Why is the landing page important for lead generation? Let’s just imagine that you advertise a wonderful cruise in the most exclusive ship ever. You’ve got them interested and they all rush to the pier…only to find that there is no cruise ship there. They look around, confused and upset that they’ve got tricked and lost valuable time, and they leave. From that point onwards, you can even resurrect the Titanic, but you won’t bring people back to the pier even to have a look.
This is what happens when people click on a paid ad or link on social media and do not get directed to a custom landing page for your campaign. So, here are some useful tips for creating a killer landing page to get more leads:
1. Focus the Call to Action in One Place
Remember those horrendous sales pages that you kept scrolling and scrolling? There was a single point of interest on them: that big red button saying “Buy Now”. There were no other links or buttons to distract you from the sole purpose of the page.
You must do the same with your landing page – well, that’s exactly why you need a landing page. If you lead people clicking your ad to your home page, your campaign gets lost somewhere between About Us and Contact Us, with very little chances of being even noticed. So, rule number one: show people clearly what you want them to do – develop a simple landing page with just one clickable button.
2. Match the Ad with the Landing Page
We all tend to exaggerate a bit in advertising, but never to the point where the promised incentive is no match to what you actually want people to do. If you want them to sign up for a free trial, give them a free trial, not a paid subscription with the famous “money-back guarantee” seal slapped on the landing page.
At the same time, create a feeling of familiarity by using similar designs for the ad and the landing page. If people click on an ad that takes them to a landing page that has no similarity to the ad, most of them will think that they’ve landed on the wrong page, that there is a broken link or something similar. If they do not feel like they’ve reached the right page they were interested to see, they will leave.
3. Create Forms that Don’t Scare People Away
Let’s face it: we are not as trusty and generous as we used to be when we were children. We won’t even give away our email address these days without a good reason. So, when people get on a landing page and see a huge form to fill in with lots of personal data, they will leave the page. Don’t be greedy, ask for the bare minimum: name and email. And before you ask them, give them a good reason to type the data into the text fields.
Provide a simple, but an attractive incentive. Make the title the king of the landing page and provide a few top benefits as bullet points. Do not forget to add the magic phrase about not passing on the people’s data to third parties. And put something beneficial for the subscriber on the clickable button. Forget about the basic “Sign Up Now”. How about: “Get Your Free Trial”, “Become a Member”, “Join Our Top Mailing List”. Give them the sense that they are going to get something awesome when they click on that button.