name is James Carberry. I'm the founder of sweet 11 00:00:56.039 --> 00:00:59.679 fish media, a podcast agency for BB brands, and I'm also one of 12 00:00:59.719 --> 00:01:03.679 the CO hosts of this show. When we're not interviewing sales and marketing leaders, 13 00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:07.430 you'll hear stories from behind the scenes of our own business. Will share 14 00:01:07.469 --> 00:01:10.829 the ups and downs of our journey as we attempt to take over the world. 15 00:01:11.469 --> 00:01:21.260 Just getting well, maybe let's get into the show. Welcome back to 16 00:01:21.379 --> 00:01:23.980 be tob growth. I'm Logan Miles with sweetish media. Today I'm joined by 17 00:01:23.980 --> 00:01:29.140 Kathleen booth. She is the VP of marketing over at Attila security. She's 18 00:01:29.219 --> 00:01:33.049 also a fellow podcaster. She is the host of the inbound success podcast. 19 00:01:33.290 --> 00:01:36.370 Kathleen, welcome to the show. How's it going today? Great? Thanks 20 00:01:36.409 --> 00:01:38.689 for having me. I'm excited to be here. Absolutely. I saw your 21 00:01:38.769 --> 00:01:44.090 post the other day on linkedin about ungated content and I've been known to kind 22 00:01:44.129 --> 00:01:47.959 of rant on this topic as I'm talking podcasting and marketing here on the show, 23 00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:51.359 as well as with other marketers offline, and I thought, man, 24 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:55.079 this would make a great conversation for listeners. So I'm excited for you to 25 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:59.519 share your thoughts and some practical applications with listeners today. Before we get into 26 00:01:59.519 --> 00:02:01.150 that, though, a little bit of background on yourself and what you in 27 00:02:01.189 --> 00:02:06.069 the Antila security team er up to these days. Sure so. As you 28 00:02:06.109 --> 00:02:08.509 said, Kathleen Booth, I am the head of marketing at Atilla security. 29 00:02:08.669 --> 00:02:15.629 We are a venture backed cyber security company that helps organizations secure their communications and 30 00:02:15.060 --> 00:02:20.060 we do it in a variety of ways where I'm relatively new to the company. 31 00:02:20.180 --> 00:02:23.099 It's exciting. I love the field of cyber security and you know what 32 00:02:23.300 --> 00:02:28.460 makes me passionate as coming into a company like this that's still a relatively young 33 00:02:28.620 --> 00:02:32.169 company, putting together a team, developing on marketing strategy and really helping the 34 00:02:32.210 --> 00:02:38.250 company grow. So absolutely, yeah, exciting stuff. Yeah, for sure. 35 00:02:38.729 --> 00:02:42.610 So this topic is one that I think a lot of marketers can get 36 00:02:42.610 --> 00:02:46.879 fairly passionate about. I think it's worth backing up before we start to say, 37 00:02:46.919 --> 00:02:49.199 well, you shouldn't get your content, or you should gate it all, 38 00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:52.960 or here's when you should. We should do a little bit of setting 39 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:55.599 the scenario on. You know, let's back up and talk about the role 40 00:02:55.680 --> 00:02:59.629 of gated content. I don't think it's anything be brand new to listeners of 41 00:02:59.750 --> 00:03:02.550 this show, but how you think about it in you know the role of 42 00:03:02.590 --> 00:03:07.509 gated content, how we got to where we are today, Kesley, absolutely, 43 00:03:07.590 --> 00:03:09.789 and I know that your listeners are pretty savvy, so you know, 44 00:03:09.870 --> 00:03:14.539 if you're listening, we all know that the purpose of gated content in the 45 00:03:14.580 --> 00:03:20.219 marketing mix is really to convert those visitors or that cold audience into a known 46 00:03:20.460 --> 00:03:25.020 lead that you can then nurture and hopefully pull down the marketing and sales funnel. 47 00:03:25.460 --> 00:03:30.810 So, you know, typically gated content is used once somebody has found 48 00:03:30.849 --> 00:03:35.610 you and they're interested enough that they're willing to trade their personal information and exchange 49 00:03:35.729 --> 00:03:38.289 for something of value. It's pretty basic, but I think it's important to 50 00:03:38.370 --> 00:03:42.520 just sort of sort of set that stage as we talk about this topic, 51 00:03:42.599 --> 00:03:46.680 because I think a lot of marketers really get gated content wrong. Yeah, 52 00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:50.919 absolutely, so let's talk about that. We're in your opinion, has the 53 00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:53.840 use of gated content kind of led us today? What do you see is 54 00:03:53.960 --> 00:03:59.270 working well about it, and where do you see where maybe misapplying it or 55 00:03:59.310 --> 00:04:02.189 it's led us to some bad things, either for our own effectiveness or for 56 00:04:02.789 --> 00:04:08.189 our future customers experience? Yeah, there's there's so much here. I'm going 57 00:04:08.189 --> 00:04:10.780 to have to figure out how to make it, to bundle it into a 58 00:04:10.819 --> 00:04:14.219 nice little package, but I think, Oh, the overriding thing that occurs 59 00:04:14.300 --> 00:04:16.860 to me really is that marketers have, as we tend to do, have 60 00:04:17.060 --> 00:04:21.819 abused the ability to gate things. You know, in the last decade, 61 00:04:21.819 --> 00:04:28.689 as marketing automation platforms and content management systems have gotten more sophisticated, it's become 62 00:04:28.850 --> 00:04:32.810 so easy for marketers to stand up a landing page, put a form there 63 00:04:33.250 --> 00:04:36.410 and put some content behind a gate. So easy, in fact, that 64 00:04:36.490 --> 00:04:42.639 I think in a lot of cases what people are gating is not great content. 65 00:04:42.839 --> 00:04:46.759 To be candid, you know, and and as a person who travels 66 00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:49.040 the Internet, I mean we all are those people right, we're both marketers, 67 00:04:49.079 --> 00:04:53.310 but we're also human beings that use the Internet. As a human being 68 00:04:53.430 --> 00:04:56.230 that travels the Internet, you know this. You know you go to a 69 00:04:56.310 --> 00:05:01.230 lot of websites. You're constantly presented with conversion opportunities and I can't speak for 70 00:05:01.230 --> 00:05:04.550 anybody else, but I know that for myself, probably eight out of ten 71 00:05:04.589 --> 00:05:11.819 times is what I get after I convert is garbage. It's not worth my 72 00:05:12.100 --> 00:05:15.699 having traded my personal information and exchange for it. And what happens when that 73 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:23.529 starts becoming commonplace is it makes the visitor less likely to decide to do that, 74 00:05:23.689 --> 00:05:27.810 to trade their personal information exchange for content, especially if you haven't given 75 00:05:27.850 --> 00:05:30.810 them any reason to believe that what they're going to get is good. You 76 00:05:30.889 --> 00:05:32.850 know, if you don't have any sort of other content in your website, 77 00:05:32.889 --> 00:05:40.920 that really proves that you're going to deliver high value content. Nobody is going 78 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:44.720 to convert anymore. I mean maybe somebody will, but but your conversion rates 79 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:46.079 aren't going to be high and I've seen a spare out. I've worked in 80 00:05:46.120 --> 00:05:48.319 a lot of different companies. I was in the agency world for a long 81 00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:50.790 time, so you know, as somebody in the agency world, you you 82 00:05:50.949 --> 00:05:57.029 get insights into a lot of different companies marketing and I have watched conversion rates 83 00:05:57.110 --> 00:06:00.110 decline consistently for years now. So this is a real thing. It's backed 84 00:06:00.149 --> 00:06:03.980 by data. Less people are converting and that's because what their finding ones they 85 00:06:04.019 --> 00:06:10.860 convert is garbage. So that's really the top error. But the second mistake 86 00:06:10.939 --> 00:06:15.740 that I really see marketers make is they they shoot themselves in their own foot 87 00:06:15.779 --> 00:06:18.089 by gating things that shouldn't be gated. And what I mean by that, 88 00:06:18.490 --> 00:06:21.290 and look, I mean we're all guilty of it. When I came into 89 00:06:21.290 --> 00:06:26.009 the company I'm in now, this company was doing that and it's something that 90 00:06:26.089 --> 00:06:30.449 I'm in the process of fixing. So in our case there are customer case 91 00:06:30.529 --> 00:06:35.199 studies were gated and to me that's absolutely crazy. You know, the point 92 00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:39.720 of gating something is to get somebody to turn into a lead that you can 93 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:46.000 nurture. But the point of a case study is to help convince somebody who's 94 00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:50.470 already a lead that they should buy from you. It's not generally something that 95 00:06:50.589 --> 00:06:55.750 you use to convert a visitor into a lead unless it's super, super detailed 96 00:06:55.790 --> 00:06:59.350 or includes, you know, some sort of highly proprietary information. I mean, 97 00:06:59.350 --> 00:07:01.259 I'm trying to imagine a circumstance where I would get gate a case study 98 00:07:01.259 --> 00:07:04.540 or success story. But look at the heart of it, case studies and 99 00:07:04.540 --> 00:07:10.620 success stories help you sell. So why would you make it harder and less 100 00:07:10.620 --> 00:07:14.379 likely for somebody to get information that is going to help you sell to them 101 00:07:14.699 --> 00:07:17.089 by putting it behind a gate? Do not do that. So those are 102 00:07:17.089 --> 00:07:20.410 the two biggest mistakes I see people make. Yeah, so one, not 103 00:07:20.610 --> 00:07:25.689 having content that's valuable enough to show that, hey, if I provide my 104 00:07:25.889 --> 00:07:30.319 my personal information, I'm going to get even better, more valuable content behind 105 00:07:30.319 --> 00:07:32.839 a gate and then, you know, applying gates to things that shouldn't be 106 00:07:32.879 --> 00:07:36.319 gated. I mean, I'd imagine just the sales team being up in arms 107 00:07:36.360 --> 00:07:40.040 like what do you mean the these case studies aren't just, you know, 108 00:07:40.480 --> 00:07:44.990 freely accessible, because it's just not being thought through in the right way of 109 00:07:45.149 --> 00:07:47.310 where is this. Is this in the decision phase or is this, you 110 00:07:47.389 --> 00:07:53.029 know, where we're just sharing information up at the consideration phase? Something you 111 00:07:53.189 --> 00:07:57.709 mentioned there about declining conversion rates made me think to Kethleen, that we've also 112 00:07:57.790 --> 00:08:01.939 got to account for declining conversion rates but also a higher and higher percentage of 113 00:08:01.980 --> 00:08:05.860 those conversions also being garbage. You talked about the content on the other side 114 00:08:05.860 --> 00:08:11.139 being garbage, but you know the John ABC, the Susie twenty three at 115 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:15.850 gmailcom right, like everybody's got throwaway emails. Have you looked at any data 116 00:08:15.889 --> 00:08:18.129 or you know? What are your thoughts on on that and kind of that 117 00:08:18.250 --> 00:08:20.850 trend? Or is that just, you know, something that we've got to 118 00:08:20.930 --> 00:08:24.850 come to expect as a certain percentage of our signups and conversions? You know, 119 00:08:26.050 --> 00:08:28.879 I it's so funny because I was right before you ask me that I 120 00:08:28.959 --> 00:08:31.360 was going to say. I just remembered this other thing I should have said, 121 00:08:31.399 --> 00:08:33.840 which is exactly what you pointed out, and that is that, you 122 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:39.039 know, the whole point of gating content is to get quality, qualified leads 123 00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:43.710 that you can nurture. But because nobody trusts that they're going to get anything 124 00:08:43.750 --> 00:08:48.190 of value behind a gate and people do not want to speak to your sales 125 00:08:48.269 --> 00:08:52.389 people generally until they're very far along. They give you these garbage email addresses 126 00:08:52.470 --> 00:08:56.620 and I joke about it, but it's not really a joke. Like I 127 00:08:56.740 --> 00:09:01.059 have genuinely gotten people filling out forms and leaving email addresses like leave me alone 128 00:09:01.059 --> 00:09:05.940 at stopcom. You know, there's no clearer signal that this person does not 129 00:09:07.220 --> 00:09:09.490 want to be contacted. That is not a good lead. So you don't 130 00:09:09.610 --> 00:09:13.690 want that lead. They actively do not want you getting in touch. It's 131 00:09:13.690 --> 00:09:18.850 a problem and that's what happens when people don't see value but convert anyway on 132 00:09:18.889 --> 00:09:22.889 a Lark, thinking maybe I'll get something good. Will See. You know 133 00:09:24.049 --> 00:09:28.200 what some marketers have done to combat that is ungating content. Other marketers who 134 00:09:28.200 --> 00:09:33.720 are determined to still gate their content have tried to address that by discontinuing placement 135 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:37.200 of the offer on a thank you page and instead requiring, for example, 136 00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:43.070 a work email and then emailing the offer to somebody, which, you know 137 00:09:43.350 --> 00:09:46.629 it introduces a new another level of friction. I get why they do it, 138 00:09:48.309 --> 00:09:50.230 but you know why? Frustrate your visitors. So there's a lot of 139 00:09:50.350 --> 00:09:54.100 problems surrounding that whole issue. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, 140 00:09:54.139 --> 00:09:58.299 there's several things you're touching on there that I've seen. I've seen, you 141 00:09:58.379 --> 00:10:01.419 know, some folks go a as far as gating their podcast content, which, 142 00:10:01.659 --> 00:10:03.899 you know, my response is, oh my goodness, what are you 143 00:10:03.940 --> 00:10:09.970 doing? Like by PODCASTS are obviously brand awareness, thought leadership at the very 144 00:10:09.129 --> 00:10:13.769 top of the funnel, and part of the reason that podcasts are growing in 145 00:10:13.929 --> 00:10:16.649 popularity is one we can consume them passively, you know, and they just 146 00:10:16.730 --> 00:10:20.929 fit our busy lives. But also people are tired of gated content and so 147 00:10:20.970 --> 00:10:24.039 if they can just be a fly on the wall, see what you do, 148 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:28.399 liver for a while and then potentially, you know, make that conversion 149 00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:31.000 later down the road, they like that safety and security and so when you 150 00:10:31.039 --> 00:10:35.750 take that away, you're just kind of fighting against the the natural flow of 151 00:10:35.909 --> 00:10:39.549 things. The other thing that I hear you saying that I see a lot 152 00:10:39.909 --> 00:10:43.710 in in what we're doing as marketers, is every conversion leads to the same 153 00:10:43.750 --> 00:10:46.710 action, right, whether they download the case study or, you know, 154 00:10:46.789 --> 00:10:50.980 the guide or no matter where it is in the funnel, it means it 155 00:10:50.059 --> 00:10:52.539 goes to an SDR and they get three calls and they get, you know, 156 00:10:52.659 --> 00:10:58.580 this nurture campaign and so there's also some nuance like let's be a little 157 00:10:58.580 --> 00:11:03.100 bit let's not jump right to it right so I think that is worth talking 158 00:11:03.139 --> 00:11:05.889 about as well. You mentioned something as we were chatting offline, Kathleen, 159 00:11:05.970 --> 00:11:09.850 that I went to have you share with listeners, and that is how you 160 00:11:09.049 --> 00:11:13.529 picture it in what if we didn't get our content? What if we took 161 00:11:13.649 --> 00:11:16.090 ninety percent of it and just took off all the gates? Then what would 162 00:11:16.090 --> 00:11:18.600 that look like in it sounds like you know you're in the process of doing 163 00:11:18.679 --> 00:11:22.840 that. You've gone through that process in other positions. What are your thoughts, 164 00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:26.840 because I imagine, you know, people listening to this, they're immediately 165 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:30.120 thinking I'm afraid of this and this is going to go down in this bad 166 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:33.710 thing. What can you say from your own experience of what that might look 167 00:11:33.750 --> 00:11:35.629 like for their folks listening to this? Yeah, it's I think it's kind 168 00:11:35.669 --> 00:11:41.230 of fun as a marketer to to imagine making really audacious changes. And maybe 169 00:11:41.269 --> 00:11:45.990 this is audacious and maybe it's not, but I love asking myself that question 170 00:11:46.110 --> 00:11:48.340 of what would happen if we just removed all of the gates, all of 171 00:11:48.419 --> 00:11:52.740 the forms and gave everything away and in many respects. I think that is 172 00:11:52.779 --> 00:11:58.460 the most pure form of inbound marketing because really what inbound is is a mindset 173 00:11:58.539 --> 00:12:05.370 or a philosophy that by helping other people and by educating them and solving their 174 00:12:05.450 --> 00:12:11.809 problems, naturally we will realize Roi and and it's very much of pay it 175 00:12:11.929 --> 00:12:16.480 forward mentality. So when you introduce that quid pro quo of the form early 176 00:12:16.600 --> 00:12:18.879 on, it's sort of pollutes that pure form of inbound a little bit. 177 00:12:18.919 --> 00:12:22.559 And so I did start to test this out. It was it was years 178 00:12:22.600 --> 00:12:26.360 back when I had my own agency. There were the era of Ebooks, 179 00:12:26.360 --> 00:12:30.950 as I like to call it, when everybody had ebooks at ebooks were the 180 00:12:31.029 --> 00:12:33.389 first things, I think, that really became garbage. The number of low 181 00:12:33.429 --> 00:12:39.509 quality, terrible ebooks proliferated considerably and I remember at the time thinking nobody's going 182 00:12:39.549 --> 00:12:43.590 to continue to download our e books because everybody thinks e books are trash. 183 00:12:43.190 --> 00:12:48.500 So let's take these ebooks that we put a lot of work into. I 184 00:12:48.620 --> 00:12:50.539 mean I thought there was still really good content in them, but not a 185 00:12:50.580 --> 00:12:54.500 lot of people were seeing that content because it was in a pdf on a 186 00:12:54.580 --> 00:12:58.929 thank you page that wasn't crallable behind a form so at the time, this 187 00:13:00.009 --> 00:13:01.129 is when I owned my own agency, I said to my team, let's 188 00:13:01.169 --> 00:13:05.970 take these ebooks, let's put the content of them right on one of our 189 00:13:05.009 --> 00:13:11.330 website pages and just give the entire ebook away. Now if somebody wants to 190 00:13:11.409 --> 00:13:13.840 save a pdf of this or print it out, we can have a little 191 00:13:13.879 --> 00:13:18.759 field at the top that just says like, enter your email if you'd like 192 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:22.840 to receive a pdf by email, or some something along those lines. Nimes. 193 00:13:22.200 --> 00:13:26.000 So nobody had to do it to get the content. They could certainly 194 00:13:26.039 --> 00:13:28.590 print out the pages on the website. There was no requirement. What was 195 00:13:28.789 --> 00:13:35.590 fascinating to me was our conversions actually went up and the reason that that happened, 196 00:13:35.629 --> 00:13:39.029 or at least my theory about why that happened, is that people consumed 197 00:13:39.070 --> 00:13:43.259 all the content, they saw that it was valuable. So then they had 198 00:13:43.379 --> 00:13:48.659 no problem giving us their email address because they thought this is really good content 199 00:13:48.820 --> 00:13:50.580 and I want it and it's worth it and Oh, by the way, 200 00:13:50.659 --> 00:13:54.539 maybe they'll send me more really good content because you know, odds are there's 201 00:13:54.539 --> 00:13:58.730 more where this came from. So that was really valuable exercise. But it 202 00:13:58.850 --> 00:14:03.330 also had the side benefit of really helping our seo so when you go from 203 00:14:03.330 --> 00:14:09.960 having very long form, supervaluable content in an UNCROLLABLE PDF to publishing it right 204 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:15.799 on your website page, that's incredibly cyward rich content and copy that all of 205 00:14:15.840 --> 00:14:20.039 a sudden search engines can see and you get all of those benefits. So 206 00:14:20.120 --> 00:14:22.480 it's sort of like the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, absolutely, 207 00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:26.909 isn't it? It's so funny. You know, we're big fans of Gary 208 00:14:26.950 --> 00:14:31.350 V and especially in the way that he talks about this value first mentality, 209 00:14:31.470 --> 00:14:33.870 that that when you give and you give and you give. So one of 210 00:14:33.909 --> 00:14:37.950 the things I heard him say recently, you know, he talks about giving 211 00:14:37.990 --> 00:14:41.019 as Jab Jab Jab before you give the right hook, and he's like, 212 00:14:41.100 --> 00:14:43.659 the people that really get it they just jabbed more and they never throw the 213 00:14:43.740 --> 00:14:48.019 right hook, but they're they're still winning. And I see that in in 214 00:14:48.220 --> 00:14:50.659 what played out there, in the way that you're talking about it, because 215 00:14:50.980 --> 00:14:54.409 when we give more, more comes back to us. Tell me a little 216 00:14:54.450 --> 00:14:58.929 bit about some of your advice, Cathletene, for how marketers, if they 217 00:14:58.049 --> 00:15:01.889 are, you know, maybe brave enough, maybe that's not the right word 218 00:15:01.889 --> 00:15:03.210 to say. I'm I'm adding a little bit of flare to it. But 219 00:15:03.529 --> 00:15:07.799 how they could leverage ungated content you mentioned. You know a specific way. 220 00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:11.759 They're to just put it out there in a blog post and then give people 221 00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:16.639 an option, once they've seen the value, to potentially convert, instead of 222 00:15:16.639 --> 00:15:20.919 putting that conversion before they determine if they get value. Any other piece of 223 00:15:20.960 --> 00:15:24.950 advice for folks that are deciding to test the waters there or make a radical 224 00:15:24.990 --> 00:15:28.389 shift, as you put it earlier? Yeah, well, I think the 225 00:15:28.429 --> 00:15:31.110 first thing is really to take a step back and look at the big picture 226 00:15:31.110 --> 00:15:33.789 of your marketing. You know, marketing, when you when you think about 227 00:15:35.149 --> 00:15:37.940 funnels and you think about conversion rates, you have to really look at traffic, 228 00:15:37.940 --> 00:15:41.460 leads and sales, and the first question I would ask myself is do 229 00:15:41.620 --> 00:15:46.980 I have substantial enough traffic? Because what I often see happen is companies that 230 00:15:46.019 --> 00:15:50.049 have low traffic and lots of gated offers and it's kind of pointless because you 231 00:15:50.129 --> 00:15:52.929 have all these fantastic offers but there's no but it's the tree that fell in 232 00:15:52.970 --> 00:15:56.409 the forest and no one was there. Right, right, right. If, 233 00:15:56.570 --> 00:16:00.610 if that's your situation on gate things, get that SEO benefit, get 234 00:16:00.649 --> 00:16:03.919 people coming to your website and at least you know, get the traffic engine 235 00:16:03.960 --> 00:16:07.080 going, then you can think about, like maybe putting some things behind a 236 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:11.080 gate. That's number one. So really look at your traffic first and then 237 00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:17.039 look at how your gated offers are performing. You know, if your conversion 238 00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:22.669 rates are low on gated because nobody's seeing it anyway, it's not serving a 239 00:16:22.750 --> 00:16:26.190 purpose for you. As long as it's good content, right or I'm gate 240 00:16:26.269 --> 00:16:27.950 a good portion of it, that's, you know, the second thing I 241 00:16:29.110 --> 00:16:32.590 think. And then really and look at the quality of the content. If 242 00:16:32.629 --> 00:16:37.419 it's great content, very often you can get more benefit by U gating it 243 00:16:37.539 --> 00:16:41.539 because you make it more shareable, you know, especially things like research that 244 00:16:41.620 --> 00:16:45.179 has visuals and charts and grass that can go really viral if people have access 245 00:16:45.220 --> 00:16:48.409 to it, but if you put it behind a gate, makes it much 246 00:16:48.409 --> 00:16:51.289 harder for people to share, which means that more people won't find it. 247 00:16:51.769 --> 00:16:53.570 So, you know, those are reasons to UNGATE. And if you do 248 00:16:53.809 --> 00:16:59.610 decide to Ungate, I do think it's worth giving people an option to get 249 00:16:59.649 --> 00:17:02.320 it by email. You know, I think especially these days, with with 250 00:17:02.639 --> 00:17:07.039 people being so mobile and browsing on their phones and their tablets when they're on 251 00:17:07.079 --> 00:17:11.920 the go. oftentimes they might not have enough time to read an entire piece 252 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:15.039 of content. They may see it and think, Oh, this is great, 253 00:17:15.039 --> 00:17:18.230 I want to share it for later. So it's really nice if you 254 00:17:18.269 --> 00:17:21.069 can give people an option to have that, you know, link show up 255 00:17:21.150 --> 00:17:22.990 in their inbox or a pdf show up and their inbox, that when they're 256 00:17:23.109 --> 00:17:27.269 back at their desk in a position to read it and consume it and or 257 00:17:27.349 --> 00:17:32.099 share it with colleagues, they're able to do it more easily and I think 258 00:17:32.140 --> 00:17:34.339 if you do that you will still see conversions, but you'll also get the 259 00:17:34.380 --> 00:17:38.539 benefit of that traffic bump that comes at the top of the final absolutely. 260 00:17:38.579 --> 00:17:41.220 I mean two things. They're just, you know, a side note for 261 00:17:41.380 --> 00:17:45.369 listeners. One of the things I've done, because I find myself exactly that 262 00:17:45.410 --> 00:17:48.569 scenario you just talked about, Keathleen, oh this is really good, but 263 00:17:48.650 --> 00:17:51.930 I don't have time to consume US right now. I use a tool that 264 00:17:52.210 --> 00:17:55.809 is both a mobile APP and a chrome extension called pocket. You can get 265 00:17:55.809 --> 00:17:59.559 it at get pocketcom and it allows you to bookmark stuff and then kind of 266 00:17:59.640 --> 00:18:03.279 tag it. So if it's something sales related or marketing or, you know, 267 00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:06.240 something related to podcasting, I can tag it and go there and then 268 00:18:06.279 --> 00:18:07.880 I can come back to it. So, anyway, just a thought there 269 00:18:07.920 --> 00:18:11.640 if anybody else is in the same boat as me sometimes as they're browsing around 270 00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:17.029 and consuming content themselves. The other piece that I think is really interesting is, 271 00:18:17.309 --> 00:18:18.630 you know, like you said, I'm getting the content but then giving 272 00:18:18.630 --> 00:18:22.589 them an option to get it via email. And what I would suggest for 273 00:18:22.670 --> 00:18:26.269 folks, both as a marketer and a consumer of content myself, is that, 274 00:18:26.630 --> 00:18:30.339 you know, we put so much time into these highly designed PDFs that 275 00:18:30.660 --> 00:18:33.579 really are so hard to consume on mobile. It just drives me nuts and 276 00:18:33.900 --> 00:18:37.700 I've had great content in front of me from a brand I know delivers great 277 00:18:37.740 --> 00:18:41.849 content, but because I'm pinching and zooming around the PDF, I'm like, 278 00:18:41.970 --> 00:18:44.890 I just don't have time for this. So frustrating, and so I think 279 00:18:44.970 --> 00:18:48.289 giving people an option to just go back to that blog post maybe, or 280 00:18:48.609 --> 00:18:52.049 go to, you know, a mobile ready version of it, or just 281 00:18:52.210 --> 00:18:56.559 make your PDFs one column Big Font, assuming that people are going to see 282 00:18:56.559 --> 00:19:00.480 them on a mobile device, because we all know it's over half of people 283 00:19:00.559 --> 00:19:04.640 that are consuming them there. Now, today's gross story revolves around search engine 284 00:19:04.680 --> 00:19:10.710 marketing. Delphis, a big data platform, had hired an agency to manage 285 00:19:10.710 --> 00:19:14.150 their Google adds a few years ago, but they weren't seeing the results they 286 00:19:14.150 --> 00:19:18.470 wanted to see. Being such a technical be tob solution, they set out 287 00:19:18.470 --> 00:19:22.990 to find a team that could take on their challenge. After countless proposals, 288 00:19:22.190 --> 00:19:27.740 they found the perfect fit directive consulting the B Tob Search Marketing Agency. And 289 00:19:27.900 --> 00:19:34.500 just one week after launching directives campaigns delphics saw their lead volume double and their 290 00:19:34.619 --> 00:19:40.890 costper lead drop by sixty percent. I have a haunch that directive can get 291 00:19:40.930 --> 00:19:45.170 these kind of results for you too, so head over to directive consultingcom and 292 00:19:45.369 --> 00:19:52.049 request a totally free custom proposal. That's directive consultingcom. All right, let's 293 00:19:52.049 --> 00:19:56.720 get back to this interview. Let's round it out, Kathleen, with maybe 294 00:19:56.799 --> 00:20:00.680 some reasons why you still would want to get content, to maybe balance out 295 00:20:00.680 --> 00:20:03.160 the conversation here, because I think you know, we've given a lot of 296 00:20:03.240 --> 00:20:07.710 reasons, a lot of you know philosophical as well as tactical and applical reasons 297 00:20:07.750 --> 00:20:11.029 to ungate content. As you think about it, what are kind of the 298 00:20:11.109 --> 00:20:15.630 criteria in your mind today on this is the type of content I would get 299 00:20:15.630 --> 00:20:19.390 or these are the things that I put through the test to sy maybe I 300 00:20:19.509 --> 00:20:23.420 am going to gate this content in my current strategy. Yeah, absolutely, 301 00:20:23.460 --> 00:20:26.019 I think. Well, the first reason was probably the most obvious, as 302 00:20:26.059 --> 00:20:30.539 when content is the product, and what I mean by that is there are 303 00:20:30.740 --> 00:20:37.009 plenty of organizations that produce content and either charge for it or it's, you 304 00:20:37.089 --> 00:20:40.769 know, limited to their customers only as a value add. You know a 305 00:20:40.890 --> 00:20:41.970 great example of this, one that I'm a big fan of, as a 306 00:20:42.009 --> 00:20:47.210 company called CB insights. It's an analyst firm and they produce they have a 307 00:20:47.250 --> 00:20:49.359 phenomenal email newsletter are first of all, which you should follow if you don't, 308 00:20:49.680 --> 00:20:53.400 but they have really great original research and what they do that's very smart, 309 00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:56.960 I think, is they'll they'll kind of tease some of what's in the 310 00:20:57.079 --> 00:21:00.200 content and then they you know, if you want to really see the details, 311 00:21:00.319 --> 00:21:04.230 you have to opt in as either a customer or a subscriber and part 312 00:21:04.269 --> 00:21:08.430 of their program etc. So for some companies, their original data, their 313 00:21:08.470 --> 00:21:14.069 content, is part of the product they're delivering and that absolutely makes sense to 314 00:21:14.109 --> 00:21:18.099 continue to gate. I think the second time when you might consider continuing to 315 00:21:18.220 --> 00:21:22.940 gate it potentially is if it's really performing well and as already gated. You 316 00:21:23.059 --> 00:21:26.140 know, if you don't have any issues with traffic, if your conversion rates 317 00:21:26.140 --> 00:21:30.220 are extremely high, if the content is generating really good leads, well then 318 00:21:30.299 --> 00:21:34.210 certainly don't you know, ruin that and take the gate off. I mean, 319 00:21:34.250 --> 00:21:37.970 you could still test it and see what happens, but but I'm not 320 00:21:37.049 --> 00:21:41.730 advocating, you know, eliminating all gates if you have situations where they're performing 321 00:21:41.769 --> 00:21:45.450 really, really well, and I think you just have to look at your 322 00:21:45.490 --> 00:21:48.720 conversion rates and see what's going on there to make that decision. And then 323 00:21:48.759 --> 00:21:55.359 I think the other opportunity is if you want to repurpose content that's already ungated. 324 00:21:55.519 --> 00:22:02.109 So a lot of marketers will produce what I would call topic cluster content, 325 00:22:02.269 --> 00:22:07.190 where they're writing a lot of different articles around a theme. Some marketers 326 00:22:07.230 --> 00:22:11.670 get super smart and they actually will write a series of blog posts that are 327 00:22:11.710 --> 00:22:15.470 intended to be like the chapters in a book, for example. If you're 328 00:22:15.470 --> 00:22:18.180 going to roll that all up and create that ultimate book, that could be 329 00:22:18.259 --> 00:22:22.700 a great use case for putting a gate out there, because all that content 330 00:22:22.819 --> 00:22:26.099 is already available. So you're not going to necessarily get the SEO benefits it. 331 00:22:26.420 --> 00:22:30.329 You know that it's already living on your site, but it does give 332 00:22:30.369 --> 00:22:33.569 you away for somebody who wants to have all the content in one nice little 333 00:22:33.569 --> 00:22:37.329 package to enable them to get it. So those are probably the three big 334 00:22:37.410 --> 00:22:41.369 use cases when I personally really like to get content. Yeah, I love 335 00:22:41.490 --> 00:22:44.400 that third one and we've seen, you know, other brands that we work 336 00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:48.559 with in on their podcast do that really, really well. You know terminus 337 00:22:48.599 --> 00:22:52.880 and their flip my funnel show is now five hundred plus episodes and we've helped 338 00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:55.640 them look at okay, what are some of the common themes? Where all 339 00:22:55.680 --> 00:23:00.109 the authors you've interviewed or, you know, female leaders or CEOS, and 340 00:23:00.430 --> 00:23:03.190 that can create a lot whether it's a podcast or a blog series or webinar 341 00:23:03.269 --> 00:23:07.910 series whatever. Doing some of that round up content where you package it nicely 342 00:23:07.950 --> 00:23:11.750 and you bring together, you know, a series or a common thread into 343 00:23:11.829 --> 00:23:15.099 something that makes sense to gate. I think that's a really good addition to 344 00:23:15.180 --> 00:23:18.579 the conversation. there. Keflene well, this has been a fantastic conversation. 345 00:23:18.660 --> 00:23:22.579 I feel like we could go on and on about gated content and all things 346 00:23:22.619 --> 00:23:27.250 marketing. A love having experience marketers on the show like yourself. For now, 347 00:23:27.490 --> 00:23:30.490 in the interest of time, will sign off and I would love for 348 00:23:30.529 --> 00:23:33.930 you to share with listeners where they can stay connected with you, if they're 349 00:23:33.970 --> 00:23:37.250 like me and have found a lot of value in this conversation, where they 350 00:23:37.289 --> 00:23:41.880 can find your podcast, the inbound success podcast. What's the best way to 351 00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:45.799 reach out or stay connected with you? Kefflen, absolutely so. Personally, 352 00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:49.559 I'm very active of on Linkedin and anybody is welcome to send me a connection 353 00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:52.559 request and I would love to connect with you there and happy to answer any 354 00:23:52.599 --> 00:23:56.509 questions. If you're interested in learning more about Atilla security, where we can 355 00:23:56.549 --> 00:24:02.910 be found at Attila seccom and the podcast, which is called the inbound success 356 00:24:02.950 --> 00:24:07.750 podcast, is actually published by impact branding in design, so you'll find that 357 00:24:07.869 --> 00:24:12.460 at impact BN dcom. Awesome, Kathleen. Thank you so much for being 358 00:24:12.500 --> 00:24:18.180 on the show today. Thanks for having me. It was fun. Hey, 359 00:24:18.259 --> 00:24:21.019 there, this is James Carberry, founder of street fish media and one 360 00:24:21.059 --> 00:24:23.019 of the cohosts of this show. The last year and a half I've been 361 00:24:23.059 --> 00:24:26.690 working on my very first book. In the book, I share the three 362 00:24:26.809 --> 00:24:30.609 part framework we used as the foundation for our growth. Here is sweetfish. 363 00:24:32.049 --> 00:24:33.849 Now there are lots of companies that ever, he's a bunch of money and 364 00:24:33.930 --> 00:24:37.049 have grown insanely fast, and we featured a lot of them here on the 365 00:24:37.089 --> 00:24:41.960 show. We've decided to bootstrap our business, which usually equates to pretty slow 366 00:24:42.039 --> 00:24:47.319 growth, but using the strategy outlined in the book, we're on pace to 367 00:24:47.359 --> 00:24:51.279 be one of inks fastest growing companies in two thousand and twenty. The book 368 00:24:51.319 --> 00:24:55.269 is called content based networking, how to instantly connect with anyone you want to 369 00:24:55.390 --> 00:24:56.789 know. If you're a fan of audio books, like me, you can 370 00:24:56.789 --> 00:25:00.069 find the book on audible or the like physical books. You can also find 371 00:25:00.109 --> 00:25:06.230 it on Amazon. Just search content based networking or James Carberry, CR be 372 00:25:06.430 --> 00:25:10.220 a ARY, inaudible, or Amazon and it should pop right up.