5 Strategies for Creating Landing Pages That Convert
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 of "How to Get the Best ROI From Your Email Marketing Campaigns"
Seize the Opportunity
Once prospects have clicked through to your promotion, you’ve got them hooked, and the opportunity to reel them in is all yours. The following are some effective strategies for creating landing pages that will convert the sale:
1. Design Promotion-Specific Landing Pages
When you send a promotional email, you have a specific marketing goal in mind, such as:
- Making a sale
- Building a relationship with your readers
- Getting people to sign up for an event.
Yet too many times companies will send their prospects to an already existing, generic page on their Web site, expecting them to click further in search of the place to make the actual transaction. When this happens, conversion rates suffer. So when people click through to your promotion, be sure their expectations are met immediately by designing a highly specific landing page. Keep it focused on the promotion, providing the opportunity to complete only one action at this page. In other words, this isn’t the time to send them surfing through the rest of your Web site, so don’t include links to other resources.
2. Make Your Headlines Connect
The headline is likely the first copy your prospects will read when they click through to your promotion. That’s why it presents the biggest opportunity to make an impression. Here are some headline writing tips:
- Let prospects know instantly that they’re in the right place by keeping the message consistent with your promotional email.
- State the biggest benefit of your offer.
- Tell prospects exactly what they’ll get.
- Because clarity trumps persuasion, be clear not cutesy.
- Introduce a sense of urgency – such as a deadline for the offer – to help increase the response.
3. Keep the Copy As Short & Simple As Possible
It is important to use the amount of copy you need in order to fully explain the benefits of your product/service and the offer. However, long copy that’s complicated and difficult to read can cause “marketing friction” – it slows down your readers’ ability to respond and, ultimately, hurts conversion rates. Because you have only a matter of a few seconds to capture prospects’ attention, your landing page should:
- Focus on the facts, not the “fluff.”
- Try to keep the important information in the message above the “fold” – the space on the page before you have to scroll down. That information includes the benefit of your product/service, the offer and the sense of urgency.
- Use subheads to help highlight the main benefits of what you’re offering, as well as make the landing page quickly “scan-able.”
4. Create Credibility
Overall, be sure there’s nothing in the content of your landing page or promotional offer that would make prospects doubt your company’s integrity. Additional steps include:
- When possible, include testimonials from other clients or customers. It’s much more effective to hear how great your service or product is from someone other than you.
- Be sure to include a link to your privacy policy. This helps relieve prospects’ anxiety about sharing personal information.
5. Focus on “Eye-Tracking”
Be sure the layout of your landing page uses the copy, subheads, white space and graphics to lead the reader’s eye to your offer. Some important eye-tracking tips include:
- Use various font sizes to attract a reader’s attention; for example, readers read the biggest fonts first.
- Use color to highlight the important text – but don’t use more that two or three colors (including black).
- Keep the design simple, such as using one column of print versus two or three.
- Make sure the action you want people to take is stated clearly and stands out on the page. For instance, if you want prospects to sign up for an email newsletter, include a large call-to-action button prominently displayed on the page that reads, “Click here to register for a FREE newsletter.”
As you set out to design your next email marketing campaign, we hope you find the FulcrumTech strategies we’ve shared in our 3-part series on optimizing your ROI helpful. Click here or give us a call at 215-489-9336 for more information about how FulcrumTech can help you effectively implement these strategies in your upcoming email promotions.
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