Optimizing a Landing Page
It’s the job of an email marketing person to send emails. But an email marketer has to focus on optimizing a landing page as well. Unless your marketing strategy is unified across all channels, your conversion rate is going to suffer. Here, we give 9 landing page tips with a special focus on email marketing landing page.
Every email marketing campaign should have a dedicated custom landing page. Marketers should segment their lists in a way to drive the right customers to the right landing pages at an appropriate time.
Based on these principles, here are 9 tips to improve your landing pages.
#1: Stick to the point
Remember – People have short attention spans. Your landing page design should be very specific and brief. Generally, nobody likes to read through pages of text on a landing page. That would only serve to drive your audience away. Instead, be concise with the custom landing page design and give them what they are looking for. There is a reason for people to come to your landing page. Do your research on your target audience, find out about their needs and desires. Does your landing page solve a specific problem they have? The landing page should present the material in clear, easily scannable bullet points, with titles and sub-titles at appropriate places. The most important points should be emphasized in bold text or italics.
#2: The landing page design should correspond to the email marketing campaign
The landing page should be compatible to the emails being sent to your subscribers. Your newsletters should not lead your subscribers to a landing page that is completely incongruous to the message contained in the emails. In other words, the email marketing landing page should correspond to the email marketing campaign. There shouldn’t be a mismatch in the landing page design and the messages being sent.
Tip #3: Use a unified email marketing strategy for better landing page design
This follows up from the earlier point. The email marketing campaign should not be disconnected from the landing page design. You should focus on the experiences being created before and after the click. For the landing page to work, the emails should be focused and effective. A more unified and integrated email marketing strategy will help you design better landing pages.
Tip #4: Be consistent with the landing page layout
One of the most important landing page tips we can give you is to be consistent with the landing page payout. Stick to a single layout, don’t change it every few weeks. Changing the layout too many times would serve to confuse the visitors and drive them away. You want your visitors to get used to the landing page layout so that they find it easy to navigate the page and don’t get confused.
Tip #5: Stamp your logo onto the landing page
The landing page should have your logo on top, so that your readers are in no doubt about who the site belongs to and from where they are getting their offers. The logo should be placed strategically on the page so that it gets the attention it deserves. The logo does not have to be the centerpiece of the landing page, but it should be prominent enough, so that your visitors know that the landing page is a part of your business. This is especially important as most of your visitors will have arrived from Facebook, Twitter or Google search. The logo tells them about your brand and why it is unique. Once the logo has been stamped on the landing page, make sure to maintain the same position on all of the other landing pages. There has to be some sort of a consistency in how the logo appears.
Tip #6: Keep It Simple, Stupid Avoid cluttering the landing page with too many visuals, over the top images or graphics. Including too many design elements on the landing page can be very distracting to visitors and takes them away from the main goal of the landing page design – which is to drive higher conversions. The problem with incorporating design elements such as extravagant graphics is that they increase the page load time by quite a lot. According to experts, a 1-second delay in page load time results in 11% fewer page views, 16% lower customer satisfaction, which drives down the conversions by 7%. So simplify the landing page design and avoid cluttering it. Tip #7: Format the landing page Formatting the landing page can make all the difference to it. The great thing about it is that it gives you terrific results with very little effort. Formatting the landing page means clearly laying out the images, headlines form and the web copy. Use italics and bold fonts for the important points in the text, and use bullet points for the web copy. The visitors should be guided through the offer systematically – from the headline on top to the sub-header, then to the call-out box, which would contain a more detailed copy. Proper formatting can make a landing page simple and elegant and aesthetically pleasing. Tip #8: Add social proof to the landing page Adding social proof means incorporating testimonials from happy customers and case studies into the landing page design. Also, embed tweets from users who have used your products or services and have appreciated them. Pull quotes from Facebook from satisfied customers who have good things to say about your products or services. Similarly, pull quotes from positive online reviews or blog posts. Also, include some data about how many people have downloaded the content or product from the landing page. This gives your visitors the confidence to try out your products and drives your conversions to a much higher level. Tip #9: Use a mix of complementary and contrasting colors The best landing pages are visually appealing, which is why you should use contrasting and complementary colors in the design. The call-to-action should be effective and POP off the landing page to catch the visitor’s attention. Using an attractive color combination encourages your visitors to do as the call-to-action asks them to, whether it is to fill a form or click on the “submit” button. Use a combination of different colors such as white and blue, orange and green, red and yellow to grab the reader’s attention. Tweak the color combinations as you go along. Use A/B testing to boost conversions by comparing testing out different versions of the landing page design on a small audience, and use the version that gets appreciated the most for a much wider release. Do browse bethesda-list.com for more tips on email marketing, including on email marketing landing page design. Bethesda List Center is your #1 resource for direct mailing lists, business-to-business lists and brokerage services.
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