
1) The webinar was a lead generation tool, and while it was free, it was bringing you emails. If you put it out as a podcast, should this kind of quality content still be free and ungated? Should it be put out there?
Short answer, yes.
Because you’re getting a guaranteed level of distribution of your content, which is going to get your name out there and get people to see you. And that is really what the core of demand generation is: you want people to know who you are, know your brand, know what you stand for. And then when they’re looking for something, they’ll come find you. So yes it should be free, and it should be utilized as much as you possibly can.
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2) The second fairly common thing that comes up is “this feels wrong”. In the case of membership organizations in particular, if you put gated content out for free, are you somehow dishonouring the people who did you the courtesy of giving you their money/time/email?And again, the answer to that is quite simple. Allow a good amount of time to pass. Decide what feels like a reasonable amount of time – whether it’s three months, six months, or more. Beyond that, in the case of evergreen content, you must keep using it. Remember, you really can use your content for a long, long time: beyond what you think is intuitive. Most brand content owners get bored with their content way before anyone else does. So take yourself out of the equation and start to think about how much of your actual audience you’re reaching. It’s all a matter of what timing feels right for your particular industry and space.
