Our Editorial Policy on Gated Content
Podnews has a carefully-built mailing list, containing more than 33,000 professionals in podcasting, built over nine years. Building and maintaining this list is one of our main activities as a business, and we spend considerable time and expenditure to grow our mailing list responsibly. Our mailing list is closely responsible for the value of our business.
As editorial stories, we are often sent press releases of reports, white papers, and ebooks that are wholly behind a registration gate, that require our readers to register, or enter personal details like email addresses, to “unlock” content.
Releases like this hope that Podnews drums up interest from our readers; and then hope that we will link through to a gated registration page which only allows our readers to see the report after a mandatory gated registration process.
This doesn’t seem much of a benefit for us: we cover reports like this for free using our hard-gained mailing list, while the company we’re promoting also gets all the details of our most active mailing list members.
It’s also against privacy laws in many countries (where you need to give informed consent to be added to a marketing list), and we consider it a bad reader experience.
In most cases, we will no longer link through to gated content like this.
Our two solutions
We’ll share download data with you
We can give our subscribed readers access to these documents. We share with you total download numbers, and email domains of who has downloaded them. So… you see total numbers of downloads - and the types of companies who were interested in the report. A download link is given in the newsletter, using a unique link. The download is hidden from Google and other search engines: so the only people who get access this way are Podnews readers.
If you’d like to do this, let editor@podnews.net know.
You can pay to advertise
You can advertise your report with us. Our advertising options include low-priced, self-service classified ads, or clearly-signposted “editorial focus” sections - with detail and images to make your story sing. Because they’re not our own editorial, you can (if you really have to) place those reports behind a gated content wall.
If you’d like details of our premium offering, email sales@podnews.net for more info.
We love carrying research and information from as many people as possible. We think it’s useful to share data and content with the industry, and it helps your prospective clients understand who you are and what you do. That’s why we feel hiding content behind a registration gate harms our business, and, ultimately, yours.
