Want to gate your content? Use this “Content pillar” principle to skyrocket ROI

This is a powerful inbound marketing principle for optimizing gated content. It focuses on creating multiple pieces of content that collectively drive people towards one ultimate piece of gated “pillar” content.  The idea is to make this “pillar” piece the center of most of your other content production.

Structuring content out of a content pillar isn’t too hard. If you are writing an eBook, for example, just follow these steps:

1. Schedule interviews with thought leaders or experts on your topic. Make each of these an independent blog post, and then promotes each post.

2. Summarize the main points of your eBook in a video interview. You can promote the video on YouTube and embed it on your blog.

3. Conduct original research. Original research is a great way to gain credibility and create a meaningful, evergreen piece of content. Put your research results in an infographic, or chuck them into a presentation, even an insightful blog post.  A kick-ass example of this comes from Ahrefs blog. They gathered data around the topic of “guest blogging” from a group of marketers and analyzed their results; it made for an insightful piece of content.

4. Develop gated landing pages. For each “main asset” in your content pillar, develop a quick and easy landing page. This broadens your site’s total sitemap (which boosts SEO) and also gives your company multiple opportunities to capture the lead information.

5. Create email nurture campaigns around the eBook topic. Offer teaser subheads, answer questions, give content that relates to your eBook. Then promote it to new and old leads.