Imagine you’re on a road trip. You’ve spent the past 500 miles or so seeing huge billboards for an amusement park. The closer you get, the more elaborate the billboards become, promising rides, entertainment and all the fried food you could ever want. The excitement is palpable.
But when you pull into the lot, you’re met with a rusted Ferris wheel, a man dressed in a shabby gorilla costume and a shack selling candy bars and warm soda. Are you going to waste your money?
The same principle applies to your landing page. You’ve spent a considerable amount of time and money on your marketing efforts. Your email blasts are filled with exciting information. Your social media game is on point. You may have even dabbled in direct mail or print advertising. You made people excited about what you had to say … and then you led them to a landing page that’s messy, confusing, misleading or just a giant disappointment. How do you expect to convert?
Your brilliant marketing strategy drove traffic to your landing page — now it’s time to give them what they came for. Here are our tips on how to do it.
Corral Your Campaign Traffic
Landing pages make it easy for you to see the results of your marketing campaign. One landing page = one campaign. If traffic isn’t coming, your marketing campaign isn’t succeeding.
Despite this, many small businesses still don’t utilize designated landing pages, instead preferring to send their traffic directly to their home page. This is a mistake for several reasons.
- It’s too hard to test. One of the biggest benefits of a landing page is the ability to see what works (and what doesn’t). When each campaign has its own landing page, it’s easier to tell which strategy is succeeding.
- The results are contaminated. Without a landing page, you have no way of knowing if your visitors found their way to your site via a Google search, an email, a social media link or on the recommendation of their next-door neighbor’s best friend’s aunt.
- There’s too much going on. A landing page should have a call to action — sign up for our mailing list, book a consultation, get our eBook, etc. Sending a visitor directly to your homepage confuses them. “What should I do? Where do I click? How do I get what I came for?”
A landing page corrals your traffic and funnels them exactly where you want them, and tells them exactly what you want them to do, eliminating confusion for both you and your visitors.
Use Lead Magnets
People like free stuff — even if it’s not technically free. When you give away an eBook, a white paper, a case study or even a free sample, you’re not really giving it away — you’re trading it for what you really want: their contact information.
A lead magnet draws traffic to your landing page. From there, it’s up to you what you do with them, as long as you deliver on what you promised to get them there in the first place.
Be Visual
Text is a great way to tell your story — but pictures, video and graphics will tell it just as well, and maybe even better. Consider:
- Adding a video to your landing page holds your visitor’s attention 100% longer than text alone.
- Visuals are processed 60,000x faster than text.
- People are 85% more likely to buy a product or service after watching a video about it.
Don’t be afraid to add a bit of personality to your landing page! Stock photos are fine, but a candid shot (or better yet, a video!) of you and your team adds a personal element to the site that no Shutterstock picture ever will.
Keep It Simple
Your landing page exists to accomplish a goal, so don’t lose focus. Fancy design elements, catchy phrases and Oscar-worthy videos are great, if it ties in to what you’re trying to achieve. Otherwise, it’s only a distraction.
Make sure you have a great headline that captures your visitor’s attention, list a few of the features and/or benefits of your product or service and leave plenty of white space so your reader isn’t overwhelmed.
Your landing page is a wonderful tool, but it can only work as hard as you do. When you take the time to understand the why’s and how’s, you’re well on your way to an increased conversion rate and an ever-growing customer base!
Looking for more tips to make your small business bigger? Let Mischa Communications know how we can help and we’ll work together to make you better than you ever thought you could be!