This page focuses on gated content as an offer for our marketing channels and integrated campaigns. The Content Marketing team focuses their quarterly and fiscal content plans (see Content Marketing handbook page) and Marketing Programs executes on the "gating" process - creating a landing page to generate leads - and activating within relevant channels and through existing and planned integrated campaigns. For an overview of the team and priorities, see the Marketing Programs Management handbook page. If you have any questions please post in the #marketing_programs Slack channel.
Types of Content Programs
Gated Content: We have the piece of content offered on our website via landing page.
Owned Content: We created the content in house
Analyst Content: We have bought the rights to use the content from an analyst such as Gartner, Forrester, etc.
Content Syndication: We have promoted our content through a third-party, but do not direct back to our website. In these cases, we often have given them the resource to make available for download to their audience, and recieve the leads to be uploaded.
Alignment to Campaigns: All gated content should be aligned to a content pillar (owned by Content Marketing) and a primary integrated campaign (owned by Marketing Programs). If no active or planned campaign is aligned, a campaign brief (including audience data) must be created for use by Digital Marketing Programs. There should be a clear reason why we are moving forward with content that doesn't align to an integrated campaign.
Please note that to take full advantage of all content produced, content may be used in multiple integrated campaigns and channels.
To report clearly on integrated campaigns, each will have a landing page that offers content that is gated on its standard gated landing page url. The campaign landing page often uses different language aligned to the integrated campaign messaging.
Timeline for content launch & activation: (BD = business days)
📅 T-30 BDPrep date: The deadline for overall timeline to be agreed by all team members involved. All team members should aknowledge that they are aware of the content and agree to the timelines.
📝 T-27 BDLP copy date: The deadline for the landing page copy
✍️ T-15 BDFinal copy date: The deadline for final copy (this is also when the final url will be provided to digital marketing programs)
🎨 T-5 BDContent delivery date: The deadline for the final design
📦 T-3 BDContent load date: The deadline for the asset to be added to a Pathfactory track and placed in a nurture stream
🚀 T-0 BDContent launch date: The date the gated content landing page will go live, and content is activated across channels
Please note that if details and landing page copy are not provided, the MPM is blocked and will not be gating the resource.
🏷️ Label statuses:
status:plan: content is in a brainstormed status, not yet approved and no DRI assigned
status:wip: content is approved, delivery date and launch date (5 days later) determined, DRI assigned
Analyst Content (delivered by analysts)
Analyst reports (i.e. Forrester Wave, Garter Magic Quadrant, etc.) follow a different timeline with different steps to launch and activate. As soon as Analyst Relations is aware of an upcoming report and tentative launch timeline, an issue should be created, notifying Marketing Programs.
If the analyst content is thought leadership (i.e. a whitepaper or non-competitor comparison report), it should be planned in advance of purchase with at least a 30 business day time to launch date. This allows time to plan activation into existing and future integrated campaigns and content pillars.
Timeline for content launch & activation: (BD = business days)
📅 T-30 BDPrep date: The deadline for overall timeline to be agreed by all team members involved. All team members should aknowledge that they are aware of the content and agree to the timelines.
📝 T-27 BDLP copy date: The deadline for the landing page copy
🚀 T-0 BDContent load AND launch date: The deadline for the asset to be added to a Pathfactory track and placed in a nurture stream. For analyst assets, the load date is also the date the gated content landing page will go live, and content is activated across channels.
Analyst Report Plan Issue:Analyst Relations DRI creates issue that outlines synopsis and tentative launch of upcoming report, in a plan state to determine if we will purchase.
Gating Issue:Analyst Relations DRI creates the gating request issue template - name [content-type gating]: [official name of content] and assign to MPM DRI and Analyst Relations DRI
Analyst Relations DRI must fill out all information required in the first section of the issue
Content Asset Epics:MPM DRI creates asset epic [report] Date/Quarter Name Exactly as Appears On Report (ex. [report] 2018 Q3 Forrester New Wave: Value Stream Management (VSM) Tools)
Related Issues:MPM DRI creates the following issues and associates to the asset epic that they relate to
Digital Marketing Promotion Issue - name [content-type digital promotion]: [official name of content] and assign to Digital DRI and MPM DRI
Asset Expiration Issue - name [Expire Asset]: [official name of content] and assign to MPM DRI and Content DRI
Please note that if details and landing page copy are not provided, the MPM is blocked and will not be gating the resource.
🏷️ Label statuses:
status:plan: content is in a brainstormed status, not yet approved and no DRI assigned
status:wip: content is approved, delivery date and launch date (5 days later) determined, DRI assigned
How to retire analyst assets when they expire
An Expiration Issue will be open for each analyst asset, and related to the overarching Epic upon gating (with due date for when the asset is set to expire)
At times, we will extend the rights to an asset if it is heavily used by sales or performing well in later stage nurture. In that case the decisio nis indicated in the Expiration Issue, and the team is updated.
How to gate a piece of content on a standard gated content landing page
If you are going to be uploading your gated asset as a PDF instead of PathFactory link, follow the below steps first by creating a MR for the PDF before MR for landing page. If you create the landing page MR before your PDF MR, you will get a 404 error when clicking the download link after the form fill.
Leave commit message including the asset type and asset name you are uploading
In your MR, scroll down to the Changes tab and on your asset click the button view on about@gitlab.com and use that as your URL anywhere that you would be using a PathFactory link in the remaining steps (landing page code, Marketo token)
Follow the remaining steps for the Gated Content process
Add the directory name using the following syntax: [type]-short-name
Name is very important as this is the url for the landing page!
Keep it short, and use hyphens between words. (i.e. ebook-ciso-secure-software)
Add commit message to name your Merge request using syntax Add [content type] landing page - [name of content] (i.e. Add ebook landing page - CISO Secure Software)
Create a name for the target branch - NEVER leave it as the master (i.e. jax-ebook-ciso)
On the next screen (New Merge Request), add WIP: to the beginning of the title and add a quick description (Add LP for [content name] will suffice)
Assign to Jackie Gragnola and scroll down, check the box for “Delete source branch when merge request is accepted”
Click Submit Merge Request
You’ve now created the merge request, but you need to add the file (code) for the landing page itself within the directory
Click on the link to the right of “Request to Merge” and you will enter the branch you’ve created with your MR
Click the Source folder, then Resources and click into the new directory as you named it
Click the + dropdown and select New File
Where it says “File Name” at the top, type in index.html.haml
Copy the following code: (see below)
---
layout: default
title: `add title here, don’t use colons`
suppress_header: true
extra_css:
- styles-2018.css
destination_url: "`add the pathfactory url when available&lb_email="
form_id: "1002"
form_type: "resources"
cta_title: "Download the `type: eBook, etc`"
cta_date:
cta_subtitle:
link_text: "Click here to download the `type: eBook, etc`."
success_message: "You will also receive a copy of the `type: eBook, etc`sent to your inbox shortly."
---
.wrapper
.page-illustrated-header-container
= partial "includes/icons/gitlab-icon-pattern-header.svg"
.container
.header-container-content
%h1.page-headline `add headline from copy doc`
%h2.page-headline `add subhead from copy doc`
.content-container
.wrapper.container{ role: "main" }
.row
.col-xs-12.col-md-6.col-md-offset-1
.content-section
%p `Add P1 from copy doc`
%p `Add P2 from copy doc`
%h3 What you’ll learn in this `type: eBook, etc.`:
%ul
%li `add bullet 1`
%li `add bullet 2`
%li `add bullet 3`
%p `add closing paragraph`
.col-md-4.col-md-offset-1
= partial "includes/form-to-resource", locals: { destination_url: current_page.data.destination_url, form_id: current_page.data.form_id, form_type: current_page.data.form_type, cta_title: current_page.data.cta_title, cta_date: current_page.data.cta_date, cta_subtitle: current_page.data.cta_subtitle, link_text: current_page.data.link_text, success_message: current_page.data.success_message }
Back in your MR, paste, the code where the file begins with 1.
Update the variables in the codeIn all the places in snippet code
Be sure to remove the back-tick code symbols so that the copy does not turn red on the landing page. This is just to be used as a guideline while editing the landing page.
If you don’t yet have a pathfactory link, leave the copy in that place. When you have the Pathfactory link in a later step, you’ll edit the MR with the new link before pushing live (see later step)
Important! If there is a colon : in your title, replace with a dash - for the page title, as it will break the page.
In the Commit Message below your code, add a note that you’re adding the code for the landing page
Click Commit Changes
Now, while you wait for the pipeline to approve, move onto the next step in Marketo to facilitate the flows and tracking of the program.
Use naming syntax [yyyy]_[type]_NameOfAsset (i.e. 2019_eBook_CISOSecureSoftware) - keep this short
Add to folder: Gated Content > Content Marketing
Leave description blank and select “create”
When the new program loads, copy the url of the Marketo program and add to the description of the gating issue under DRIs and Links
3️⃣ Create Salesforce Program
In the program summary, under “Settings” next to Salesforce Campaign Sync click on “not set”
In the popup that appear, click the down arrow and select Create New
Leave the name as it pre-fills so that it will exactly match the program name in Marketo
In the Description, write Epic: and link to the content Epic url
Click save, and navigate to the campaigns view in Salesforce
Choose the “Gated Content” campaign view and make sure it is in order by Created Date (first column) from latest to earliest creation. Your campaign should appear at the top.
Click into your campaign and change the owner to your name
Copy the url of the Salesforce campaign and add to the description of the gating issue under DRIs and Links
4️⃣ Update the Marketo Tokens
Navigate to the My Tokens section of the Marketo program, and make the following edits:
Content Download URL: add the PathFactory link after the asset is loaded into Pathfactory and added to a track. This is provided by the Pathfactory DRI. You may need to update the confirmation email button link to follow PathFactory link criteria or to remove extra tokens that will break the PDF token.
Content Epic URL: the url to the overall epic of the content
Content Title: the content title as it appears on the asset - not necessarily what is displayed as the landing page header on the copy doc (i.e. 10 Steps Every CISO Should Take to Secure Next-Gen Software)
Content Type: select the appropriate content type (i.e. leave just eBook)
UTM: leave the code that is originally there, and at the end of the code, add the name of the Marketo program, removing any underscores or special characters (i.e. 2019eBookCISOSecureSoftware)
Copy and paste the 3 bullets from the content copy document into the 3 tokens aligned to the bullets
5️⃣ Preview the emails
Preview the confirmation email to make sure that the tokens appear correctly.
If you haven’t uploaded to Pathfactory and received a final link, your button will be broken. When you add that to the Marketo tokens, the button will work properly.
6️⃣ Edit, Review, and Activate Marketo Smart Campaign
In the 01 Downloaded Content smart campaign, under Smart Listadd the url created in step 1 to the /resources/ link in the referrer constraint (i.e. add ebook-ciso-secure-software after/resources/ so that it is /resources/ebook-ciso-secure-software
In the Flow section, review the steps. It should include:
Send Email: Confirmation email from your program (this automatically pulls in)
Remove from flow with “choice” that if email address contains @gitlab.com it should not continue the steps
Change program status in your program to Gated Content > Downloaded
Interesting moment using tokens with “Web” type, and description: Downloaded the {{my.content type}}: “{{my.Content Title}}
Send alert to Noneand {{my.mpm owner email address}} (reps receive MQL alerts, so this only triggers to the MPM and can be filtered out of your email if desired).
Change data value if Acquisition Program is empty to now be the current program
Change data value if Person Source is empty to be “Gated Content - {{my.content type}}”
Change data value if Initial Source is empty to be “Gated Content - {{my.content type}}”
In the Schedule section, check that it’s set for each person to run through the flow every 7 days and click Activate
7️⃣ Test Your Page in the Review App
Navigate back to your MR in GitLab
When your pipeline has complete, click “View App” and add the URL you chose for your page (i.e. add /resources/ebook-ciso-secure-softwareto the end of the view app url
Fill out the form using your test lead (using email syntax [your email]+[name]@gitlab.com - i.e. jgragnola+george@gitlab)
Check in the Marketo program that it triggered the autoresponder, addition to the program, and alert.
In your inbox, check the confirmation copy and urls.
If this fires properly, return to the MR and assign to Jackie with a comment to ping her and let her know it’s ready to merge.
Check off all completed actions on the issue.
When the MR merges into the master, it will appear at the URL you determined.
When it has appeared, test it once more with a different test lead email address, and confirm that everything fires as desired.
Use the code below to add a new entry with the relevant variables
Add a commit message, rename your target branch, leave "start a new merge request with these changes" and click "Commit Changes"
Update the name of your merge request to be Add [resource name] to Resource Center
Assign the merge request to yourself
When you've tested the MR in the review app and all looks correct (remember to test the filtering!), assign to Jackie
Comment to Jackie that the MR is ready to merge
Code:
- title: 'Add name of resource - shorten if necessary'
url:
image: /images/resources/security.png
type: 'eBook'
topics:
-
-
solutions:
-
-
teaser: 'Add a teaser that relates to the contents of the resource'
Example:
- title: '10 Steps Every CISO Should Take to Secure Next-Gen Software'
url: /resources/ebook-ciso-secure-software/
image: /images/resources/security.png
type: 'eBook'
topics:
- DevSecOps
- Security
solutions:
- Security and quality
teaser: 'Learn the three shifts of next-gen software and how they impact security.'
