Companies spend considerable time and money generating leads. A wide variety of inbound marketing techniques -- blogs, Facebook, Twitter, white papers, ezines, enewsletters, press releases -- are used to attract potential customers to your website and engage their interest. But attracting leads is only half of the marketing equation. Capturing those leads and then converting them into sales is what puts money in your profit column.
An effective landing page has 5 critical elements:
- Grabber headline. An attention-grabbing headline pulls in site visitors and entices them to scan your lead capture page. The goal is to engage visitors' emotions on a visceral level. Put your promise in the headline so visitors immediately understand what they'll gain by opting in to your offer and what they'll lose if they don't.
- Strong offer. The stronger your offer the more likely visitors are to opt in and provide the lead capture information you seek. Tag your offer to the search parameters most likely to land visitors on your capture page. Consider offering a range of items requiring different levels of information sharing with the highest value offers requiring visitors to provide greater levels of contact information. For example, a name and email address might be required to receive your enewsletter; but a downloadable white paper might also require a home address and telephone number.
- Video hook. Nothing hooks attention like a video. We live in a visual world. A video that starts playing as soon as your lead capture page opens instantly command's the visitor's attention, creating a more personal connection with site visitors.
- Bullet lists. Lists are easy and fast to read and assimilate. Bullet points distill important information down to its quickly digested essentials. Focus bullets on the two most powerful human motivators: gaining pleasure and fear of loss.
- Opt-in opportunity. Two types of people visit lead capture pages: rapid responders who want to take immediate action and careful cogitators who need to think it over first. Your lead capture page should provide both a highly visible fast action opt-in button near the top of the page, and a second opt-in opportunity farther down the page for those who need to read more information before providing their contact information. Your should also follow up with captured leads via lead nurturing campaigns - sending out follow up information and offers via e-mail at regular intervals. The idea is to keep people engaged, keep them coming back for more. Your chances of converting these leads to customers go up with each repeat visit.
How effective are your landing pages? We can help.
Photo credit: bulldog1
