How to build a gated content email program

Now that you are familiar with how gated content email programs work, let’s begin the process of creating one. In this module you’ll learn how to encourage people to download a new features brochure by filling out a form on a landing page. When a person completes the form a thank you landing page is displayed and an auto response email is sent to them with a link to the brochure. The brochure will have more information about new features in your organization’s software. In our example, we will be showing you how to, create a default program where your gated content email will be built. Set up a working form, which will serve as the gate in front of your promotional web content. Build two landing pages, one where your form will be placed, and the other will thank someone for submitting the form. Create an offer email that contains a link to download your brochure. Build a smart campaign to send out your offer email. Build a smart campaign that sets a member status to influenced if they download your brochure.

First let’s log into your Marketo account and navigate to marketing activities.

We’ll start by creating the program that our gated offer email will be built in. We’ve already created a folder to hold all of our marketing initiatives for the current year. So we’ll right-click the same folder and select New Program. The campaign folder should be the same as the one we just right-clicked but a different folder can be chosen here if needed. Name. For this example, we’ll name the program EM-2017-NewFeaturesBrochure. For best practices, make sure all your naming conventions make sense to you, your company, and to anyone else using your Marketo instance. For program type, choose default and for channel select Web Content. For the description field, add a description that makes sense to you. For our example we’ll add gated new features brochure, and click Create.

We’ve created several folders ahead of time, assets, campaigns, and a forms sub folder. Let’s create one more sub folder by right-clicking the assets folder, choosing new folder and naming it landing pages.

Before we create a gated offer email we need to have a form built first. If you already have this asset built you can skip forward to the next chapter. For those of you without this asset let’s start by building a simple form. We’ll right-click our forms folder and select New Local Asset. In the New Local Asset gallery popup window select Form.

For name we’ll title this download form. Check Open in editor checkbox and click Create.

Marketo opens the form in a new browser window. For this example, we’ll use the default form. So we’ll click Finish then select Approve and Close to make the form live. Now we’ll drag it into the forms folder. With this simple form asset created, we can move forward to the next step.

Before we create a gated offer email, we also need to have a landing page built. We’ll build the thank you page first then the landing page housing the form. We’ll start by selecting the landing pages folder within the assets folder. Right-click and select New Local Asset. In the new local asset gallery window select the Landing Page option. The program should fill in by default and we’ll give our landing page the name LP for landing page, 02-ThankYouPage.

The page URL will default to include the program name and the name of the landing page and can be customized. You can add a description or leave this field blank. Then select the template you want to use. Select the Open in editor checkbox and click Create.

Marketo opens the form in a new browser window. Here we’ve skipped ahead and formatted the page. Now, all we need to do is select the landing page actions drop down and click Approve and Close. Back in your workspace, drag the newly created landing page into the landing pages folder. We will now go ahead and clone this page to house the form we built earlier. Right-click on the landing page we just built and select Clone.

We will call this LP-01-DownloadPage.

Make sure the Open in Editor check box is checked and click Clone. Here we’ve skipped ahead and done some formatting but we need to add the form we created earlier. Click to select the form element in your landing page. Then double click to access the edit form settings pop up window.

Here we’ll select the form we created earlier titled download form. Then in follow-up type, select the landing page radio button. And here we’ll select the thank you landing page we just built titled LP-02-ThankYouPage.

Once the form and thank you page have been selected, click Insert. Click the landing page actions menu, and select Approve and Close.

Back in your workspace, drag the newly created landing page into the landing pages folder. Feel free to go back and edit the content of your landing page at another time. With this simple landing page asset created, we can move forward to the next step.

With your gated offer email program already created, we’re ready to start building the offer email. This offer email will have the call to action leading to our landing page with the form on it. Back in your workspace, right-click the new features brochure program and select New Local Asset from the new local asset gallery select Email. The template picker will open in a new browser window where you’ll choose the template you’ll want to use in your email design. Templates are unique across Marketo instances, but for this example, we’ll choose the Mission Control template in the Product Announcements category.

Give your email a name and description. For this example we’ll name it EM-01-OfferEmail.

Enter the description new features brochure offer email containing landing page link and click Create. Here we’ve skipped ahead and designed and formatted our email. To learn more about designing an email, head over to our scheduled email video module where we cover all this information in detail. With your email design in place, now we’ll add the link to the download landing page. In your workspace, locate and select the download landing page you created containing the form. On the summary page to the right, copy the URL. Back in your email, locate and select the call to action download brochure. In the button link filled, paste in the URL for the download landing page.

As always it’s best practice to send a sample email, to test your design and content before sending it out to your audience. In the top left of the editor, click the Email Actions dropdown and select Send Sample. We recommend that you enter the recipient’s email address in the box at the bottom of the form, rather than using any of the dropdown options. If you are sending to multiple email addresses, separate them by commas and click Send. Now that you’ve sent a sample email and your team has approved the email design and content, you want to approve the content in Marketo to move to the next step. From the email actions drop down select Approve and Close. Back in your workspace, drag the newly created offer email into the assets folder.

With our program assets created, let’s create a smart campaign to do the automation. Start by right clicking on the program and selecting New Smart Campaign. We’ll call this 01 Send Offer Email, then click Create.

Next we’ll select the Smart List tab to define the target audience for this email campaign. For this example, we are targeting people who have completed the form on our landing page that are in Pacific region states. We’ll search for state in the search field on the right. Locate the state filter and drag it over to the canvas. We want to add multiple values, so we’ll click the green plus sign. In the multiple values chooser window, add California, Oregon, and Washington, then click OK.

Now we’ll add another filter. So we’ll enter member in the search field to locate the Member of Smart List filter. Then drag it over to the canvas. We’ll leave person is in and select Marketable Persons from the dropdown.

Now we’ll describe what actions to take. Click the Flow tab, locate send email, and drag it to the canvas. Set the email to the offer email you created for this program.

Now click the Schedule tab, click Edit, select the radio button to have this run once, then click Save. Back in your workspace, drag the newly created smart campaign into the campaigns folder.

For this program, success is when a person fills out the form to download your new features brochure. To create a smart campaign that tracks this, right-click on the program and select New Smart Campaign. We’ll call this 02-Status Influenced then click Create. Next we’ll select the Smart List tab to see our blank canvas. Here you’ll define the target audience. For this example, we are targeting people who have clicked the link to download our brochure. Let’s search for the fills out form trigger and drag it to the canvas. Set form name to download form. Click Add Constraint and select Webpage. Set the webpage to your download landing page.

Now we’ll describe what actions to take. Click Flow, search for Change Program Status and drag it to the canvas. Set the status to web content influenced. Now click the Schedule tab then click Activate.

Back in your workspace, drag the newly created smart campaign into the campaigns folder.

Now you have a working gated offer email program. When someone visits our landing page and fills out your form, they will receive the link to the brochure and the thank you landing page. If they download your offer your smart campaign will set their program status to web content influenced, indicating success for that person in this program. -