Industrial marketers invest a lot of effort and resources into multichannel campaigns to drive customers and prospects to landing pages. In some ways, landing pages are simple, because they have only one goal: conversion. The overall purpose of a landing page is to entice your prospect to complete a form.
But earning conversions can be a challenge when prospects are hesitant to hand over information about themselves in exchange for your offer of a whitepaper, webinar, or other content.
Your job is to build enough trust and provide enough value that this exchange of information is a no-brainer for your prospect. Here’s how:
One campaign, one landing page
Each campaign should have its own landing page designed specifically for its target audience and associated offer. Avoid multi-purpose landing pages that serve several campaigns. Anything you do that detracts from a single campaign message can feel watered down, confusing, and lower your conversion rate.
Get right to the point
Your visitor has come to your landing page for a specific reason: to take advantage of your campaign offer. Make it as easy as possible for them by making it perfectly clear what they need to do.
All of your landing page choices should be focused on the desired prospect action. Tell them exactly what to do and why. Use clear, short headlines. Reinforce with benefit-oriented bullet points. Add large buttons with action verbs (Click Here, Download Now, Read the Report, etc.). Place the most important information at the top of the page.
Create continuity
To reassure visitors they have come to the right place, create continuity between elements of the campaign and the look of the landing page. Use the same or similar language, colors, fonts, and imagery.
This type of positive reinforcement adds to the professionalism of your landing page and increases the likelihood that your prospect will take the requested action.
Remove distractions
The landing page has only one purpose—to convert. That means you should remove everything from the page that doesn’t contribute to a conversion.
Some marketers may be tempted to add a second offer, in case the visitor isn’t interested in the main offer. Don’t – It’s distracting from your goal and will lead to landing page confusion.
Similarly, many people want to include multiple links to other parts of their website so that visitors can explore and/or get information. Avoid this, as it only gives visitors a reason to click away from the offer before converting.
Add trust marks
If you think a prospect might need a bit more convincing before converting, add trust marks to the landing page. These might be logos of other customers who use your products or a brief customer testimonial video. But don’t add anything that takes visitors away from the landing page or detracts from the main goal.
Keep forms as simple as possible
If you’ve done everything right and your prospect takes action to accept your offer, don’t annoy or discourage them by presenting a long, complicated form to fill out. If you do, your drop-off rate will likely be high.
Instead, ask for minimal information that allows you to identify the prospect and communicate with them. Name, company, and work email is all you really need.
As you begin a relationship with the prospect, you can fill in additional information. But for the landing page, minimal is best.
Don’t overlook the thank you page
If your prospect makes it as far as your thank you page, you’ve achieved your goal of conversion. Well done!
On the thank you page, you have another opportunity to gain and direct the interest of prospects. Here you can offer them links to content related to the offer they just accepted, such as articles, case studies, videos, and datasheets. You can offer them subscriptions to your newsletter or ask if they’d like someone from your company to contact them. Remember to only do this on the thank you page post-conversion, not the landing page itself.
Follow these tips, and you’ll be well on your way to increasing conversions. Make sure to share your wins with us.
Leave a Reply