Landing pages customized to the needs of specific buyer personas produce measurable results, from increased “time on page” to higher conversion rates. If you’re looking for a modest bump in your numbers, a good landing page will deliver that. But, set your sights on maximizing a landing page’s impact, and you can turn modest bumps into significant spikes—or better yet, produce a continuous upward growth curve.
There are many steps you can take to optimize the response to your landing pages. Here are five that we find particularly effective:
- Tell visitors where they are. With the variety of deceptive marketing practices in use these days, we’re all a little suspicious of advertisers. Use both text and graphic design elements to quickly reassure visitors that the link they clicked on brought them to the page they expected.
- Be clear, concise and complete. Perhaps the biggest factor in producing an amazing inbound experience is presenting your offering in its most easily understood form. Confusing, excessive, or incomplete explanations will frustrate your visitors and drive them away. Short, bulleted lists and plenty of whitespace are good ways to make a page useful and engaging. And the shorter your forms, the more likely it is that people will complete them.
- Repeat multiple calls-to-action. Some prospects will read every word on your landing page before clicking on a Learn More button at the bottom. Others will immediately see that your product or service meets their needs and want a Request Info option near the top of the page. Make it simple for visitors to take the next step. In fact, repeat the offer/call-to-action multiple times, reminding them of the enormous value of your proposition. And, be sure to provide additional engagement options on the Thank You page when someone submits a form. This added opportunity for conversion is often overlooked.
- Make it personal. Inviting someone to your landing page is like inviting them into your home. If you're using personas to drive the landing page content (and if you're not, WHY NOT?) talk to them about what interests them, make them feel welcome (use “you” phrasing, for example), choose appropriate and personal images (studies show smiling faces are reassuring), and adopt a color scheme that is designed to appeal to their needs (there’s a whole science to it), etc. If you're using a marketing automation tool, like HubSpot (and if you're not, WHY NOT?), and the landing page is designed to convert from a specific marketing campaign, never ask them for information you already know about them, i.e. don't ask for their name and email address, if you just sent them the email they are responding to.
- Never assume; iterate. If you're using personas to develop appropriate content, language to make them feel comfortable, science to choose your color scheme, multiple well-thought-out calls-to-action, and best-practices with layout and design oriented to convert, it's easy to think you're done. However, in the end it’s really about the numbers. Test, analyze, revise, and repeat. If, much to your surprise, the shockingly-vivid, lime green button produces the best conversion rate, you’d be foolish not to use it.
Landing pages are powerful tools. Take the time to ensure you get all you can from them.
What have you found to be successful in landing page strategy? Let us know in the comments section below.