Why use landing pages? What is a landing page? A landing page is a web page which is specifically designed for a single purpose. Landing pages are used to get a visitor to perform a specific action, such as making a purchase or signing up to an email list.
On a website, a visitor can have a look around, click on many pages and generally look around. But on a landing page there is no navigation option. You can’t browse the website further and you have only two options: perform an action or leave.
Most landing pages are designed to collect an email subscriber but there are also landing pages which link to products sales pages too, or checkout carts. So a landing page is useful to marketers because it helps force a specific action.
Why Use Landing Pages: Conversions
A landing page will convert a visitor into a subscriber much more effectively than a website ever will. On a website, you can offer a very attractive opt in offer to your visitors. But because there is so much more to distract your visitors, the opt in rate of your form will likely be very low.
On a landing page, you only have two options as a visitor. You either sign up to the offer by inputting your name and email address, or you leave the site. This is much better for the marketer because they can measure the opt in rate and cross test similar landing pages to optimise for optimal performance.
Ultimately a landing page can convert 40% and above (of visitors to email subscribers) if it is well optimised. Whereas a normal website will likely only bring in a few percent of it’s visitors to your email list.
Landing pages can easily be copied too and this means you can run two different landing pages side by side to see which one performs the best. This is known as cross testing.
Why Use Landing Pages: Email Marketing
Email marketing is a tactic used by online marketers to collect emails from a landing page and follow up with an email marketing campaign. On a website, a visitor only has a few minutes to look around and make a buying decision.
Research shows that most people need several contact points or touch points before they will buy something online. On a website, you only have a tiny window of opportunity to lead your visitor to a product to make a sale. Most won’t buy. But once you capture their email address, you can follow up with more messages and build a longer term relationship with them. This also gives you many more touch points to connect with your potential customers.
Email marketing works and most online business owners use it. To get leads more efficiently you need to use landing pages to help build your email list of subscribers. See also the power of email marketing.
Efficiency
The cost of advertising online is steadily rising as more as more marketers join the party! If you can’t afford to pay for your marketing, you’ll need to build a lot of content and earn traffic organically. Either way, marketing is an expensive or time consuming option. If you intend on building an income from it, you will want to make the most of your time and/or marketing budget.
Landing pages can help you turn traffic into email subscribers which can extend the effectiveness of either your organic marketing approach or your paid advertising.
Instead of running adverts sending people directly to products, you send them to a landing page instead. On the page you can encourage your visitors to sign up to your email list. This is done by offering a hugely valuable offer which is aligned with the needs/interests of your visitors.
Once on your email list, you have a lot more time to build trust and help your subscribers. This ultimately makes your advertising more cost effective because you are able to convert more visitors into customers.
Squeeze Pages
Landing pages are also known as squeeze pages because they “squeeze” visitors into giving their email address. This will only happen of course if you give them something valuable in return.
Often squeeze pages will offer downloadable guides, ebooks or a video series detailing some kind of interest. Squeeze pages can be used in any niche. By creating some automated value driven giveaway, you can encourage your visitors to enter their details for access. See also ebook lead magnet. A lead “magnet” is often what is referred to as the giveaway item.
Whatever you give away from a landing page or “squeeze page” should align somehow with the interests of your visitors and the products you are promoting to your email list. See also customer avatar worksheet and how to know your target market.
