Landing pages are a critical piece of an effective lead generation campaign. It’s where the magic happens. It’s where you go from visitors to (gulp) conversions. You can increase your landing page conversion rates by taking the time to ask these five strategic questions.
Best Landing Page Strategies
Landing pages are created in support of a larger campaign, and have to be a seamless part of the user experience. Before you write content or think about the layout (another key factor in landing page success), get your marketing team together and ask yourselves the following:
1. What are our campaign goals?
Determine the goals of your campaign, including what actions you want leads to take next and how much information you want to gather from them (just name and email, or additional details like job title and company name). Set clear performance targets for your landing page, such as a 30% conversion rate, 300 downloads in 90 days, or 40 webinar sign-ups. Consider: What do we want our landing page to achieve?
2. What do visitors need from our landing page?
Visitors need a clear call to value to give up their contact information. Put yourself in their shoes and ask: What do I get if I fill out this form? Think about how to make the content more enticing by using preview images or videos. Explain to them exactly what they’ll be getting. Make sure your forms are clear and easy to use, and are optimized for completion in one click. Use smart content that changes based on who’s visiting the page or how they got there.
3. How will visitors get to my landing page?
Consider the journey a visitor will take to get to the landing page. (Did they come in from a PPC ad? email? organically?) You’ll want to tie your landing page content back to the source of their visit and make sure that it creates a seamless experience. Getting to the landing page should feel like the next natural step, not a jarring departure from their entry point.
4. What should our creative team know?
Provide your writer, designer and possibly your developer with clear instructions about campaign goals and give them the following:
- Brand style guide (so your landing pages match the rest of your digital content)
- Keywords or phrases that you want to be found for
- Explanation of possible entry points (PPC, social media, etc.)
- Any data on user devices or user habits or accessibility issues (i.e., most of our audience consumes digital content on iPhones, or our target audience is visually impaired.)
No matter what: make sure your design is mobile responsive and looks great across a variety of devices.
5. Are we tracking and testing landing page performance?
It’s so important to test, measure and continue to optimize your landing pages for maximum performance. Use heat mapping tools like HotJar to see where people are clicking on your landing pages. Data from HotJar will help you know if your landing page content is resonating with your audience or why your page isn’t performing. If you’re really feeling adventurous, you can set up an A/B test of your landing pages so you can see what kinds of images, colors, buttons and copy works best with your audience.
Remember to start with a solid strategy before you write, design and build landing pages into your next inbound marketing campaign. Then test, measure, and adjust along the way for better results.