5 main pillars of a successful landing page
5:18 AM
That's a terrific formula for optimizing your landing page. It looks daunting, let me break it down for you.
If
you hang in until the end, I"ll show you how this formula gives you
insight into marketing on the internet that very few people understand.
First, I'll tell you that it's not arbitrary and not a guess. This formula was refined by http://marketingexperimen
Ok, here's how to interpret it.
OK, how does this translate then?
The likelihood that your page will get someone to take action is a function of primarily:
m
= the motivation of your visitors. This is why you have to be
thoughtful about your traffic sources. If your visitors don't care, you
won't convert.
This is why the great direct marketer Gary Halbert
always said, if you have a hot dog stand and I have a hot dog stand and
we're in competition with each other, the greatest advantage I can have
over you...is a hungry crowd.
v = the clarity of your value
proposition. Once they get to your site, they have to get right away -
what they can do, and why they should do it on your site instead of the
10,000 other sites they could get to easily.
One more note on value proposition. Notice it's the clarity of the proposition not the cleverness. In fact, http://marketingexperimen
And
part of the clarity is an explicit direction to take action - "Click
the button below to get your download instantly" or whatever is
appropriate for your site.
i-f - i is the incentive and f is the
friction. So there needs to be an incentive for them to act. And all the
mailing lists, other offers, and images that aren't relevant are just
distractions, other things to click on, that will reduce your conversion
rate.
a - anxiety. You can see by the "-" that this is a
negative. Visitor anxiety peaks right at your call-to-action (the button
that says click or buy). You see guarantees and social proof near the
call-to-action as a way to decrease visitor anxiety.
OK, here's the insight embedded in this formula.
Notice
that the first three variables are all interrelated in a very specific
way. They include: the motivation of your visitors, a clear presentation
of something your visitors value, and an incentive that will make your
visitors want to take action.
The big mistake most marketers on
the internet make is thinking they can optimize the different parts
independently. They ask, where can I get cheap traffic, what's a
headline that really works, what's a great offer I can make.
You
can see from the equation how you will be more successful with your
landing page by thinking of all the parts of the equation as a marketing
campaign.
Who is a hungry market that I can find and bring to my
site, and what is the value proposition THEY would find attractive, and
what is an offer THEY would jump at.
Rather than looking for
someone who promises lots of traffic cheap, or who can write a great
headline, or who can develop a great offer you can give away, look for a
campaign that optimizes all those for one given group of visitors.
Here are two examples.
This first example is about as weak as you'll find, though there's a good reason for that.
It's Mozilla's Firefox home page. You'll see the page does just about everything wrong, if they mean to convert visitors.
m
- The visitors are not hungry. Or rather they're hungry but not for the
offer Mozilla is making. If I go to a search page, I'm driven to get
results for whatever I'm curious about, not whatever Firefox is
pitching.
v - Their value proposition is not clear at all,
except for a particular group. "On November 10, Firefox is celebrating
10 years by stoking the embers of online independence. Sign up to fuel
the fire."
Some of you will know what the means. Most of you
won't. And even those who know what it means probably couldn't say
exactly what they'll get by "fueling the fire". This is a great example
of "cleverness" over "clarity.
i-f - Their incentive is very low
(see above) and their friction is very high. First, because if I click
that button, I'll be taken away from the search I came for, and I'll go
down some path I'm uncertain of. Second, because there's a HUGE
distraction, the big search bar which is why I really came to this page.
a-
Anxiety is probably not terribly high. I'm not concerned about giving
my email away. I just don't know how how much I'll be sidetracked if I
click the hyperlink they offer.
So, with all this stacked against
the page, why are they running it? Because Firefox owns 19.6% of the
browser market. And this page gets shown to anyone who comes to Google
using the Firefox browser. So, even though the page certainly converts
terribly, it gets a HUGE amount of traffic for free.
Here's a good converter. This is LeadPages Software - Mobile Responsive Landing Page Generator's highest converting page currently. Leadpages.net
does nothing but design landing pages. And they have a very big user
base that tests constantly. So whatever their hot page is, that's going
to be effective.
Let's break it down.
This page is for a webinar. Webinars are very hot these days.
m
- The target audience is probably the house lists for these guys. Their
house lists (their own email databases) have deep trust for them (Clay
Collins owns Leadpages and is an acknowledged guru). And you're not on
their list unless you're trying to get your landing pages to convert. So
the audience is super well qualified and very motivated.
v - The
value proposition is actually a little implicit (rather than explicit).
We'll tell you how to triple your leads. That's clear. And you have to
know these guys to know you'll be getting better information that you
would from most webinars.
Notice, the pitch is very clear. There
are NO cute slogans anywhere to be seen. It's backed up by benefits
statements that make it clearer. And, it has two call to action buttons
that are very clear.
i-f - Incentive. Get your webinar. Friction
is low because the visitors know these guys. You'd also find a long
facebook comment section under the bottom call to action. They provide
social proof right at the major point of commitment.
a - Anxiety
is pretty darn low. Yeah, I have to give you my email address but I
wouldn't be here if I wasn't already on your list. So you already have
it. Even at that, they use a "2 step opt in" to lower anxiety.
The
call-to-action button makes it look like you can just click and get
what you want without giving your email address (giving your email
raises anxiety). When you click the button, though, you'll get a form
to enter your email address. But you've already made a commitment by
clicking the button once, so you're more likely to fill out the form.
And, in fact, a 2 step opt in reliably increases conversion by something
like 15%.
So, there are your pillars in action. Go put them to use for your business.
0 comments