If you’re an in-house marketing executive strapped for time and tasked with increasing marketing qualified leads (MQLs), it’s important that the marketing programs you initiate actually deliver the goods. Two of the most popular lead-generation channels today include digital and content marketing – where performance is highly contingent on the accompanying landing pages. A landing page is a webpage designed to capture leads via forms fills. It targets a particular audience and offers them something of value in exchange for their contact information such as a free guide, eBook or software demonstration.
Use these tips to make sure your next landing page is optimally designed to encourage more conversions.
Your landing page should make it easy for leads to convert. If you’re not sure if a landing page helps facilitate this or just gets in the way, ask yourself these questions as posed by HubSpot:
- What exactly is being offered?
Your landing page must quickly let leads know what they’ll get in exchange for their information - What are the benefits of the offer?
Your content should explain why leads can’t live without your offer - Why does the visitor need the offer now?
Your landing page should create urgency around the offer - How does the user get the offer?
Your content must clearly explain how the offer will be delivered after the form is filled out
Now that you have a better idea of how your existing landing pages stack up against these primary objectives, it’s time to analyze the design and functionality of an effective landing page.
Remember, a landing page is hyper-focused on facilitating a desired action. Your content and digital marketing campaigns – which have already taken significant thought, time, money and energy to develop – point toward a single page with the hopes of turning visitors into new leads for your sales team. To allow pages to achieve this goal, consider how these design tips work together to make fast and simple conversions:
- Eliminate navigation items you’d typically find on a website. You don’t want your visitors getting distracted and clicking away from your landing page.
- List the benefits of the offer with bullet points to succinctly explain what it provides and why your visitor can’t live without it. Better yet, if your offer is a piece of content, provide a thumbnail image of the download itself.
- Limit the number of form fields to make it easy and quick for your visitor to fill out. It can be tempting to ask for additional information here but to drive conversions, it’s critical that you stick with the basics and ask for less.
- Reduce the amount of on-page scrolling. Strive to place all of your information above the fold to eliminate extra time spent scrolling, which can distract visitors or cause them to lose interest in the offer.
- Include multiple CTA buttons that are big, colorful, enticing and all lead to the same offer as advertised. You can always link to blogs and other offers on a thank you page or elsewhere on your site.
View the landing page example to see how all of these elements come together:
With all of these strategies put in place to increase conversions, don’t forget about the user experience after they submit their information. A thank you page is arguably one of the most valuable and most missed opportunities to further connect and engage with your new lead. A great thank you page will feature:
- Clear next steps or actions for either downloading the offer or getting in touch with someone
- Similar content or information that the lead may also be interested in based on this engagement
- A link to the company website either via a blog or other site page to reengage the lead
View the thank you page example below:
All of these tips can be applied to landing pages created for content marketing campaigns, as well as pages that are unrelated to campaign offers, like those for product demos or webinar registrations. If you’re constructing your first content marketing campaign, download the free useful checklist featured in this blog’s examples: Content Marketing Campaign Planning & Execution.
Are you interested in optimizing your B2B content and digital marketing landing pages to increase conversions? Sagefrog’s marketing professionals can help. Contact Sagefrog Marketing Group today.
