Meeting your audience’s need with content is Marketing 101.
You create the content they need to help them solve a problem. Then, they come back for more. Soon, they become a customer.
I call this: Ride the Yo-Yo. The reader takes a ride with you. They like it, so they return. If riding the yo-yo is so easy, why do so many businesses put an obstacle in the way of the process by gating their content? 🚧
Asking for an email address in exchange for your thought leadership in 2021 feels like you’re asking readers for the mother’s maiden name. (Could anything be more violating than someone knowing how to access all your passwords?)
I know that’s how it feels because I’m a reader too. And I’ve made the same qualitative analysis as you have: Is what I’m about to download worth me giving this business my email address forever? 🤔
Sometimes the answer is yes, but most often it’s no.
When I launched my new website in January, I forgot what it feels like to be the reader and instead acted as a marketer, gating my most valuable content - an eBook I created to serve as a lead generator for this email
newsletter.
Then, I read a great piece by my friend Mark Schaefer. He brought me back into the mind of a reader, and I realized gating content just isn’t the way to reach audiences anymore.
Riding the yo-yo is.
Make it easy for your target audience to return to you again and again. Once they’ve played a few rounds of easy yo-yo, there’s a better chance they’ll opt in to
your paid product or service.
