Digital Marketing For Dummies. Ryan Deiss
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Free reports
Reports (also called guides) are among the most common types of gated offers and are usually mostly text and images. Reports usually offer facts, news, and best practices that are relevant to your industry and your target market. If you use a report as your gated offer, however, be careful. Reports can be lengthy and complex, thus they often take more time to be consumed. This means that the report will take longer to deliver on its value. Therefore, whenever possible, keep your reports as succinct and specific as possible so that they can quickly deliver their value and help to establish or reinforce a positive relationship with your lead or customer.
White papers
As is true of a report, a white paper is an authoritative guide that concisely informs readers about a complex issue and aims to help leads solve a problem, or make a decision. Although the white paper helps to educate your prospects, it also helps to promote your business’s products or services. White papers can often be very effective at generating business-to-business (B2B) leads.
Primary research
Primary research is research that you or your business collects. It can include interviews and observations. When you take the time to create new research, you’re providing a service and saving others from having to do their own primary research, which is why people opt in to a gated offer of this nature.
Webinar training
If you’re an expert in your field, or can partner with one, you can host an online training via a webinar that teaches or demonstrates a topic that is relevant to both your brand and to your target audience. You create a gated offer that requires prospects to fill out a registration form for the webinar, thus capturing prospects’ contact information and allowing you to follow up with them after the webinar takes place.
Sales material
In some cases, the most desired pieces of information for your market are pricing and descriptions of your products or services. This information helps people who are interested in buying your product or service make informed decisions. The sales material gated offer tends to be longer, in text and content examples such as images or customer testimonial videos, than the other examples in this chapter so far. However, this length is necessary because a person generally needs more information before making a purchase, especially if a big-ticket item is involved. However, this also means that anyone who opts in is more likely to be a qualified lead. A qualified lead is someone who is actively seeking more information about your products or services because he or she is interested in buying from you. (An unqualified lead may not have been nurtured enough to make a purchase yet, or isn’t sure of what your company does or even what solution he or she seeks.)
IKEA provides a wonderful example of the sales material gated offer. The Scandinavian chain collects contact information in exchange for its catalog, which lists all its products. Figure 3-3 demonstrates IKEA’s gated offer, and because IKEA can deliver its catalog digitally, it speeds up the delivery of value to the new lead.
Source: https://www.ikea.com/ext/us/ikeacatalog/
FIGURE 3-3: IKEA’s sales catalog is an ideal example of a sales material gated offer.
Generating leads with tools
Tools make powerful gated offers because they often deliver value much faster than the educational gated offers discussed in the previous section. Although white papers, reports, and case studies require someone to invest time in order to receive value, a tool is often immediately useful.
Handout or cheat sheet
Though similar to a free report, both handouts and cheat sheets provide a different value to prospects. A handout or cheat sheet is generally short (one page or so) and cuts straight to an ultraspecific point, making the information easily digestible. You can deliver handouts and cheat sheets as checklists, mind maps, or “blueprints,” to name a few examples. Figure 3-4 shows an example of a handout as a gated offer.
Source: https://www.digitalmarketer.com/digital-marketing/
FIGURE 3-4: A handout is a prime example of useful content that can be gated.
Resource list
If people are learning to do something that you’re an expert in, chances are they’ll want to know what tools you’re using to get it done. This type of gated offer makes a list of tools or resources (be it of apps, physical products, hardware, or other items) available to the new lead or prospect. The toolkit or resource aggregates the list so that the lead doesn’t have to keep searching for more information.
Template
A template is the perfect example of a proven, well-tested shortcut to better results and can make a tremendous gated offer. A template contains a proven pattern for success that requires less work on the part of the person using it. It might come in the form of a spreadsheet preconfigured to calculate business expenses. Or it can be a layout for designing a custom home. Templates make powerful gated offers because the prospect can put the tool to immediate use.
Software
Software can work well as a gated offer. You might, for example, offer full access to a free software tool that you developed or a free trial (that lasts for 14 days, perhaps) of your software in exchange for an email address. Software companies often offer a free trial of their software as a gated offer. A software gated offer can turn a lead who is on the fence about purchasing the product with a risk-free means of acquiring it, while also providing the company a way to follow up with that lead.
Discount and coupon clubs
Discount and coupon clubs offer exclusive savings and early access to sales. This is an effective type of offer that acquires contact information and allows you to continue the conversation by reminding members of specials and rewards available to them.
Quizzes and surveys
Quizzes and surveys are fun and engaging for people to take and can be a great way to generate new leads. For instance, a skincare brand might offer a “What’s Your Skin Type” quiz. These types of content are intriguing to members of your market because they want to know the results of the quiz or survey. To obtain the results of the quiz or survey, the prospect must first opt in by entering an email address. If the quiz or survey results provide value to your market, this type of gated offer can be powerful.
Assessment
You can develop a gated offer that assesses or tests prospects on a particular subject. At the end of the assessment, offer prospects a grade and information on actions they can take to improve their grade, which would likely be a tool or service that you provide. For example, Figure 3-5 shows an assessment offer