Landing pages are an essential element of any successful online marketing campaign, whether you’re a solopreneur or a Fortune 500 company. You may be unfamiliar with landing pages and their importance in online marketing. Keep reading to learn what a landing page is and how to make the most of it.
What is a Landing Page?
“A landing page is a stand-alone web page, created specifically for the purposes of a marketing or advertising campaign,” as defined by Unbounce. Landing pages, as mentioned by Unbounce, are created with a singular purpose in mind, which is referred to as a Call to Action (CTA).
Landing pages are used at various stages throughout the inbound marketing cycle. Landing pages can help you reach your objectives at every stage of the sales funnel, from introducing your brand to a user in your target market to converting that user into a paying customer.
What isn’t a Landing Page?
In order to fully grasp the concept of a landing page and the benefits associated with it, it is necessary to first understand what is not considered a landing page.
In the eyes of most marketers, a site’s homepage and other internal pages are not ideal candidates for conversion-focused landing pages. This is because the intended use of these posts has been established. Typically, the homepage is not created with a specific call to action in mind. Instead, a Home page’s purpose is to introduce a visitor to the website/brand and highlight the available resources. There is no single call to action, but rather a number of options for the visitor to pursue.
Types of Landing Pages
A variety of marketing goals can be met with the help of landing pages. Various landing page formats are available for use in marketing campaigns to accomplish various objectives.
Lead Generating Landing Pages
Landing pages designed for lead generation collect data about potential customers so that you can contact them later.
- Name
- Company Name
- Email Address
- Phone Number
- Job Title
- Company Size
- Social Media Profile
- And More
Your business will be better equipped to turn this prospect into a paying client with this data in hand. A landing page like this can be used to acquire email addresses, direct visitors through an inbound marketing funnel, and boost sales during a specific time frame.
Click-Through Landing Pages
Landing pages are websites that are visited after a user clicks on a link advertising a sale or special offer. Typically used in the later stages of the purchasing process, these landing pages are straightforward in design.
Explainer Landing Pages
Landing pages that use extensive amounts of content to persuade visitors to take the desired action are sometimes called “infomercials” or “long-form landing pages.” These landing pages function like an infomercial by providing the user with a wide range of information about the product or service, as opposed to relying on flashy sales copy or graphics to attract them.
Educative course or high-priced product/service promotions are two examples of campaigns that would benefit greatly from these landing pages.
Product Detail Landing Pages
Typical landing pages for products in the retail sector include every piece of information a customer could possibly want to know about a product. Some stores don’t bother to create dedicated landing pages for their campaigns, instead directing marketing efforts to the homepage or about us page.
The goal of these web pages is to get interested customers to click through to the product page and make an immediate purchase decision.
Naturally, these are just a few of the many landing page formats accessible to online business owners. The strategy(ies) employed and the intended outcome(s) of the campaign should inform the choice of landing page strategy(ies).
How to Use Landing Pages
Several strategies are employed by marketers in an effort to increase traffic to landing pages from elsewhere on the Internet. Such strategies as:
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Advertisers who use pay-per-click models, or PPC for short, must fork over money every time one of their ads is clicked. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements are widely utilised on SERs like Google and Bing. Landing pages need to be optimised if a brand or company is going to spend money on PPC ads on search engines or display ads on related websites.
Clicks from a pay-per-click (PPC) ad promoting a new product, for instance, shouldn’t go straight to that product’s landing page. Instead, you’d make a dedicated sales page (landing page) for your new product.
You can do the same with social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter by using PPC ads.
Social Media Marketing
In addition to being used in paid online advertising campaigns, landing pages can also be integrated into strategies that seek to gain organic traction through social media channels. Marketing an eBook to attract potential customers is a great case in point. Start with an organic social media post and drive traffic to a landing page where they can enter their details in exchange for access to the premium content.
On social media, you can also use landing pages to:
- Event information and RSVPs
- Email newsletter signups
- Coupons
- Contests and giveaways
Content Marketing
Marketing that “focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action,” as defined by the Content Marketing Institute. From this perspective, landing pages serve as an introduction to content for a specific audience, a means to collect data about that audience, and an opportunity to convert them into paying customers.
As part of a larger content marketing strategy, your brand, for instance, could compile a collection of helpful resources. You want your target market to use these tools, of course. The only way for visitors to access this premium material is to provide their email address in a landing page form. Once a visitor is converted into a lead, you can continue nurturing them with content throughout the buying process.
Email Marketing
Email marketing allows you to send targeted content, offers, and information to site visitors after you’ve successfully captured their email addresses. In addition, landing pages are a fantastic resource for conveying such messages. Use a landing page if you want to give your email list subscribers access to a special offer.
Landing Page Best Practices
Follow these best practises from Unbounce and Hubspot to get the most out of your landing pages.
Constrict Page Linking
Your call to action (CTA) should be the sole focus of your website visitor.
Avoid Boredom by Keeping It Brief (With the exception of the Explainer Landing Page.) One more time, you want the visitor to read your content and then do something with what they’ve learned. Avoid drawing attention away from important content with flashy animations or distracting designs. Simple is best.
Provide Something of Value If you want people to take some sort of action, you’d better give them something of value in return. Make sure your landing page provides something of value to your target audience.
You Can Never Have Enough Tests
For optimal landing page performance, extensive testing is required. For optimal campaign success, you can A/B test anything from the placement of your inquiry form to the performance of different headlines.
Incorporating a video into your landing page has been shown to increase conversions by as much as 86%!
Maintain Call to Action Visibility
However, while proper use of long-form copy pages has been shown to increase conversions by 220%, this may not be the case for your campaign. If that’s the case, make sure your call to action remains visible before the user even scrolls down the page.
Include landing pages in your marketing mix? If you have, please tell us about it in the comments!
