The Perfect Landing
“Most people focus a great deal of time on keyword and phrase selection...ensuring their organization ranks highly...But most organizations are terrible at building a landing page—the place people go after they click on a search hit” (Scott, 2015).
Everyday the Internet transforms, social media platforms introduce new trends to reach consumers and websites become more user and device friendly. For any brand it is important that they stay ahead of trends pushing their innovation and creativity, being leaders in their markets.
Landing Page vs Home Page
A brand’s landing page is the “next step” in which they must “generate and develop consumer interest and conviction” (Scott, 2015). The page should quickly inform consumers who have clicked on your site from a search engine and provide them with the brand’s story, new product offerings and call to action content, essentially turning their sites into leads.
A homepage is for consumers to understand a brand’s mission and what services they have to offer. Most consumers spend an average of 10 seconds on a homepage which doesn’t give the brand much time to make a big impact. Brands need to quickly show how they are different from competitors and they must “take note of the language: Your home page needs to be about your prospects, NOT about you” (Lieberman, 2016).
The Big Mistake
Brands invest a lot of money into search engine optimization, buying keywords and phrases that send all of their clicks straight through to their website's homepage instead of their landing page. A homepage serves to make first impressions to a more general audience and typically doesn’t have as strong of a lead conversion rate as landing pages. “There can never be enough information [on a homepage] for search engine terms” (Scott, 2105).
Landing Page Guidelines
➤ Keep it Simple. Make the landing page content short and the graphics simple.
➤ Keep it Consistent. Stay true to your branding, maintaining a consistent voice, image and style throughout the entire site.
➤ Point of View. Speak directly to the visitors of the landing page, proposing solutions to the problem they are looking to solve.
➤ Do Not Advertise. Advertising is what led the viewer to your site, now inform them on your values and offerings.
➤ Add Testimonials. A positive brand review can go along way. Consumers value thoughts and opinions of others and often look for reviews before making purchases.
➤ The Self-Contained Unit. You do not always have to link back to your main website or homepage. “The goal of a landing page is to get buyers to respond...so you can sell to them...make your landing page a unique place on the web” (Scott, 2015).
➤ Create Clear Call to Action. Provide easy actions for consumers to sign up for brand newsletters-remembering to keep forms short and sweet, an email address and name is just enough information-, make purchases or express interests.
➤ Follow Up. Follow up on any engagement consumers had on the landing page, send an email if they signed up to follow our brand or if they took interest in a product or service.
(Scott, 2015).
References
Lieberman, M. (2016, June 6). Website Home Page Vs. Landing Page – What's The Difference? Retrieved February 28, 2017, from https://www.square2marketing.com/blog/bid/120572/website-home-page-vs-landing-page-what-s-the-difference
Scott, D. M. (2015). The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Kerstin,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post and liked how concisely you called out the differences between a home page and a landing page. The line that jumped out at me was that “your homepage needs to be about your prospects, not about you” (Lieberman, 2016). That really is so telling when you consider the seconds to capture a customer’s interest in the hopes that they click through to one of the landing pages. If you can move them to the landing page, then you have the opportunity to possibly move your target customer through the sales funnel. In your listing of what it takes to create a great landing page, I wanted to discuss call to action further.
“So what is a Call-to-Action?
A call-to-action (CTA) is a button or link that you place on your website to drive prospective customers to become leads by filling out a form on a landing page. A CTA is the link between the regular content that your potential customer is interested in, and a page with a more high-value offer on it (the landing page) that is relevant and interesting enough to persuade your visitor to complete a short form” (Hubspot, 2017).
So many company’s miss the boat and don’t try to move the customer through the sales cycle. In the article call-to-action-best-practices by Hubspot, they point out the following best practices:
• “Visually striking with copy that compels you to click the offer
• Brief: A couple of words is best, no more than five is ideal
• Action-oriented: Begin with a verb like "Download" or "Register"
• Located in an easy-to-find spot that follows organically from the flow of the webpage
• In a contrasting color from the color scheme of the webpage, while still fitting in with the overall design
• Large enough to see from a distance, but not so large as to detract attention from the main content on the page
• Easy to understand and clear: Be sure to state exactly what the visitor will get if they click on the CTA and go to the landing page” (Hubspot, 2017).
References
Hubspot. (2017). Call-to-Action Best Practices. Retrieved from https://knowledge.hubspot.com/cta-user-guide-v2/call-to-action-best-practices
Lieberman, M. (2017, June 6). Website Home Page Vs. Landing Page – What’s The Difference? Retrieved from https://www.square2marketing.com/blog/bid/120572/website-home-page-vs-landing-page-what-s-the-difference
Hi Monica,
DeleteThank you for going into further detail regarding call-to-action (CTA). A brand should be able to generate leads through their CTA's, however in order to do so they must also remember the buyer's journey. If the CTA on a brands site "doesn’t fulfill the need of [their] visitor at the specific point in their journey, it’s not going to resonate with them, and they’re not likely to move forward" (Egan, 2016).
What is a buyer's journey?
It is "the active research process a potential buyer goes through leading up to their purchase" (DiScipio, 2016). The stages are as follows:
1. Awareness Stage - the discovery of a consumers problem and need for a solution.
2. Consideration Stage - the consumer clearly understands all options to their problem and has potential solutions.
3. Decision Stage - the consumer has decided on their method or approach to their problem after engaging with brands and their content. They can make a confident decision based off of their research.
(DiScipio, 2016).
A Successful CTA
Spotify's homepage provides users with two CTA's at the top of the page, making it the first thing they see. Spotify's CTA's "Get Spotify Free" and "Get Spotify Premium," informs their consumers that they have the decision and can consider whether or not to commit to the brand right away. The "Get Spotify Free" is a more contrasted CTA, standing out from the premium option because the brand knows that they are more successful and gain more loyal customers if they first go through the free trial (Egan, 2016).
References
DiScipio, T. (2016, February 5). What is the Buyer's Journey? Retrieved March 1, 2017, from https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/what-is-the-buyers-journey
Egan, K. (2016, August 18). 15 Great Examples of Calls-to-Action for Lead Generation. Retrieved March 1, 2017, from https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/15-great-examples-of-calls-to-action-for-lead-generation
Hi Kerstin,
ReplyDeleteYour post had some awesome relatable points. When I read this week’s readings and your post, I realized that I was guilty of not utilizing the proper landing page or techniques. Our Facebook posts link to either a product web page or a static product pdf. I thought I was doing the right thing by connecting to a pdf with more information and to meet compliance regulations. I feel like the poster child for this week’s lesson! I was missing several important steps. There was nowhere for the page visitors to go, but to “x” out of the pdf. As Scott mentions, the goal is for you to try “to move prospects through the sales process” (Scott, 2015). I was unknowingly linking to another advertising piece. The people visiting my Facebook page were basically finding a dead end. 60SecondMarketer.com validates this point by stating, “Your Facebook page, Twitter campaign, Pinterest Board and YouTube channel are the spokes of the wheel which are all intended to drive prospects to your landing page. The “Hub-and-Spoke system, as they refer to it, is at the center of a well- run social media campaign. I thought the diagram of the Hub-and-Spoke system was fantastic visual representation of the process. Now it is time to make some changes.
Scott, D. M. (2015). The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons
Retrieved March 1, 2017, from http://60secondmarketer.com/blog/2013/11/17/in-depth-guide-calculating-social-media-roi/
Hi Judy,
DeleteThis week's topic was eye-opening for me as well. I am coming across a lot of information and insight that is strengthening my understanding of landing pages and how to successfully utilize them. As Scott mentioned, "the goal is for you to try “to move prospects through the sales process" (Scott, 2015). In my response to Monica's topic (above) regarding call-to-action I touched upon the importance of a buyer's journey beginning with the awareness stage, when consumers are first discovering their problem, and ending with a decision or purchase, the commitment to a brand. You may find this helpful when making alterations to your landing page tactics.
References
Scott, D. M. (2015). The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons
Hi Kerstin,
ReplyDeleteI think your opening statement makes a really strong point that all marketers need to understand---the “new” ways of marketing are constantly changing and evolving and in order to keep our brand’s competitive, we need to stay on the forefront of internet, technology and digital trends.
I also appreciate how you made the distinction between home pages of website vs. landing pages. I’m sad to say that this is something that our company has been slow to adapt to. For quite some time our senior marketing leadership was against using landing pages for our marketing efforts and felt strongly that our website’s homepage and main navigation could address the same needs.
In the past 8-9 months, we’ve been able to shift mindsets and make progress towards “new” marketing tactics.
I want to share a link to our company’s current homepage website, a landing page we created over a year ago and a landing page we’ve just created a few weeks ago:
Current Homepage: www.theinstitutes.org
2016 Landing Page: http://bit.ly/2mRvGY5
2017 New Landing Page: http://bit.ly/2m1EJXa
It’s clear to even the novice web user/marketer that our homepage/website has a long way to go (and we’re working to make improvements) but our team is excited to be moving forward in a direction where we can use landing pages to drive marketing results. Even from 2016 to 2017, you can see that we’ve learned a lot about best practices to really optimize our efforts!
Hi Meghan,
DeleteAs a designer, who focused on web design during undergrad I really enjoyed taking a look at your brands landing page transformation. Going back to the guidelines that Mike Napolitano brought up in his blog post "Size Matters..." and comparing them to the new page, the majority of them have been met.
-The new landing page contains short content with simple graphics that brings the brand image and personality out.
-Under the "New Producer Training and Development" section, it provides statistics which show the brands success in the field.
-The call to action is also much more prominent, standing out at first glance.
-The brand made the landing page a self contained unit by removing the navigation bar just as Scott suggested in our reading "The New Rules of Marketing and PR.
Reference:
Napolitano, M. (1970, January 01). Size Matters... Retrieved March 02, 2017, from http://mikeynaps.blogspot.com/2017/02/size-matters.html
Scott, D. (2015). The New Rules of Marketing and PR. (5th ed). Wiley & Sons.
Meghan, thanks for sharing the homepage comparisons. It was great to see the visual comparison and as Kerstin pointed out the brand personality pops in the new landing page. That helped bring to life this weeks discussion.
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