1. Gate Your Content on Your Website

Sitting at number one on our list (and rightfully so), is the practice of gating website content. Even if you choose to ignore every other suggestion on this list, you need to be gating your new and original content assets on your website if you want to capture leads and drive ROI from all you hard work. And when we talk about gating content, we’re really talking about eBooks, whitepapers, webinars. Depending on the quality and value of certain podcasts and infographics, you might want to gate these as well. (Notice that I didn’t include blogs as part of that list. Blogs are the lifeblood of your SEO efforts, so definitely don’t gate these articles.)

Before you can gate your content on your website, you need to create a section dedicated to these resources that your potential and existing customers can find easily. Once you’ve done that, you should create organic landing pages following standard best practices for every content asset that you’d like to gate. This means using a prominent call-to-action (CTA), limited fields (company email should be enough to get you started delivering automated email nurture programs), and placing the form above the fold to ensure more conversions.

In addition to creating a section dedicated to housing your content resources, you should also be including gated forms to access your content throughout your website. At Act-On, we like to place prominent buttons on product and service pages that link to related eBooks, solution guides, and datasheets. We also take things a step further by adding highly visible callouts and sticky sidebars that link to relevant gated content on every blog we write (taking care to swap out content whenever we create new assets).

2. Share Your Content on Social

With so many consumers and businesses taking to social media to research potential purchases, it’s a great place to post and promote your content. The trick to success with content marketing on social media is to gain a crystal clear understanding of your target audiences. By tailoring content for these segments, marketers are able to provide the right thought leadership and product-centric materials with enticing messaging to educate prospects and existing customers and prepare them to make more informed buying decisions.

Many organizations limit their social sharing to blogs. While these articles are definitely a vital component of any content strategy, they’re only one piece of the puzzle. You should also be creating paid and organic social media campaigns around “big-ticket” content assets, such as eBooks, webinars, and datasheets — all of which should link to gated landing pages to further boost your demand generation initiatives. By doing so, you can increase your contact list and use segmentation to group those users into relevant automated email drip campaigns for further engagement down the line. 

To take things a step further, you can reach out to leaders within your industry to see if they would be willing to share your content on their social media profiles. You can incentivize them to do so by offering to link to specific pages on their website in your content before sending it their way. This creates a mutually beneficial arrangement that also opens up the possibility for more partnerships in the future.

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