Great landing pages are what bring digital marketing campaigns to life. Without them, your visitors wouldn’t know what to do next.
All of your email marketing campaigns should include an effective call-to-action that links to a landing page. It can either be a standalone page or a page on your website.
Landing pages are key for conversions. Unfortunately, they can be tricky to design and build. Because they’re so conversion-focused, getting something wrong is really easy. Thankfully though, there are loads of marketing automation tools out there to help you create awesome landing pages in a fraction of the time.
What is a landing page?
A landing page is a distinct page that’s built for one single conversion objective.
The first thing that you need to consider before you design your landing page is the page’s purpose. Which one goal do you want to achieve with your landing page? This will be your call-to-action. Without a defined purpose, a landing page is unlikely to convert.
Landing pages can be used for a number of different reasons, including:
- Encourage visitors to click to buy
- Capture lead information
- Personalise the experience of visitors who find a site via an ad campaign
- Generate sales
- Attract event attendees
The 2 different landing page types
There are two basic structural types of a landing page: lead generation and click-through.
Lead generation landing pages
One of the most common purposes of a landing page is to generate leads. It collects information from the visitor, so you can communicate with them in the future. You can collect information from the user – such as a name and an email address – in exchange for value.
Lead generation pages should encourage users to give you their information. Give them something exclusive which they couldn’t otherwise receive without paying. Valuable content can include:
- Whitepapers
- Downloadable guides
- Webinars
Here's an example of a lead generation landing page from Gartner:
Once you have an email address and the lead has entered your sales funnel, you can begin the lead nurturing process.
Click-through landing pages
Click-through landing pages should be aimed at those at the bottom of your sales funnel. Unlike lead generation pages, they don’t have a form prompting people to opt-in.
The purpose of a click-through landing page is to convince the visitor to click-through to another page to take an action, such as making a purchase. You should emphasise what the key benefits are for taking the action.
Here's an example of a click-through landing page from Starling Bank:
Click-through landing pages are regularly used in e-commerce to describe a product in detail and gently push visitors to make a decision to buy. The page should catch the attention of your visitor and guide them through the purchasing decision.
What’s the difference between a landing page and a homepage?
Are you sending your email or social media traffic to your homepage? This could be a mistake. It’s a huge missed opportunity!
Don’t risk your leads getting distracted. Your homepage was created with a general purpose in mind. It will probably be loaded with links to other areas of your site.
When your audience lands on your homepage, what exactly do you want them to do? Once you figure that out, make it easy for them to do just that. Send them to a dedicated landing page that prompts them to take a specific action. You’ll increase your conversion rate, and you’ll start seeing results much quicker. A clear call-to-action is key!
Start building landing pages today
Quickly design and launch professional-looking landing pages. Choose from our built-in library of designed templates, or build your pages from scratch. With the drag-and-drop editor, adding copy and inserting images and conversion forms couldn’t be easier. Preview how your page looks on different devices before publishing. Then watch the leads roll in.
Find out how you can get the best results from your landing page by booking a demo.
