"Paywall-Like" Document Hosting

[JWoodman]

We've created a really detailed guide on "how to win business" and are looking for a way where we can let the reader view or download just the first 4-5 pages for "free" before filling out their details to get the rest of the document emailed to them. Does anyone know how to do this?

Doc would be PDF, we host our website on Wordpress integrated with Hubspot which is our main CRM for sales. Any help on this is greatly appreciated!

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @JWoodman,

There are various ways of going about this, I'll share the one that is most straight forward and proven to work well.

Let's walk through the individual assets needed for this. We're creating the last one first because they depend on each other.

1. Create a "Thank you" page (Menu > Marketing > Website > Landing Pages). This page is not immediately accessible, not indexed and not shared, only after submitting a form on the landing page will people get here. (That's what makes it gated.) For an example, take this link https://offers.hubspot.com/seo-myths and change /seo-myths to /thank-you/seo-myths. This is where you would link the full file. You can easily create links for files by using the HubSpot file manager.

2. Create the landing page (Menu > Marketing > Website > Landing Pages) and the website form (Menu > Marketing > Lead Capture > Forms). This is the page that people will land on after receiving a promotional email, clicking a social post or a CTA in a blog post. This is where you would share your teaser, the first few pages. Make sure it's optimized for conversions (google "conversion rate optimization landing pages") and set the form to redirect visitors to your "Thank you" page after submitting the form. For an example, check https://offers.hubspot.com/seo-myths. Additionally, you can set up a follow-up email if you also want to share the landing page link with the person via email.

Et voilà, you have a full conversion path. You can direct people to the landing page via different channels (email, blog, social media, paid, referral), they would see the teaser, then they would fill out a form on the page and be redirected to the "Thank you" page featuring the full content after submitting the form. The content would be gated and can only be accessed through form submission (or the direct link which shouldn't be indexed or shared).

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!

Hope this helps!