OK, let’s start at the top. What exactly is a landing page?
If you’re running a digital marketing campaign – whether it’s ads on Google and Facebook or simply spreading the word via social media – you want to send visitors to what’s called a ”landing page.”
A landing page, different from a home page, is designed for the sole purpose of catching any potential customers who arrive via a digital marketing campaign and convincing them to perform a particular call-to-action, such as contacting the business, providing personal details or making a purchase. Essentially, someone will click on the campaign, land on the landing page and hopefully won’t leave before accomplishing your goal or completing your targeted and desired call-to-action.
For that reason, the landing page needs to be very strategic. You went to all the trouble of identifying, targeting and motivating your ideal customer, right? They also clicked through to your site? Success! Don’t waste their visit.
Unlike a home page, which provides an overview of a business’ complete offering, a landing page should only give potential customers the information needed to accomplish a specific goal. Avoid any other distractions.
When hoping to encourage Mother’s Day jewellery purchases, for example, send your targeted audience to a landing page that provides a Mother’s Day gift guide sorted by price, birthstone or popularity. Your promotion could perhaps offer a discount if the consumer orders in time for Mother’s Day delivery.
That’s a very focused goal, right? Your aim was to increase Mother’s Day sales – you targeted the right audience and pitched them your product and time-sensitive promotion effectively. If you sent them to your home page, there would be too many other options and distractions. The consumer may have decided to click on your diamond guide instead, thus avoiding the promotion you hoped to trigger.
Once you have a landing page – or are designing a landing page – how can you maximise the effect so that visitors will take the action you want them to take?
Here are five tips to make your landing pages as effective as possible:
Trim the fat
Remember the Mother’s Day example and the potential distractions on a home page that stop consumers from taking part? You want to remove any and all distractions from a landing page.
Make it easy for potential customers to get the information they need, take action and get out. If the main navigation will take customers away from that – “Hmm, I could contact them but I’ll just check out their blog” – remove it.
Use testimonials
Otherwise known as “social proof” or “mob mentality”, we like to do what others do and go where others go. If there is proof that the people with whom we relate are doing it, chances are we will do it too.
Pre-empt questions or objections
Make your pages long. Imagine you’re selling your product face-to-face. Write down what you would say and get all that information onto your landing page. After all, in a face-to-face sales situation, you get to answer the consumers’ questions and objections. On a web page, that conversation is travelling one-way. Try to pre-empt questions and objections. Don’t worry about boring people with all your text. If people are interested in the topic, they’ll keep scrolling.
Call customers to action
This tip goes hand-in-hand with the last one. Especially if you have a long page, give them multiple times over the course of reading the page to perform the desired action. Have your call-to-action button – where it says “Purchase” or “Get 10 per cent off” after every section of your text.
Make the decision “Which”, not “If”
Be careful with your wording. When a son buying a present for his mum sees “Contact us for further details,” the question is whether or not to call. But if he sees “Which necklace will my mum love?” the decision becomes more about which item he should buy and not whether he should buy at all.
Now that you’re familiar with a landing page and its goal, you should fare well in getting ahead in your next event promotion.