In the speed dating atmosphere that is online digital display advertising, a landing page is your company's representation. You only have a few moments to forge the closest thing you can to a relationship with the objects of your desire.
Plus, never forget: This is a competition — there are other suitors — so your landing page can be your greatest asset. It must be clear, and it must be concise.
What are the best ways to lead your user from "click to customer"? In this article, we discuss how you can make the most of your digital marketing efforts with landing pages.
Time is of the essence
When you're in the midst of a speed dating round robin, you don't have a lot of time to make an impression, so every moment counts.
The Internet is a fast-paced environment that can see numerous people scan over, scroll by or pan past your landing page without caring, stopping or noticing. When you are able to draw traffic to your page, it's important that you work quickly.
Now is not the time to bore your potential customer to death by waxing philosophical about your hopes, dreams and goals. No, keep things to the point. Keep things punchy.
According to Business 2 Community writer Sunny Popali: "Grabbing the visitor's attention is important in the first 5 seconds. You need to open with a statement idea that connects to everybody. This could guarantee the viewer staying on the page and, if you're lucky, possibly lead to a conversion [from viewers to clients]."
It's also a good idea to keep things simple and concise, be clear and uncomplicated. Although talking about yourself ad nauseam can seem pretentious, you can still do it effectively as long as you keep things direct and to the point.
"When writing important details, break them down into points," Popali continued. "Presenting ideas in point forms with headings and subheadings is easier to read and comprehend than never-ending paragraphs. You don't want to bore your potential clients, you want to engage their attention instead."
Importance of design
Sorry, it may sound superficial, but looks matter. A landing page's design can go a long way toward accomplishing conversion goals.
Website elements such as ease of navigation, a clear call-to-action, contact information and design are important. As far as navigation, you don't want visitors to your page to feel confused and disoriented with an unnecessary assortment of elements, fonts and graphics. Therefore, a simple format tends to work better.
Shopify shows a great example of a landing page — clear, concise and to the point.
The next most important thing you want to ensure is that your potential clients don’t navigate away from your page.
"The important thing to remember is that the only thing you want visitors to your landing page to do is take action," according Zac Johnson, online marketer for ZacJohnson.com and Blogging.org. "This means you should remove any and all distractions from your landing page that could be an outlet for them to leave your page, such as your navigation bar, a clickable logo or any other outbound links. This is one of the [more simple] ways to increase conversions."
As far as a call-to-action, Johnson noted that there is an often missed opportunities many marketers miss.
"Every landing page has a call to action, but not all of them brings a sense of urgency like a countdown clock or offering only 'a limited number of supply,'" he stated. "It's a silly tactic, but it still works extremely well. This is such a simple way to increase conversions on your page, yet so many marketers and brands neglect to implement such structure into their landing pages."
Nonprofit organizations provide examples of landing pages with strong CTAs.
Final tips
Along with using time wisely and improving your landing page's design, there still are other ways to use your page to its fullest potential in your quest to make that connection:
Understand your target: Using data from analytics and sales can help you create personas for the most promising and a company's best clients. This helps in drawing in clients as well as celebrating loyal customers.
Video or images of product in action: In the digital medium, providing videos and images are always a great compliment to text. The elements are easily digested and work on multiple formats, providing an opportunity to show off your product or service in a visual manner.
Measure effectiveness: Lastly, it's important to know how your landing page performs. This is the best way to weed out inefficiencies. The point for your page is conversions; converting visitors from clickers to clients. As experts point out, "The bounce rate, conversion rate and time on page are the most accurate metrics to analyze whether a landing page is performing, but these only provide a snapshot to the effectiveness."
Everything taken into account, as long as you focus on your presentation, your landing page could lead to multiple, solid — and above all, profitable — relationships.
