Because if you're not, you're probably losing customers. A recent post on Hubspot’s Internet Marketing Blog, “4 Simple Ways to Integrate Analytics into Your Daily Internet Marketing Efforts,” offers tips to help you determine the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts. One of them, “Check out your landing page analytics and work on your conversion paths” is worth exploring.
Just in case you haven’t used landing pages, let’s start by clarifying what they are. Once you extend an invitation to connect with your company online (through an email blast, tweet, direct mail, etc.), it’s critical to avoid distractions. You want to lead prospects directly to a web page that will help them complete the action you want them to take – quickly. This is the landing page. It’s campaign-specific and a natural extension of the trip you’ve asked your prospect to take with you – think of it as the connecting flight.
By visiting the URL you gave them, prospects are showing interest in what you offered in your original outreach. Don’t make them work to satisfy that interest. If you offer a two-for-one special in an email, link it to a page that gives details about the two-for-one special. And whatever you do, don’t link it to your home page or another unrelated page. All that will do is leave visitors searching for some place to learn more about the two-for-one special. How long will they search? About 1.5 seconds. Then they’ll leave your site. You’ve made it too hard for them. You’ve made them work.
Keeping all this in mind, how do you create a buyer-friendly landing page? Here are a few tips:
· Continue the experience of your original outreach (the email, direct mail, etc.): branding, messages, fonts, colors and graphics should all be aligned.
· Create a message that is personal, benefit-focused and action-oriented. An opener like “Improve your presentation skills” is much more compelling than “Our training course helps people become better presenters.” (You may think this is obvious, but it’s not. Take a close look at your direct mail pile and you’ll see that many marketers sell the drill instead of the hole.)
· Encourage the transaction by giving a clear deadline for the offer.
· Target your landing page to the same audience as your initial message. For example, one of Springboard’s clients maintains three separate email lists for three distinct types of clients/contacts. The messages and landing pages for these groups are rarely, if ever, the same.
· Maintain continuity through each step of the campaign, reinforcing the original offer and how to take advantage of it. Repetition can be a good thing – especially when it gives prospective customers a well-marked trail to follow to place and confirm an order.
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