Summary

A very useful and successful tool to use in internet marketing is the use of a landing page, particularly if running a pay per click (ppc) strategy. Creating a landing page is not difficult and a must for any marketing campaign.

Have you ever seen an advertisement on TV or heard one on the radio that told about a great deal at a local store but when getting to the store found that sale item wasn’t there? Maybe the banners and signs weren’t easy to see. Perhaps when walking around there wasn’t anyone to help. Probably after a quick evaluation in your mind – is the item worth searching for or should you just leave?

Spiritually Lost Online

Now imagine that someone has a spiritual question and goes online to a search engine hoping for answers. They find the site because a site has worked hard or paid good money to get “first in line” for a search such as this. But arriving at a site the very thing they are looking for is not readily noticeable on the homepage. They are overwhelmed by the navigation, banner ads, and other content not related to their need. Frustrated, they hit the back button return to their other search results.

The problem is that although most homepages have a lot to offer the visitor, it can be confusing for that person to navigate to the desired action. I’m sorry to say that this same situation happens often. However, there’s a solution.

The site has been marketed and has effectively promoted something specific that has piqued someone’s interest enough to come and collect on the offer. Where is the site going to bring them so they don’t get confused? Will they be able to easily come and take advantage of the very thing that has been advertised? A landing page will do all of this easily and effectively.

Definition of a Landing Page

It’s tempting to just send visitors to the homepage. After all, that page should link anyone to all parts of a site. However that is the very reason not to send them to the homepage for a specific campaign. Users can get lost, confused, or miss any reinforcement that they are in the right place.

Instead, send visitors to a landing page. In his e-book How to Develop a Landing Page that Closes the Sale, Ralph Wilson defines a landing page as “a specific webpage, intended for shoppers who click-through on a particular ad, designed to lead them to complete the transaction.” In other words, a landing page is the place to send a visitor so they can easily follow through on what they are looking for and what the site wants them to find.

Characteristics of a Landing Page

When a user comes to your landing page, they should:

• know they are in the right place because the page reinforces phrases, graphics, and color schemes from the ad
• not be distracted by other offers or browsing options because of navigation
• know what it is the site wants them to do in order for them to collect on what they came for
• feel comfortable dealing with you as a ministry/web site

To make sure a visitor knows that they are in the right place, reinforce the message from the advertisement. Use the same keywords, headlines, and copy. Any additional copy on the landing page needs to be kept short and simple – just enough to “close the deal”. Create a microsite (a couple of pages that are self-contained and do not link out to the main site). The overall feel of the landing page should be one that lets the visitor know they are in the right place.

The design of the page should be very simple. Remove all navigation and other offers. There should only be a couple of links on the landing page. The main link should fulfill the visitor’s reason for coming. Add a link to your privacy policy so users feel comfortable giving you their information. Link to the homepage to provide a “way out” and an opportunity to explore the site. Keep the paths out of the landing page to a minimum.

Visitors should be able to figure out exactly what to do when they get to the landing page. Design the page so that the visitor can fulfill their “order”. If wanting to collect some information from them, keep it short and only collect the minimum amount.

Testing Landing Pages

Every ministry is entrusted with valuable resources to build an effective web campaign. Therefore, it is important to test and measure the effectiveness of any marketing effort. One way to test this is to create a few ads using different key words. Have each ad point to a separate landing page. The effectiveness of each ad and landing page can be measured.

To get a better feel of effectiveness, there are a few key metrics and rates to be aware of (these all come from Dr. Wilson’s e-book on Landing Pages mentioned earlier):

• Open Rate % - the percentage of emails opened (used for email campaigns). This measures how effective the email is in just being viewed.
• Click-through Rate % - number of click-throughs divided by the number of ads viewed or emails sent. This measures how effective the ad is in getting a response.
• Conversion Rate % - number of actions divided by the number of visitors to the landing page. This measures how effective the landing page is in fulfilling the response desired (sale, sign up for eNewsletter, etc).
• Marketing Cost per Sale% - the cost of the ad divided by the number of sales or desired responses. This measures the cost involved in getting responses.

Run these ratios on each ad/landing page combo. This provides a feel for what is working well and what isn’t. Make adjustments to the overall campaign by dropping the non-effective ads and strengthening the most effective ones.

To make sure these ratios have the best numbers possible, be sure to protect the landing pages from non-directed traffic. In other words, don’t let people get to these pages any other way besides through the ad. That means you should make sure they are not linked from any page on your website (including the sitemap). Consider using the robots.txt protection to keep search engine spiders out.

After the Landing Page

Enhance visitors experience by sending a simple email to follow-up. This will encourage continued contact and create a memorable experience and good impression of your site.

An effective landing page is the best way to close the desired action you want a site visitor to do. It gives visitors a clear path to being able to complete what they came to do…and what you wanted them to do.

Read more about Landing Pages

Create Compelling Ads & Landing Pages