High Conversion Landing Pages

By Howard Oliver, Director, What If What Next

What is a landing page? A landing page is a standalone web page created specifically for a marketing campaign. It is where a visitor “lands” after they click on a link in an email, ads, Google, Bing, and other search engine listings, social media, and elsewhere. Landing Pages address a single focus or goal, one well-thought-out call to action. A well-built landing page is the best option for increasing the conversion rates of marketing campaigns, lowering the cost of acquiring a lead or sale.

85% of B2B marketers say lead generation is their most important content marketing goal yet. A staggering 80% of marketers also say their lead generation efforts are only slightly effective. Designing a landing page that converts is a challenge. Landing page design is hard to do well.

The biggest hurdle companies have in Landing Page design is creating a core compelling value proposition; the second is communicating it.  It would be best if you asked, “So What’ to get it right. Use the following best-practices checklist to build High Conversion Landing Pages.

  • Purpose:
    • Dedicated to one campaign, buyer persona, or channel
    • Start with a Sparkling Value Proposition
    • Quickly communicating the major benefit of your product/service
  • Value Proposition:
    • Fine-tuning your value proposition can be tricky.
      • Why do customers choose you over the competition?
      • Pay attention to the language customers use on review sites, testimonials, and when you interact with them 
  • The Headline:
    • Sells the sizzle, not the steak
    • Describes the benefit of its product, reinforce its value proposition by explaining how those benefits come about
    • Instantly acknowledges the target audience and explains how the offering is significantly transformative – you will be a rock star!
  • Structure:
    • Optimized for all devices, especially mobile
    • Optimized for voice search
    • Consider using Webchat and Webbots
    • No navigation bar
    • Blocks
      • Social proof within the copy 
      • One link only
      • Lively multimedia elements
      • Short, multiple-choice sign-up forms
  • Design:
    • Colors and psychology are deeply linked.
    • Use warm colors – red, yellow, and orange 
    • Buttons – make sure they stand out from the rest of your page.
    • Visually appealing with a simple, clean design without too many bells and whistles
    • Ensure that your landing page entices your visitors to act, use benefit-driven points to explain exactly how your product or service features add value.
  • Copy:
    • Lean on copy
      • Only essential information
      • Just enough information to get the buyer interested and asking questions.
    • Bullets, headers, and spacing to break up large blocks of text
    • Resonance
      • Relevant tailored content, highly personalized, specific messaging that speaks to target personas’ needs and preferences.
    • Strong ad copy and a compelling call to action 
    • Time-related words will create a sense of urgency
    • Call to Action words
      • Now
      • Hurry
      • One time only
      • Last chance
      • Before it’s gone
      • Clearance
      • Today only
      • Limited time
      • Instant
      • Do not miss out
      • Bonus Incentive
      • Numbers
        • Facts and figures
        • Numbers are a great way to get people’s attention and make an offer more attractive
  • You can use numbers to push a sense of scarcity – for instance, “Just three more in stock!”
  • Or you can boost your social proof with numbers by telling customers how many other people have bought your product or service.
  • Call to Action:
    • Supporting information to encourage acting sooner
    • Button clicks to help reduce the emotive level required
    • Change text from “Buy” or “Buy Now” to something gentler, such as “Continue.”
    • Offers
      • Personalized, compelling urgency-driven offers
      • Use URGENCY in moderation.
      • Do not put pressure on your potential customers all the time, or they’ll stop taking your offers seriously.
  • Forms:
    • Asks for minimal information
    • Clear
    • Easy to complete
    • Functional
    • Responsive by design
    • Provide trust signals and support information.
    • Create a sense of urgency
    • Offer Something People Want
    • Set a Deadline
    • Use FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
  • Testing:
    • Read through your features and landing page; ask yourself, “So what?
    • Use SEMRush, Google Analytics data with mouse click data, scroll maps, and heatmaps to discover barriers to conversion
    • A/B test key changes to discover a winner that continually drives more leads and revenue 

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