Getting Clarity & Conversions with Your Landing Pages
Introduction
My mantra in relation to lead pages and specifically landing pages is Engage, Stimulate Offer & Convert. Good Lead Pages + Good Landing Pages = Higher Conversions. The objective of the landing page is to get a compelling value proposition in front of prospective buyers in a way that is engaging, credible and clear. I believe every page on a website should act as a landing page with some type of viral or connectable engagement opportunity for visitors.
If a company’s website is large or deep with many areas then it is best the site is reviewed in sections using grouped pages as iterative steps in a process to achieve a specific engagement and conversion goal. This route offers better rates of lead capture, viral share or online sale or whatever the ultimate agreed goal of the digital marketing team is. I call this web or page-chunking, by grouping a few pages together the visitor is led through some steps or pages to an end goal. This provides the opportunity for the marketing team to develop a slightly longer and more emotional value proposition. Having said this, it is more typical to work with and decide on single page, single purpose landing pages.
I believe there are 3 main areas or objectives, which need to be kept in mind when creating good landing pages that will lead to conversions.
- Presentation & Clarity
- Emotional Value Proposition
- Selling Techniques
1. Presentation & Clarity
- Keep it clear, concise and simple: My personal obsession is with clarity. Being concise and clear is at the top of the list – being everything else is below that.
- Make sure your headline matches what your advertisement is saying: Always test for consistency. Time and again I see websites and landing pages with inconsistent messaging in relation to what the product or service being advertised is and I’m left scratching my head, as I’m sure the site visitors are. This is a major landing page FAIL and completely avoidable.
2. Emotional Value Proposition
- Promise to solve a problem: Your visitor will have some problem or other they are facing, so offer them a solution. Whether it’s with more comprehensive study results on something or the opportunity to learn better ways of marketing their products or a free trial of your amazing web scanning tool, users will respond positively to you helping with an issue they have… and remember, leave the reader wanting more.
- Appeal to their sense of creativity: Use the wording “How To” or “Create Your Own” or “This Way”. When we appeal to our audience’s creative energy we draw them into an action to validate their sense of accomplishment in this area.
- Avoid passive language: Try to rephrase “Passive Language” using “Active Voice” instead. Readers may have difficulty following instructional text and decisions are faster made when “Active Voice” is used in copy.
3. Selling Techniques
- Try and see the funny side: I believe I am a funny guy and I believe you believe you are funny too. So, if we all believe this then we should all engage better with humorous titles and copy. Try out some humorous titles and sayings. People like and respond well to humour.
- Always use adjectives and “sell” words: Using any of the following powerful sell words on your landing pages will have a dramatic effect on your conversion rates as they are powerful and emotionally appealing like Guaranteed, More Conversions, Discover, Better Results, Quick, Free, Now and Great.
- Sometimes its best to begin with a question For example: Want Faster Conversions For Less Money? Are you missing out on new customers? How often do you check your web stats? Asking questions either open or closed-ended questions requires a subliminal answer from the visitor and this tactic usually results in higher conversions than direct statements can achieve.
Emotional Marketing Value (EMV)
This free tool from the Advanced Marketing Institute [note: these links both go to a EMV FAQ] will analyse your headline to determine the Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) score. Reaching your customers in an deep and emotional way is a key to successful copywriting, and your headline is unquestionably the most important piece of copy you use to reach prospects. The tool available on the AMI site tests different variations of your headline, and then gives you a percentage score telling you whether your headline is more intellectual, empathetic, or spiritual and what emotional marketing value it has. Headline words have a predominantly empathetic appeal.
While not as common as words with intellectual impact, words which resonate with empathetic impact often bring out profound and strong positive emotional reactions in the reader. I believe having a landing page policy is important and will maximise the impact of your web campaigns. This policy could include things like frequency, design quality, re-purposing and split testing parameters.
When talking about Landing pages and content in general I always pose the question ‘Why care about optimising content?’ The answer is simple, clear and concise. Error-free web content means increased customer satisfaction, more brand credibility and better online conversion rates.
