Tell me if this sounds familiar, you’ve created a lead magnet that you know your target customer will love, you’ve created great content or a brilliant ad, but your landing page just isn’t converting.
If you want to grow your email list, you absolutely have to nail your landing page.
What is a landing page?
(skip this section if you’re already down with the digital marketing lingo)
OK, maybe you’re not up on all the digital marketing speak yet. A landing page is where your customers land after they click your ad or lead magnet on your blog, video or social media post. Think about it as your lead-magnet opt-in page.
Let me give you an example if you’re not sure what I’m talking about.
If you click on the image or the button below, you will be redirected to my landing page. Here I will ask for your email address to receive the workbook, you will end up on my email list and I’ll send you high-value emails every week.
(the bonus is you will actually get a copy of the Quick and Dirty Storytelling Cheat-Book; the lead magnet; so it’s win-win for you)
Da-da.
Why do you need a landing page?
If you’re new to this game, it might seem a little elaborate, why not just send them to your homepage? They can rummage around and find everything they need there. Well that’s true, they can find everything there, but the chances are, they won’t stick around long enough to.
If you’ve put in the time to do your research, created your customer avatar, you know your customers wants, needs, and pain points. The landing page gives you an opportunity to speak directly to them, right off the bat.
This will mean that the likelihood of them subscribing to your newsletter will go through the roof.
3 Features you need to boost your landing page conversions
The call to action
The call to action is asking for their name and email address, I would advise at this point only asking for their name and email. Any more information could put them off and reduce your conversions.
That being said, it does depend on your product or service, having a phone number for your leads could be a big advantage if you want to run an SMS or WhatsApp marketing campaign. But, generally speaking, people are much more protective of their phone numbers than their email addresses.
In fact, you want to minimise distractions as much as possible, if you’re using a page on your WordPress site make sure you disable the menu bar, sidebar, breadcrumb trail, and anything else that gives the viewer the option to click anywhere other than your call to action button.
The same goes for your call to action button, whatever you do, don’t put more than one call to action on the page, just like distractions, the more decisions someone has to make the more chance they will click off the page and you will lose a potential subscriber and future customer.
The branding
Again, you want to keep it simple (are you noticing a theme?). When it comes to images, colours, copywriting, the more there is on the page, the more distracted a visitor will be and the less likely they are to enter their details and become a subscriber.
Also, think about your branding, it needs to look like it’s connected with your ads, or social media posts. You want the visitor to know who they’re dealing with, imagine that they click a link on your Youtube video to receive your lead magnet freebie, and they end up on a page that looks nothing like your channel branding. It’s easy to see how this could raise suspicion and scare them off.
If they are familiar with your face from your content or marketing, it might be a good idea to have an image of you on the landing page too. If not then find some stock images (you can try Unsplash, Pixabay or Gratisography for starters). It’s important that you choose images that support your branding and messaging.
Another thing you can do is add a mock-up image of your lead magnet, you can do this with image editing platforms like canva.
The copywriting
In the copy on your landing page, make sure that you very clearly state your value proposition, that’s the promise of what you are going to deliver when they subscribe. Your lead magnet is the thing that they need right now to bring them closer to their goal, solve their problem or ease their pain.
But whatever you do (and this goes for all your marketing) never lie, make false promises, or be inauthentic, it’s immoral and it doesn’t serve you in the long run. You should always be operating your business from a place of integrity. OK, I’ll get off my moral high horse now.
The copy on your landing page should be succinct and to the point, do not overwhelm people with too much reading. Answer their questions, address their pain point or desire, paint a clear picture of this free resource will give them what they want but don’t be long-winded about it.
When it comes to the copy on your CTA button, be creative and fun. Don’t just write ‘click here’ it needs to stand out, it should look inviting and fit in with both your branding and the language of your customers.
Use the first person, think of the promise in your marketing. What will they get when they click? How can you make that irresistible?
Check out these sites for creating landing pages
Final note on optimising your landing page
It’s important to note that the effectiveness of your landing page depends on how warm or cold your leads are. If you’re sending people there from a detailed ad you won’t need a lot of copy, a title, tagline, mock-up image and CTA button will be enough.
If your traffic is colder and don’t already know exactly what they’re getting, maybe it’s from a pop-up on your website or blog post, they may need more information about the lead magnet before they commit.
As with everything in marketing, you can’t just take my word for it. Create two landing pages and split-test them, use your analytics tools to see which is converting better and go with that. The marketing game is exactly that, a game. Approach it with a sense of playfulness, curiosity and experimentalism.
What landing page tips and hacks do you have? I’d love to hear about them.
