Creating landing pages that convert requires pulling from the depths of copywriting to send your customers to the proper place with consistency. Many people overlook the importance of this seemingly insignificant page and many marketers wonder why we do it at all.
In a modern sales funnel, an ad –> landing page –> sales page –> product page. This is the structure that you’ll see coming from the more experienced internet marketers that embrace automation. They create this complexity because each step in the process requires the customer to give a little more and further prove their willingness to purchase the end product. Some marketers even provide multiple steps above this level to create even more places to make purchases.
If you’re wondering whether or not you should adopt landing pages in your online marketing strategy, you should take a look at the graph below and you’ll see the growing trend for almost 15 years.
It’s charts like these that would make any CEO, marketer, and stockbroker all start tripling down on their efforts to get in on the profits while they still last. With the looks of this chart, landing pages are not going to disappear any time soon.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is a standalone website that the customer is led to after clicking on a link within an ad. At this stage, the customer will enter an email address in exchange for a lead magnet. This is the sole purpose of this page. Collecting an email will ensure that a follow up is possible if the customer decides to not proceed to the sales page and make a purchase.
Follow up is extremely important during the sales cycle. Without it, many customers will abandon their cart about making a purchase. The landing page is where the first level of value is disseminated to a customer. That value, or lead magnet, gives useful content to the customer and to create curiosity and entice the customer to watch or read the sales letter.
Landing Page Design
Brand consistency is paramount when designing a landing page that converts. Any kind of disparity among your web pages and your customers will feel like there is something wrong. That is why your brand images, colors, and fonts all need to be the of a consistent quality throughout the process.
Also, if you use video on your website and people know you to be a video practitioner, then you should stick to what you do. If you’re a writer and then all the sudden you switch to video, people might not identify you with that medium and respond the same way.
What you’re going for here is a seamless sales process. That means that each step makes it a little easier to continue to make purchases. Some marketers will offer tremendous value, like a book for free or an hour-long webinar on how to get more clients.
Then offer the webinar or the process of ordering the book, more products with sales videos to add to your experience. Most of the time the process looks like a staircase. As the customer makes purchases, the amount of value and the price goes up. Then at each level, there is a pitch to add a bonus feature or add-on to complete the purchase.
Later in the article, we’ll go into what makes a good landing page and what doesn’t. For now, take a look at your own landing pages and see if they match your ads. sales pages, and website.
The Grocery Store Analogy
Companies have been doing this for years, and it happens in the real-world too. Don’t believe me? Think about the last time you were at the grocery store.
You got all your veggies, fruits, meats, etc. first because those are the first things you see. Then you head over to the aisles where they put the soda, chips, cereal. Towards the other side of the store, they put the ice cream and deserts next to the milk and cheese. Coincidence? Not at all.
By strategically placing the products that taste really good next to the items that everybody buys, the grocery store maximizes profit. If they put all the tasty items in the junk food aisle, a lot of people would probably skip them all together.
The same goes for the checkout lines. They put the one-off candies and packs of gum there because it’s so easy to just add a little more to the tab. How many times other than during Halloween, Christmas or Easter do you see people buying candy in bulk? Rarely, right? It’s because people don’t want to admit they actually eat that much candy.
It’s the same with smokers too. Most smokers buy cigarettes by the pack, not the carton. Why? because they don’t want to admit they are addicted. They are always perpetually quitting. I was a smoker and I know this all-to-well.
A Copywriting Checklist for a High-Converting Landing Page
Perfecting the copy on your landing pages is difficult without, research, persuasive copy, and testing. Without knowing exactly who you’re writing too, it won’t matter how you solid your product is, it won’t sell the way it’s supposed to do.
Number #1: Speak in Your Audience’s Language
Personalizing your content to effortlessly enter the mind of your target audience is key to getting their credit cards out. If your clientele uses slang, then using slang is the way to build trust.
If you don’t know what your customers are thinking then join groups, follow your competitor’s pages, and read blogs from “experts” in your field. Your business should do what you’re competition does, only better in every way possible.
If you use tools like SimilarWeb, you’ll know exactly the kind of ads your competition is usually to convert their traffic into buyers.
Number #2: Create Curiosity With the Questions They Are Already Asking
If you follow the groups and forums related to your industry, you will know what people are asking about the nature of your product. It’s easy to figure out where your clientele commiserates.
Quora is one of the best places to find ideas for creating landing pages that address your customer’s needs. If you find a recurring question that your customers are continuously asking, then it’s in your best interest to use it in the body section push their eyes toward where they need to click to make a purchase.
Then in the body of the landing page, you should list out all the issues your product solves in bullet form. This will further expand on the title, but also ensure your reader that your product addresses their need.
Number #3: Test Your Landing Pages With Different Audiences
Always allow yourself the ability to test multiple adsets. Limiting your product to one audience and one landing page at a time is foolish.
The only way to maximize ROI is to match the right video with the right copy and the right audience.
If those three things are inline there is a very high probability your product will sell and places like Facebook is a fantastic place to do it, because they’ve been collecting the most comprehensive data on their users for years.
Number #4: Write Eye-Catching Headlines
The secrets to a good headline are targeting and specificity. Check out this awesome tool, by SumoMe to create awesome headlines.
Your headline is where you state that your customer is in the right place. When they see the headline at the top of the landing page, they should immediately go to the next section.
The key to targeting and specificity is research and narrowing the audience. If you’re marketing a fitness product, you better make sure your audience works out. Also, if you’re targeting major cities, it would be a smart talk about how this product positively affected users in Dallas, Chicago, and New York instead of it being generic.
Number #5: Create a Slippery-Slope
After the headline is the subheading which expands on the title of the landing page. Its only job is to get the customer to continue reading and see the benefits of using the product.
Grasping the idea of a slippery slope is paramount to getting your customers to buy your products and your overall social media marketing strategy. In essence, landing pages should be skimmed by the reader so they click on the link in a matter of minutes instead of scouring over every detail.
After the subheading, it’s best to lead with more of the most pertinent questions your readers have. The answer those questions with the benefits of the products in bullet form. These strong benefits are not features. They are tied to the emotions someone will feel when using the product.
An example of a benefit is the additional time, less stress, and less overhead. Features are allowing your users to look up their location with the push of a button or having their product delivered anywhere want. These two things are slightly different, but the key is to know that benefits make you feel good and features make you think.
Even the smartest buyers, usually don’t buy with their brains. They buy with their hearts.
Number #6: Read Aloud for Flow
Lastly, read your copy aloud and have your colleagues do the same. Every time you struggle to read a sentence smoothly, you should consider rewriting it. You will realize that most of what you right can easily be removed with a few attentive reads.
However, it’s the 10th time through after a “day of rest,” that usually makes the biggest difference.
For more information on creating perfect adset to make more money with your business, check out this article on the in’s and out’s of Facebook Ads.
