This article makes an assumption. It assumes that you understand the fact that a good banner/PPC ad campaign REQUIRES a good landing page to back it up. Without a solid landing page, you will not get good conversions from those who go to your site. Without those conversions your ad money is for naught.
The site you advertise on can be likened to a shopping mall. The mall promises X amount of people will walk by your store in any given day. Of X, Y amount of people will enter your store and what you do with Y is your own business. With most web sites that you advertise on you can expect a certain amount of people will click on your banner ad and enter your site. Now that they are at your site, it's up to you to convert them to customers.
Landing pages are key in the conversion process. The best part about a landing page is that they are a free means of increasing sales and are usually one of the most important factors in getting said sales. Your landing page will incorporate the following:
o Means of Purchasing
o Sales Copy
Your landing page will have a means to purchase the service that was advertised on the banner ad. The people who clicked on the ad in the first place are already interested in buying your service, if they weren't they wouldn't have click on the ad. It's up to the sales copy to convince the customer and the purchase button to close the deal.
The first rule about your sales copy is that it needs to echo what was said on the ad. Potential customers come to your site expecting the product/service that was described in the ad; therefore they are primed to look into buying that product or service. If you do not talk about that service solely then the potential customer will get agitated and will leave. Therefore, if the ad talked about an ecommerce hosting package then that landing page better be about that one package and NOTHING ELSE.
Finally, You Have the Sales Copy Itself
The sales copy is totally dependent on the customer who visits your site and the product or service that is offered. Factors that determine what is involved in your copy are as follows:
Commitment Length
Cost (Monetary and Otherwise)
Risk (Monetary, Privacy, Etc.)
Customer Type
Motivation
Credibility
Perceived Value
Elements that can be incorporated into sales copy can include:
Awards
Testimonials
Price
Incentives
Value
Key Features
Credibility Credentials (BBB, VeriSign, etc)
When it comes to the overall layout of the sales copy remember your time to capture the customer's eye is very limited. Therefore remove all hype from the copy and stick to accurate information that enhances the positives of your service and gives the customer a solid reason to buy.
Building a Masterpiece
The average customer is inundated with tons of sales info. Because of this, the average customer is jaded when it comes to reading sales jargon. Therefore:
Keep Sales Jargon to a Minimum
Instead talk about why your service is good for the customer. Describe its features and you may even want to talk about its negatives as well. If we have learned anything from the Progressive Car Insurance commercials is that people like hearing sincerity when it comes to a product or service. Just don't go overboard on the negatives simply gloss over them.
When writing your sales copy make sure it echoes the service/product that the referring banner was talking about.
Your Sales Copy Should Echo the Banner
The referring banner is what brought the customer to you. Nothing ruins trust between the company and the customer more than by bringing them in with one service then trying to sell them with another. It's called bait and switch and is one of the main reasons for customers to bounce (leave your site).
If a customer determines that the risk is small, obligation is short term, and the possible value is high your sales copy need not be long. In fact, it should be very short and concise with a buy now banner displayed prominently. However, if the risk is great, obligation is long, and/or the possible value is only slightly better than what they have your sales copy should be long so as to convince them to switch to your services.
The Length of Your Sales Copy is Greatly Determined by Risk, Obligation, and Value
A good way to figure out precisely how long the sales copy should be is to make multiple landing pages for each ad you have. Run each landing page for a pre-determined amount of time. The landing page with the highest conversion rate wins. We will talk more on running multiple landing pages later.
Awards, credibility credentials, and testimonials can be great ways to offer a fast means of converting visitors to customers. Things such as the BBB and VeriSign badges should be placed somewhere on the sidebars of your landing page. Some credibility credentials such as BBB and VeriSign are the types of things that are noticed if they are not there.
Awards are interesting things. Awards from industry leaders should always be included on your landing page. But more so if the referrer came from one of those sites. For instance, if your visitor came from Web Host Magazine and you have an award or a testimonial from Web Host Magazine then it should be prominently at the beginning for your award and testimonials.
Awards from Referring Site Should be Prominently Displayed Why? Well the visitor not only came from that site, but clicked on a banner from them. The visitor already has trust with that company so by putting an award or testimonial from them on your landing page you transfer a bit of that trust to your service.
I cannot stress enough the fact that you MUST have a landing page. Simply having a banner pointing to the index page of your site is not a landing page. Point of fact, an index page is the worst thing you can offer a visitor for a landing page. It tells the visitor that they are not worth the two hours of effort it takes to build a landing page.
NEVER Use your Index Page for Your Landing Page
If someone clicked on a banner chances are they want to buy what you offered. Also they are interested in only the product that you offered. By sending them to the index page not only are you making it harder for them to find information on that one product, but you make it hard for them to buy that one product, since now they have to navigate your site to find what it was they are looking for. If they can't find it fast they will bounce.
The last point I want to make on the length of the sales copy is to constantly refine. Say you sell plans for 20 bucks a piece. Let's say you get roughly 300 people each month to click on one of your banners for that 20 dollar plan. With a turnover rate of 3% you make about nine sales and get about $180 bucks a month. Of those nine, six end up staying for the year and three end up staying for two months. At present you make roughly $1560 every month for that banner. Not too bad. What would happen if you could get that 3% to 4% just by working one day every month? Would you do it? Is it worth the time? That 1% increase gives three more customers. If we follow the previous percentage two will end up sticking around for a year and one will give up after two months. The 1% increase gives you a $520 increase. Is one day worth $520?
Continue to Improve Your Sales Copy
These questions are of course rhetorical. Of course it's worth it. And it most likely won't even take a day. Make several landing pages. Areas you can tweak include, position of the purchase button, the sales literature, length of sales copy, general layout of the page, et cetera. Everything is pretty much fair game.
First off take the conversion data that you have for your current landing page. You want to compare like "time groups." Depending on the amount of traffic some companies will run a test landing page for a period of two weeks and compare the findings from those two weeks with the last two weeks of the previous landing page. Other companies test via number of uniques who go to the landing page. For example the test period is for 300 people to hit the page. The conversion rate from those 300 people is then compared to the last 300 people from the previous landing page.
Whichever page has the highest conversion rate wins. Then you put that page against the next test landing page. This cycle continues. It should never stop because that 1% increase is worth it.
Well hopefully I have given you some ideas and a few basic principles to get you started. Landing pages are an important part of a successful advertising campaign and can be the key to success when it comes to getting valuable conversions.
David Dunlap has been both a Web host industry analyst and commentator for the past eight years. Prior to his active writing career, David was a network and communications technician for four years. He currently is the Editor-in-Chief for http://www.WebHostMagazine.com
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