In a previous article, I share how landing pages are often the weakest link in campaigns for many brands. A lot of times I’ve seen brands use the same one for multiple campaigns. In addition to derailing campaign results, it can wreak havoc on evaluating the message and quality of the creative design.
This is why I recommend that every campaign ad, email, or other lead generation tool have its own landing page. Of course, I’m not the only one. A Techjury article reports that companies with 30 or more landing pages have 7x more leads than those companies with less than 10.
Fortunately, building a high converting landing page isn’t hard. Regardless of your design and campaign message, it should have the following 7 elements.
#1. Consistent messaging.
Nothing kills a campaign like a landing page that doesn’t continue the flow from the ad, email, video, or whatever source that brings a user to it. A landing page that doesn’t jive with the ad, email, or offer creates a disconnect that disrupts your customer’s movement to conversion and forces reconsideration of what you’re asking/offering.
You have probably clicked away from a landing page that didn’t fit with the ad that sent you there.
I’ve seen landing pages described as gateways. That’s not a bad image, although I prefer to view every campaign as a single sales message, making the landing page just another segment of one long sales “letter.”
In short, apply the #1 principle of writing – consistent messaging – to the overall campaign. This means a unique landing page for every campaign.
#2. Audience-centric.
When creating a landing page, aim for it to speak to your audience’s expectations. Maybe it needs to highlight features to support the benefits promised in an email or ad.
Does it need to sell? Or does it need to continue the sale? (Sell could also mean prompt a download of a freebie.)
As with all writing, the page should speak to your audience in a way that delivers content and graphics, meeting expectation and inspiring action.
#3. Always Point to the Positive.
Fear and greed are powerful emotions, but nothing beats accentuating the positive. According to Wordstream, 45% of the top ads tapped into positive emotions. Neutral ads represented 53% of the top ads.
Negative emotions? Only 2%.
Granted that’s ads, but you can bet that if people respond better to short ads with a positive tone, they’re likewise going to respond to a landing page that promises a positive outcome.
After all, “lose 20 lbs in only two weeks” may be a great promise, but “Be lean, toned, and sexy in two weeks” inspires.
#4. Structure.
Regardless of landing page length, it should follow a similar structure. Done well, it won’t be stale. Rather, it will lead your audience naturally to the next step.
The structure should include the following:
Headline
A good headline reinforces the promise, highlights the top benefit(s), and creates a need for immediate action.
Subhead
With the subhead, you create movement with additional benefits and/or features, depending on audience expectation. It should express the promise – from a high-level – and cover the items that will be briefly elaborated in the summary. There might be an inclination to skip it but don’t. It provides the bridge from headline to the bullets for those who won’t read the summary.
Benefits-driven summary
Features and benefits blend with promise and value in one to two, three- to four-sentence paragraphs. At least, for a short landing page. Here again, it depends on audience expectation. This section could be shorter, or it could be much longer, such as a sales landing page which could be 1,500 words or more (and therefore include many paragraphs and subheads).
Bullet-points
On a short landing page, bullet-points highlight features and reinforce benefits after the summary. For a long landing page, inter-mingle bullet-points to break up the copy and offer bite-size information for impact.
Strong CTA
Strong doesn’t mean thumping your reader with a call-to-action. Rather, strong means clearly identifying what your reader should do and fulfills their expectation as a reasonable next step.
Easy & Message-consistent sign-up
The actual act of “sign-up” (whatever that may be) should collect all the necessary information in the simplest way possible. Any messaging should always point back to the main promise.
#5. Make Conversion Easy and Logical
Here, above all the others, is why every campaign should have its own landing page. Every landing page should make the next action a logical next step for the reader. The page itself should communicate a practical logic and it should continue a logical path for expectation and flow set by the preceding interaction (ad, email, etc…).
Language should also be simple and clear, making conversion not only practical but desirable.
#6. A/B Testing
Create different versions, with variances of only one or two elements. Testing isn’t only about you getting better conversions, but also essential to better understand your audience. If, for example, an orange CTA button performs better than red, or one headline does better than the others, you’ve gained valuable insight.
#7. Urgency
For the landing page, there must always be a reason to act now. It doesn’t need to be corny, only support, define, and, if necessary, explain (briefly) the benefits of immediate action. For example, a B2B business might state, “ebook available for 72 hours after the webinar.”
Make Your Landing Pages Consistent Producers!
Including these 7 elements in your landing pages will drive page conversions and ultimately revenue. Plus, you’ll learn a lot about your audience and how to better connect, resonate, and engage with them. Of course, to accomplish this, you do need unique landing pages for every campaign.
Have questions about your landing pages or looking for an outside eye to do a quick audit? Let’s talk and see how I might help…