As William Shakespeare once wrote: “To be or not to be, that is the question.

Marketers have a similar classic debate, and its closed content vs. non-closed content.

While 80% of content marketing assets are closed and generating leads is one of the primary goals for marketers, it’s not an open and closed case.

That’s why we’ve put together everything you need to know about private content in this post. Below we look at what private content is and how it compares to uncontrolled content. We’ll dive into gated content best practices and look at a few examples.

Gated content is any type of content that viewers can only access after sharing their information. In essence, the content is hidden behind a form. Businesses use private content to generate leads and ultimately into sales.

Typically, users visit your website and see a CTA or popup offering them access to content in exchange for their information.

Your CTA or pop-up window could lead to a landing page where the visitor can learn more about the content on offer. It is important to note that gated content for inbound marketing is free and not hidden behind a paywall.

Users only need to submit contact information to access content. Now you might be asking, “Why should I hide my content from my audience? The goal of gated content is lead generation.

Marketers create content that is targeted towards their audience and use it to attract customers. Gated content becomes not used for “brand awareness or visibility campaigns, as hidden content by its nature does not allow high traffic. Next, let’s discuss the pros and cons of closed and unopened content.

As you can probably see, closed and unopened content serve different purposes, but you might be wondering what the pros and cons are.

Let’s dive in now.

Benefits of Gated Content

• Increase Lead Generation
• Generate More Sales
• Offer Analysis and Insight to Your Customers
• Allows for segmentation of email lists

Disadvantages

• Lack of pageviews and traffic
• No SEO benefit or boost form prevents people from downloading content
• No brand visibility

Ultimately, gated content is supposed to generate leads that you can nurture through your marketing efforts, while content ungated is meant to drive traffic and build trust with your audience. They are valuable and should be included in your content marketing strategy.

After reading this list, you may be wondering, “How do I know if I should be monitoring my content? Well, it all depends on your brand visibility / SEO or lead generation goals.

Also take into account the type of content. Longer content, like an e-book, is tailored for private content, while shorter content like blog posts is better suited as unrestricted content.

If you’ve decided to create private content, you are probably curious about how it’s about start sharing your data.

In essence, the content is hidden behind a form. Businesses use gated content to generate leads and ultimately sales.

That’s it for now. If you find this content useful, pls don’t forget to leave a comment below.

See you next time!

Happy trails!