9 tips for promoting your gated content

The work doesn’t stop after you hit “publish”—especially for whitepapers and other pieces of gated content.

Creating whitepapers is tough. It takes a lot of time and resources, and when you complete one, you should be proud. However, if you want your new asset to do its job—which is to convert website visitors into leads—then you need to distribute it.

First, create a landing page.

It might sound elementary, but landing pages are an absolute must for any piece of gated content you create.

Gated content is so-called because all that exceptional, valuable content lives behind a gate that your audience members unlock by providing some of their contact information. They do that on a landing page. Instapage and Unbounce can help you build quick pages to convert visitors into leads in no time.

That said, your prospects will never even see your gated content if they can’t find it, effectively turning your whitepaper—the piece that you worked long and hard to create—into a waste of server space.

To get your content to your target audience at the right time and in the right place, use these nine tactics:

1. Craft content that links to your gated content landing page.

Picture this: Someone does a quick search on Google and finds one of your blog posts or contributed articles. She reads it, finds the information valuable, and what then?

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If you aren’t making it easy for your readers to take the next step by promoting your gated content in your ungated posts, then you might lose out on the chance to capture a lead for your sales team. You are also missing the opportunity to deliver your readers additional content that they may find valuable.

Help your readers discover additional content they might be interested in reading by including links and calls to action to download your gated content in all of your blog posts and guest-contributed content.

Not all guest content will permit links—and some might have stipulations about landing pages—but as long as you are promoting relevant, high-quality gated content, you should be in the clear.

2. Include it in your regular newsletter.

Join the 93 percent of B2B marketers who use email to distribute content. If you don’t already have an email newsletter, you should create one and use it to alert audience members to all your recent content on a weekly (or monthly) basis.

3. Send an email blast.

An email blast is an email that’s used exclusively to promote a new asset. Segment your list of subscribers first to make sure the right people are seeing the content, and include links so users can share the content directly to social media.

4. Add a call to action (CTA) to your homepage.

If your website receives any kind of traffic, it’s a good idea to include a CTA to download your high-value gated assets.

5. Repurpose parts of your gated content into other assets.

Does your gated content include an interesting visual element, original research, or unique insights? Consider creating basic images or pulling out quotes to highlight its value for social media. Add a prompt to entice readers to download the gated asset for more information.

6. Set up a paid promotion.

You created this asset to help a specific audience. Target that audience with paid promotion on social media, through native advertising or even with pay-per-click display ads through Google and Bing.

7. Optimize old content on your blog.

Most likely you didn’t create a piece of gated content that’s totally unrelated to the other content on your blog. Update those other, older pieces of content with links or calls to action to your new whitepaper. Specifically, look at old posts that get a lot of traffic and then work your way down the list.

8. Give it to your sales team to use.

You created this whitepaper to bring in new leads, but what about the leads who are already in your sales pipeline? Pass along your gated content to your sales team to send out to these prospects; it could be just the right touchpoint to re-engage leads that have gone cold.

9. Reach out to influencers.

Share your content with people who could give it a boost among their followers or subscribers or those who could link to your landing page in their own content. Your list of influencers might include industry leaders, businesses and other contacts you have at blogs or publications. Sharing your content with them is especially useful if you have some original research.

Too often, companies believe that creating a whitepaper or e-book is enough to make the leads roll in. It's only the first step.

Taylor Oster is the marketing director at Influence & Co. Connect with her on Twitter or LinkedIn. A version of this article originally appeared on the Influence & Co Blog.

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