The MarketingSherpa.com has kicked out an interesting article on converting a landing (from an Internet Ad) to a successful action. These are solid lessons for advocates and should be considered if you are paying for ads OR if you are viral marketing, email marketing or sending a request for action in a newsletter.
Your online ad dollars work harder when you focus beyond just getting a click to crafting what the campaign landing page (or microsite) clickers see next. But often, the budget is so tight that the bulk of time and money is spent creating the ad, and the landing page is an afterthought -- if it's even considered part of the creative process at all. If your landing page is disorganized and not compelling, says Michael Grover, Director of Marketing for CMP Media TechWeb, you lose conversions. Here are Grover's top 5 tips on making landing pages work harder.
I have actually seen this play out in many advocacy campaigns. So please consider these recommendations carefully.
1. Start your campaign efforts by designing the landing page "Maybe you say, 'Hey, here's a landing page that's going to convert well,' then you build the ad out from there,'" Grover says.. The landing page its the "final product" if you drive a million folks to your page but you can not convert them what have you accomplished?
2. Create specific landing pages for each ad or target audience. If you are kicking out a newsletter or sending out a press release or emailing all the people that showed up at a particular event make sure your landing page is tailored to meet their values and surfing behavior. Conversions are higher when landing pages are tied to specific ads, and they should follow through on the creative expressed in the ad.
3. Focus, Focus and Focus....Make sure that the landing page is simple and direct. "One of the things I know I've fallen victim to before is, While we've got them on this page, why don't we promote this other thing, too?". Investor information, press releases, support, other products, and various links from your home page template -- none of those have a place on the landing page. "They're all very irrelevant to what you're trying to get the person to do right then and there," The main and most visible link should be the one that gets viewers to do the action you want them to do. Grover suggests having a subtle link to your home page for people who want more information. Use the logo as the link for more information and the thanks you page for really showing off all your links.
The article is worth a read.
I really like these landing pages ...Renew Assault Weapons Ban, or the Royal Caribbean Cruise Ships.
