If you are involved in your company’s marketing processes, chances are you already understand the importance of driving potential customers to your website. Moreover, there is often a considerable amount of time, effort and money spent on accomplishing this feat. Yet, once these customers reach your website, what’s next? Why not take the sales cycle all the way across the finish line? A landing page is a web page built and designed as part of a specific marketing campaign. Its purpose is to elicit an action from a site visitor, such as filling out a form, making a phone call or purchasing a good or service.
When done right, a landing page can be a powerful conversion tool.
A person is on your business’s landing page because they are already interested in your product or service based on an ad or some other form of marketing that drove them there. A landing page is often used to give consumers more in depth or detailed information that has been teased or alluded to in the ad or driving marketing force. Most importantly though, a landing page’s purpose should include a strong call to action that leads to a conversion. It all just depends on your campaign strategy and how you are advertising.
Here are a few unwritten “rules” our experiences with landing pages have taught us throughout the years:
- Include a clear call to action.
There should only be ONE call to action on a landing page. It is okay to include social media links and buttons, as well as links to other pages, but don’t allow these things to cause your visitor to become distracted from the true reason you drove them there. In other words, the call to action needs to be the “star of the show.” - Keep it simple.
While the content found on your landing page will be determined by your unique campaign strategy and the marketing avenues leading to it, rarely should the content on a landing page be overwhelming. You should not try jamming your entire website and offerings into a single landing page. Keep the focus as clear and concise as possible. - Make a connection.
Whenever possible, show your audience how your product or service has helped others. Whether you use a testimonial, show success stats or display a loyal social media following, this approach can be highly effective. - Create Urgency.
Encouraging customers to “act now” to avoid missing out on a limited time or availability/quantity offer of a product or service can be very compelling. This approach isn’t always necessary or appropriate for every campaign, but when it is suitable, a landing page is the best place to use it! - Make it Measurable.
Including tracking whenever possible in your marketing campaigns is a great idea. It’s the best way to measure their effectiveness. If tracking is showing that a landing page is not performing well, some adjustments to the page and/or the campaign materials itself may need to be made
Another advantage to using a landing page as part of a marketing campaign is that it works well with both print and digital mediums of advertising.
For instance, we have worked with St. Margaret’s Health on numerous campaigns where print and digital marketing worked together to drive traffic to a specific campaign’s landing page to complete an action. In St. Margaret’s case, it is usually to encourage potential patients or community members to request an appointment online, register for an event or class, signup for future communications or even to apply for jobs or volunteer positions.
One campaign we worked on for St. Margaret’s advertised a new offering from their Ear, Nose and Throat doctor, Dale Chilson, DO. The new procedure, Clarifix® Cryotherapy, treats a condition called chronic rhinitis. Rhinitis is caused by out-of-balance nerves in the nose that can trigger frequent runny noses, nasal congestion and post nasal drip. Clarifix® is used to essentially “freeze” the out-of-balance nerves in the nose causing these symptoms. As such, the tagline “Get your runny, stuffy nose to COOL it” was used across many advertising mediums, from billboards, magazine articles, newsprint ads and other print literature, to radio, Google and Facebook advertising. The campaign also made use of a landing page where more information on the procedure can be found. The landing page also contains a form that potential patients can fill out to request an appointment. The URL used was aboutsmh.org/coolit. This is not only easy to remember but it also ties the URL back to the campaign tagline.
To conclude, landing pages are important for your marketing campaigns because they drive targeted traffic to a specific web page, one that’s designed with less “noise” or “distractions” that can ultimately lead to a specific goal set by your organization. Generating leads and/or sales are the ultimate goals of your marketing campaigns. Landing pages, when done right, help to make the process easier for everyone.