Infographics: How to Create Gated Content That Readers on All Devices Can Read

Readers, prospects, and clients use a variety of devices to consume the content we create. Most buyer research is now done online long before people reach out. That’s why we want to make our content count!

Hours upon hours are invested into content that we hope people will read. Certainly, the hours invested never translate to the same amount of reading time, but sometimes organizations make it harder than it should be.

That certainly is true when it comes to content that is served on mobile devices. I still see a lot of content out there that isn’t optimized for mobile. That includes:

• Infographics that aren’t readable on mobile devices
• Gated content in PDFs that can only be read on desktops
• Development issues when the site doesn’t render correctly

Let’s talk about how we can easily address readability issues of gated content and infographics from the content creation phase!

Infographics for all devices

Infographics that work on mobile are actually not that difficult to produce. But we have to remember some things:

• Design them longer (not wider – for now, until phones change again)
• Make text big enough to read on smaller devices
• Use less text and larger copy
• Think bullet points on graphics

This of course means that we have to cut words like we are running out of them. Welcome to being an editor! An editor mentor once told me: “The job of editors is to get 10 pounds of content into a 5-pound bag.” Same concept applies.

Gated content for all devices

Gated content is another content type that often doesn’t work on mobile devices. Maybe that’s okay when most of an audience is on desktop, but how common is that? People use their phones for work and personal internet tasks. For example, I write most of my blog posts on mobile devices.

But yet, I still see sign up forms that don’t work on mobile devices. Sometimes they jump around so much there’s no way to fill them out! Ugh. Contact our UX team now to get help with that.

Then, once it’s filled out, you get a well-designed but basically unreadable 3-column PDF. That’s not how it has to be. The following user experience makes the content consumption happen for users on all devices:

Gated content, of course, only works when we drive traffic to it! Step 1 matters. In the above user flow, the reader gets pushed from a high-performing article. That’s one way to do it. Others include directing people from:

• Email newsletters
• Nurture campaigns (Think: “This is a limited-time offer to access this report.”)
• Social media – though organic reach continues to decline
• Remarketing
• Display advertising
• In-copy linking
• Webinar mentions

The example above is from Buildings.com – where we share content for building owners and facility managers – but this strategy can be used across many industries and as part of content marketing and demand gen programs.

The programs where I’ve seen gated content perform best incorporate a mix of the above tactics. That takes time, resources, and money! Why let it go to waste by serving readers content they can’t access? Make sure consumers can read the content you spend time creating.