Annotation. This article discusses important aspects of developing a landing page that helps effectively engage with audiences, test the business idea, and assess demand from market participants – potential consumers of a product or service.
Keywords: landing page, website, conversion, landing page, multiple landing page, target audience, traffic.
Modern marketing requires quick decisions, flexibility and the ability to adapt to market conditions. This is also true for Internet marketing, which must react especially quickly to changes, the needs of the target audience and changing market conditions. What can help with this?
One of the most important tools of Internet marketing today, which can be used to react quickly to changes, is the landing page (target page). The term “landing page” refers to the purpose of the page – literally, the “landing” of visitors who come to such a page through advertising.
It is important to realize that the main problem of the modern economy is not a lack of goods, but a lack of consumers [2], so landing pages have high popularity. because it is the most effective tool for communication with the potential customer on the Internet.
What is a landing page
A landing page is a one-page website or a page within a website that is intended for users who click on an advertisement. The task of the landing page is to convert the visitor into a lead using the contact options offered on the page (call, application form, email, messenger, online chat).
Is it possible to combine a landing page with the main website? Yes, you can use the inner pages of the resource for this purpose by designing them taking into account the needs of the customers.
Why is a landing page better than a website for advertising? A website performs a different task. Usually, the goal of the website is to inform the visitors about the company, products and services. The website should emphasize the image and credibility of the company in the market.
Often the company owners mistakenly think that once there is a website, the advertising can be directed to them. With this approach, the owner will quickly empty the advertising budget and will not achieve any effect.
The conversion of a website is lower than that of a landing page, because the task of the website is information, the task of the landing page is the target action. Excess information on a standart website distracts the visitor’s attention, and internal links, news and other data contribute to the transition to other pages to explore.
A landing page has a clear goal – to solve a problem of the target audience, which is well packaged visually. The user is prompted to take a specific action – make a request, call, write an email, or chat. He can either do it or not. The landing page answers all the consumer’s questions, he does not need to search and analyze the information. With a well thought-out text, you can remove all the potential customer’s objections, reassure him and explain why he is safe when cooperating with this company and will definitely make a profitable deal (Fig. 1).
The criterion for the quality of advertising and landing pages is how they influence the decision-making process of the visitor, so the advertising concept and the high level of the advertising message are important.
Figure 1. Website vs. landing page.
Before you start creating a landing page, you need to clearly define the task and answer a number of questions.
Objective. What do you want visitors to do when they come to the landing page? Do you want them to buy something, fill out a form, sign up for a newsletter, or download an e-book? Defining an objective is the first step in creating an advertising strategy.
Competitors. If a person opens several browser tabs at once and chooses the right solution, who are you fighting against in the battle for the potential customer’s attention?
Target audience. What do members of your target audience want and fear? The better you understand your target audience, the better chance you have of meeting their needs and overcoming objections. You should have a thorough knowledge of your customers’ psychotypes and behavioral patterns and make some portraits.
Source of traffic. What advertising channel do you plan to use? The offers on the landing page for search advertising for commercial search queries and for traffic from social networks should be different. In the first case, the visitor has the intention to buy, and in the second case, he is just interested. For each traffic channel, design a one-page page that takes into account the “warmth” of the channel’s audience. Remember to separate not only traffic channels, but also the needs of different segments of the target audience.
Clients often ask the question, “I have multiple types of customers, how do I figure out how many landing pages I need?”
Roughly speaking, you need to multiply the number of audience portraits by the number of traffic channels. You’ll end up with the number of pages you need to develop. Of course, this is quite expensive, so it is advisable to use multiple landing page for such tasks. Remember that the landing page should “talk” to the visitor like a sales consultant, answering questions and objections and encouraging him to leave his contact information.
The landing page should be tailored to the target audience, i.e. when creating it you should consider who should buy your product or service and why.
I could have positioned Dove as a detergent bar for men with dirty hands, but chose instead to position it as a toilet bar for women with dry skin. This is still working 25 years later.”
David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising
What is a multiple landing page and when do you need It
Multiple landing page is used to find a conversion bundle. A bundle is a group of ads that target a single need of the audience and a unique selling proposition (USP) presented on the website (Figure 2). Multiple landing page is created to prevent duplication of pages on the website.
When is multiple landing page helpful? We usually start by developing several hypotheses based on initial market research and demand for your product or service. Once we have formulated a hypothesis for advertising promotion, we place the proposal on the website and place ads.
It is much more effective to work with one site. Firstly, it is cheaper in terms of spending advertising budget. Secondly, you get more statistical data, which allows you to make more informed decisions.
Multiple landing page can be designed in different ways depending on the decision factors. For example, you can base it on geolocation if your service is tied to a customer’s location, or the type of product if it is used to solve a specific need or task, and of course the type of audience.
Figure 2. Multiple landing page: different offers for different categories of consumers.
How to develop a USP for a landing page
The goal of developing a unique selling proposition is conversion action. In order to convince people to leave their contacts, we should only talk about what is of interest to them in their specific situation. In order to design an offer that best meets the needs of different users, it is necessary to separate advertising traffic and develop a different offer for each consumer group. The principles of segmentation are determined on the basis of the specifics of the company, the product and the target group.
If you sell to everyone, you sell to no one.
Uwindi
Example: We have a common target group, the tenants of warehouses, and a product – the rental of warehouses. We can divide tenants by the type of space they need. For example, a pharmaceutical company and a retail company are guided by different selection criteria. For the target audience of the first, it is important that there are certificates, that temperature regulations are maintained, etc. For the second target audience, the priority is the transport accessibility of the warehouse and the proximity of highways, a sufficient number of parking spaces for trucks, etc.
In other words, the criteria for selecting a room for rent are different. Accordingly, we can create a different offer on the landing page for each type of audience and divide these types into advertising campaigns according to important requests and segments.
When developing landing pages, we adhere to the following principle: one need – one offer. We convince a specific segment of the target audience to solve a specific problem (a need) with our one product. This approach works most effectively because the visitor understands what exactly is offered to him and why he should buy it from us.
If you don’t have an idea for a headline, you can use the 4U method, according to which each headline is based on four main components:
- Usefulness (Usefulness) – the main benefit, the result that the customer will get after the purchase.
- Ultra specificity (ultra specificity) – specification of the result in facts and figures.
- Urgency – within what period of time the customer will receive the result.
- Uniqueness – what will achieve the result (what distinguishes you from the competitors).
As K. Hopkins noted, headlines should either inform or arouse curiosity.
Your unique selling proposition is the reason why the customer should buy the product from you, right now. If you can’t answer this question, you don’t need a landing page at this time.
Uwindi
Structure of the landing page
Once the proposal has been developed based on an analysis of the target audience, market and competitors, you can safely move on to developing the logic and structure of the landing page.
There is no standard template, all landing pages are developed taking into account the specifics of a particular company and target audience. This requires a marketer to study the product, research consumers and decision factors, and analyze competitors and their offerings. This work should be done continuously, as the market and advertising are dynamic systems.
Remember that when a potential customer is looking for a solution, he opens several websites with similar products in his browser at the same time. If something does not appeal to him or puts him off, he will leave the site and study the competitor’s offers.
If you try to standardize the content of a landing page, you can distinguish the following components.
Menu. It usually contains links to the sections of your landing page, as well as phone or feedback button, e-mail, logo of your company and descriptor (description of activities) (Fig. 3).
Offer. It must include a headline (reflecting the USP), a subheadline (emphasizing the USP or highlighting important details of the offer), three or four specific benefits, a photo or video (if available) to visually demonstrate the result of using the product/solution, a call to action, and a form/feedback button (see Figure 3). The more specific the offer, the less advertising costs are required.
Benefits. List 3-4 important benefits for your customer. These advantages should influence him at the moment when he is looking for a product and comparing your company with the competition. These benefits cannot be general and non-specific, such as a customized approach (please, forget it). Instead, be more specific about what your customer will get when they work with you and why they will be satisfied.
Problem. What problems does the target audience help your product solve. Marketing begins with a clear representation of consumer fears. If you understand what problems your potential customers face, show that on the landing page.
Information about the product. How its quality is expressed, a comparison with alternatives? The more detailed the presentation of the product, the better. Explain every detail, because it makes your product stand out from the competition’s offers.
Price. Information about the price of the product and information about promotions and offers. We recommend including the price on the landing page so that the visitor does not get confused. The price should be “sold” using product details, highlighting the benefits and comparing your product to other products. You need to explain to the consumer why your offer is beneficial to them.
How should the price be presented on the landing page? The most important principle is to reduce unpleasant feelings, because the purchase is a burden for people. The moment you part with money, the brain areas responsible for physical pain are activated. Follow these guidelines to reduce the negative reaction:
- Create an imbalance between price and value for the consumer so that the latter prevails;
- Compare price to the amount of customer loss/profit lost;
- Emphasize what outcome your product will achieve;
- Compare your product with that of your competitors and highlight its advantages, because the customer is constantly comparing price, quality and value propositions of different companies;
- Offer a money-back guarantee to ease the customer’s fear of making a bad decision.
Workflow. If the product is complex or your interaction with the customer consists of several independent phases, you need to describe the scheme of cooperation. Clear rules for the business facilitate decision making.
Testimonials with links to social networks or videos. Testimonials should reduce the objections of potential customers and show how the customer solved his tasks with the help of your product. Testimonials should be real short success stories of your customers. If you place them on a landing page, visitors can emotionally share another customer’s experience.
It’s important to remember that each segment of your audience should be shown testimonials from customers who are also part of that segment, for example, law firm executives should be shown testimonials from other law firm executives. You can also include photos of your clients, they inspire sympathy and trust among site visitors.
Guarantees. What guarantees does the client get when he makes a purchase? He wants to feel safe, because the first contact is a psychologically difficult step. Documents, certificates, contract templates and other quality features are very helpful in this regard.
Lead magnet — a kind of bonus for leaving contacts (for example, you can offer visitors an accurate cost calculation by drawing). Lead magnet should be of value to customer within its needs. You shouldn’t offer bonuses that aren’t relevant to your target audience.
About the company. In this section, do not praise yourself in every way. Give only important facts that emphasize the credibility and image of your company. You can tell about the team if your company requires active customer service.
Contacts. Ways of contacting your company, the more the better. You should include all possible options: phone, e-mail, current address, links to pages in social networks, messenger, feedback form.
Footer. At the bottom of the page you should put important links to documents and information about the company, as well as the privacy policy. We recommend that you take them seriously, as the unlawful collection and processing of personal data will result in criminal penalties.
As a rule, the following elements are used when designing a landing page:
- content: headline, text, image, video;
- functional: menu, calculator, drop-down list, map;
- visual: icon, slider, gallery, carousel, tabs (tabs), lists;
- feedback options: Inquiry form, button, e-mail, phone, online chat, messenger link.
When designing contact forms, remember that the more fields you have to fill, the lower the conversion rate. Keep the amount of information requested to a minimum. You can find out all the details only after the purchase. It has been found that most users feel comfortable leaving their name and email address on unfamiliar websites, while asking for their phone number and date of birth, for example, deters 50% of visitors. Keep this in mind on your landing page.
Which is more important – the design or the copywriting
The answer is clear – the texts. Landing page development should start with writing the sales texts. Design is the framing of the essence of the proposal. Use in copywriting the successful simple units of meaning, intellectually rich. A website with silly texts and a cool design will never sell effectively, and an unsightly design with strong texts can work wonders. Landing pages may not seem as complex and interesting to many people as branded pages with animations, but believe me, when a client invests in advertising, he expects results in the form of new leads and calls from his clients, not just a pretty cover.
Avoid weak, hackneyed phrases. They tire you out. They can’t tire a person enough to get them to make a purchase.
Uwindi
In our practice, more than once we have seen a client redesign a website that was constantly bringing customers because he wanted to make it more beautiful and stylish. In the end, he went back and demanded that everything go back to the way it was, because beautiful design “can not be put on bread.”
If you are faced with the task of creating a strong text on the landing page, you can use the following recommendations:
- name the product, tell what it is, who it is for, tell about the highlight;
- tell the truth about the product, avoid advertising clichés;
- translate features into benefits;
- create customer-oriented texts (use phrases like “you (the customer) get” and not “we are so good”);
- put the promise to improve the customer’s situation in the middle of the sentence;
- use facts, figures, important details, it makes the text stronger
- Direct the visitor’s actions with imperative verbs, do not use the word “can”;
- reduce resistance at the first step – do not offer to “buy”, offer to “learn more”, “get for free”;
- try to use the text to inspire confidence;
- offer simple explanations, they convince better than complex semantic structures;
- use short sentences and divide the text into small paragraphs;
- flatter the potential customer;
- replace familiar phrases, to which the brain has already become accustomed, with unexpected and fresh phrases;
- offer a new product if possible, because “new” products are always ahead of the usual ones in sales;
- use emotions in your text, they allow to remember the product better;
- involve the visitor in the ownership of your product, show him a possible “beautiful” future;
- use questions that reveal the customer’s problems;
- anticipate and answer the next questions in the text;
- use some kind of conflict in the text that attracts more attention, because most people stop to see the accident, not the scenery.
When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.
Ogilvy on Advertisement
When creating a web design, you can be guided by the following principles:
- do not make the user think, good design does not draw attention to itself, but to the content;
- reduce visual noise, the less squiggles the better;
- remember that any element added to existing elements reduces their value;
- use photos and videos to demonstrate the product; this increases the conversion rate;
- determine the visitor’s point of visual attention; the design should help you control the user’s attention.
- emphasize what your product is about through concise design and visual accents.
A/B testing of the landing page
A/B testing a website helps determine which bundle (traffic channel and offer) works best. It is important to understand what results you expect from the test. You should proceed with caution, choose an advertising channel and offer, and make a hypothesis based on preliminary research. For example, the hypothesis might be: The audience on social networks is rather “cold” because they are not currently looking for our product.
Based on the data obtained during the A/B tests, conclusions can be drawn about the quality and quantity of the applications and a decision can be made as to which “bundle” (traffic channel and offer) should be retained for further work.
Why it’s important to work on conversion
The table shows how the increase in traffic and conversion rates of the website affects the profitability and the profitability of the company as a whole.
| Indicators | Current values | x2 traffic | x2 conversion | x2 traffic + x2 conversion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advertising budget | 50000 | 100000 | 50000 | 100000 |
| Price per click | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
| Visitors | 1000 | 2000 | 1000 | 2000 |
| Page conversion | 10% | 10% | 20% | 20% |
| Leads amount | 100 | 200 | 200 | 400 |
| Sales conversion | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% |
| Deals amount | 70 | 140 | 140 | 280 |
| Average check | 5000 | 5000 | 5000 | 5000 |
| Revenue | 350 | 700 | 700 | 1400 |
| Gross profit | 300 | 600 | 650 | 1300 |
| ROI | 600% | 600% | 1300% | 1300% |
| Profit growth | — | 300 | 350 | 1000 |
The landing page is part of a company’s unified Internet marketing and sales management system. Not only the Internet marketer, but also the head of the sales department should participate in the creation of the page. Promoting a Web site with a weak offering or sending a weak sales department many solicitations is like pouring water into a leaky bucket. The money for advertising will eventually run out, the customer may draw the wrong conclusions and put an end to Internet marketing and advertising in general, which will negatively affect their business in the future.
Why landing page refinement is an ongoing process
A good landing page is never static. We test landing pages and refine them based on the data we get from analyzing user behavior or feedback from the sales department.
The following factors drive us to change and refine our landing pages on a regular basis:
- The competitive landscape in the market is constantly changing, with new competitors, products and even customer categories;
- Changes in consumer behavior, what was irrelevant yesterday is important today and vice versa;
- New products appear in the company or new promotions are organized;
- Over time, there is such an effect as “offer fatigue”: the conversion and effectiveness of the landing page may fall due to the fact that the proposal loses its relevance to users, becomes boring; adding new features, promotions, novelties and other elements, you can update the perception of the target audience.
Beth Comstock, former marketing director and vice chairman of General Electric, noted, “Marketing’s job is never done. It’s about perpetual motion. We must continue to innovate every day.” Her words very much capture the essence of our market and landing page work. There is no perfect solution, because you can always do better.
Journal: Advertising. Theory and practice. June, № 2, 2022.
Article: “How to create an effective landing page for advertising”.
Author: Konstantin Tyesov, Managing Director, Uwindi Agency.
