LANDING PAGES THAT HELP YOUR
ONLINE MARKETING
TAKE OFFConverting Visitors to
Prospects in Three Steps
MID ATLANTIC14073 Crown Court | Woodbridge, VA 22193
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NEW ENGLANDPO Box 305 | Barrington, RI 02806
T. 401.289.2500 | F. 401.289.2503 | 888.205.8899
CREATING RESULTS, LLC – WHITE PAPER SERIES
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Landing Pages That Help YourOnline Marketing Take OffConverting Visitors to Prospects in Three Steps
Studies have shown that building targeted online landing pages can
improve a campaign’s conversion rate by upwards of 50 percent.
Yet, most companies targeting the 50+ market do not achieve maximum
return because their online strategy stops at the ads. This is the pitfall of
many otherwise well-planned online marketing programs.
As markets continue to fragment and consumers find increasingly cunning
ways to avoid advertising, consumers are beginning to ignore all but the most
personal and relevant marketing. By customizing landing pages specific to
each target audience, companies can improve this level of relevance and keep
prospects moving down the path towards a sale, while collecting valuable
information about the effectiveness of their organization’s marketing efforts.
This white paper outlines how you can create landing pages that will
move online visitors to prospects in three steps.
TestingOne of the most significant benefits of online
marketing is the ability to monitor and adjust in real
time. The most simplistic way to evaluate alternatives
is to use an A/B test. Just as the name describes,
serve half of the visitors concept A, serve the other
half concept B. Using the metrics gathered from
the analytics, an advertiser can see which version is
more successful. Elements easily tested in the A/B
format include overall design, offers, the positioning of
elements on a page, and even desired outcomes.
Keep in mind that the fewer variations between your
A and B concepts, the more actionable your findings
will be. Too many changes/differences will leave you
wondering what was responsible for the differing
response levels.
The level of marketing investment will dictate how
much testing and how often monitoring should occur,
but the findings can pay great dividends.
There are dozens of additional opportunities to
improve the effectiveness of digital marketing
through the use of landing pages. Alternative testing
options, personal URLs, social elements, dynamic
content and real-time communication - all are
achievable with today’s technologies.
To find out more about these options and how Creating Results can help improve your digital marketing efforts, visit www.CreatingResults.com/smoothlandings.
Creating Results provides clients with a strategic approach for marketing to adult consumers seeking
a higher quality of life. We have earned praise, referrals and awards for our successful marketing and
unique understanding of adults. From the initial research through the strategy and creative development,
and on into the complete implementation and ongoing performance analysis, we strive to make our
clients stand out in a crowded marketplace.
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This decision needs to take into account the characteristics of the end user
and the true value of the offer or product being promoted. Likely desired
outcomes include downloading information, online registration or simply
following a link to another page within the site.
If your target is a mature consumer, remember that the 50+ market is more
apt to call a sales center from a website and are more protective of their
personal information than their younger counterparts. Whatever the desired
outcome, it will only be effective if the prospect believes the opportunity is
worth the effort.
STEP TWO: DEVELOPMENT
Content If they’ve made it to the landing page, prospects want to learn more. Take
this opportunity to provide only relevant, straight forward information that is
valuable and dripping with credibility.
According to Marketing Experiments
Journal, clarity of the value proposition
is the most important factor in
determining whether a customer buys
or not. The mature audience responds
best to straight talk, so avoid the fluff.
If the goal is to have someone call
a sales associate, ask for the action
outright, but clearly explain what is in it
for them.
Make it as personal as possible.
Reference the page from which they
were referred, recap the offer in the
advertisement they clicked, tap the
behavioral and demographic data from
the sites, search engines or internal
databases. Use whatever is available to
show visitors that time has been invested to learn about them. This will help
develop the client / seller relationship that is sought by this mature audience.
Design When designing the appearance of a landing page, do not spend
even a pixel promoting anything beyond the brand, offer and specific
desired outcome.
While the 50+ market is quite comfortable online, they are more likely
to make navigation errors. Therefore the look, feel and language needs to
match that of the advertising. This includes colors, fonts, imagery, use of
white space and graphic treatments. Precious seconds are saved by quickly
assuring visitors they have navigated to the right place.
Content should be arranged in a clear hierarchy, keeping text to a
minimum. A single, engaging photo is superior to multiple, smaller images.
If there is a registration form, keep the number of fields to seven or fewer.
Even the navigation bar should be eliminated. On a standard webpage, this
navigation helps visitors find where they want to go on the site. With a
landing page, it should be assumed that they have already arrived. Finally, if
the preliminary design requires any amount of scrolling, start over.
CREATING RESULTS, LLC – WHITE PAPER SERIES
Creating Results gives this landing page a “good” rating - it is very focused and draws on demographic data from the referring site.
Don’t make this mistake: Allstate didn’t create a landing page. As a result, there is no reference to the offer that brought prospects here and far too many ways to leave the site, fast.
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Steps to Ensure a Successful Landing
STEP ONE: PLANNING
Understand Online BehaviorWhen planning a landing page, it is vital to understand the specific online
behaviors of your specific target markets. Start with the segmenting used to
place digital advertising and then research each profile’s internet habits.
As experts in marketing to Baby Boomers and Beyond, Creating
Results recognizes and stresses that each segment will be different.
However, a unifying characteristic of the online population is
impatience. Regardless of an online user’s age, the average digital ad is
lucky to get two seconds of attention.
Time-of-attention only increases to
eight seconds for landing pages.
Do not expect visitors to scroll,
peruse a laundry list of navigation
options or even read the copy.
Animation, flashing elements and
background music do nothing but
distract the mature audience and
rob your site of precious seconds of
attention. You can only expect that
mature (40+) visitors will evaluate a
site’s merit on their initial impression
of the overall design and maybe
skimming of the headlines.
Landing pages need to match visitors’ expectations, preferences and
tastes before the content will be reviewed. Otherwise, “bouncing”
occurs, or visitors quickly leave the site without any interaction. No
clicks, no registration, no activity of any kind, and thus, no opportunity
for future sales.
Setting ObjectivesAs time is of the essence, a landing page only has the ability to focus
on a single business objective. The advertiser must identify the “desired
outcome” of a landing page visit. This is the prospect’s single on-site activity
that will provide the greatest benefit.
STEP THREE: EXECUTION
Monitoring Prior to launching a series of landing pages, make sure that a
monitoring tool is in place. Many analytics tools are freely available
and are quite user-friendly. Minimally, ensure that unique visitors, click-
throughs and conversions are tracked. Time-of-visit, session duration,
repeat visitors, geographic locations and click-tracking can also
provide invaluable information.
CREATING RESULTS, LLC – WHITE PAPER SERIES
Focus on one clear desired outcome. This page design was ranked “best” by Creating Results’ team for the engaging photo and the clear call to action.
While this white paper focuses
on online advertising, the value of
landing pages is much greater. As
part of an integrated marketing
program, well-executed landing
pages can boost the effectiveness
of the whole campaign.
Creating Results has directed
prospects to special landing pages
from a variety of off- and on-line
mediums, including newsletters,
direct mail, email, signage and
traditional advertising.
For Westminster at Lake Ridge,
a Continuing Care Retirement
Community outside of Washington,
DC, a landing page became the
vehicle to invite prospects for
a “test drive.” Westminster is
targeting people in their 70’s,
an age group still motivated by
newspapers. A special insert
offered an overnight stay to get a
feel for the community. It drove
those interested in “packing their
pajamas” to a special landing page –
www.westminsterpajamas.com.
As with online advertising, emails
can get prospects to a landing page
with just one click. The National Museum of Americans at War
sent an email soliciting feedback
from a target group, driving traffic
to a landing page with survey
questions.
SMOOTHER LANDINGS CAN HELP YOUR MARKETING TAKE OFF
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