When writing this guide, we reached out to the marketer community to collect case studies and learnings about creative marketing strategies. Most of these examples are included throughout the guide, but some didn’t quite fit. So we included those loose ends here, from the perspective of four awesome marketers. What better way to wrap up this guide than with you, our community?
Every landing page should deliver a convincing first impression, consider the maturity of the market, and reflect the customer’s stage of awareness. The best way to see how the absence or presence of these elements alter a landing page is to review real-life examples. So, with the three foundational elements in mind, I’ve evaluated the landing pages of nine companies—from member management software to a vegan candy brand to a court date notification service. Here goes:
"Jim, Wanted to touch base with you on an update. We should have a better understanding when were starting back up in the next 2-4 weeks. Good news is that it looks like your link building efforts are paying off like we talked about. Over the past 2 days our free google traffic has seen new highs. So we were on a steady down trend for 5 months and over the past 2 weeks we have seen a steady increase to new highs of over that of last summer." Andrew G.
Very very useful addon. Has some quirks (randomly stops working) - but clearing the spreadsheet of all its rows, deleting and re-creating rules - always fixes it. Thankfully happens only once every few months (and thats with 50-100 emails being responded to daily). Yes Amit is not very fast to respond - but still totally worth it. If you need to have auto responses you know that nothing else except for this exists to make that happen.
Have a flawless design. Information architecture comes into play here, as it’s important for a landing page to have a clear, crisp design that leaves all questions answered without inspiring any new ones. Navigation should be obvious and simple, all required information should be provided, and nothing should come between the visitor and the conversion (aka no pop ups!) If at all possible, visitors should be able to convert in one click. Let every additional click weigh on your conscience like a heart beating beneath a floorboard.
Total-experience testing, or experience testing, is a type of experiment-based testing in which the entire website experience of the visitor is examined using technical capabilities of the website platform (e.g., ATG, Blue Martini Software, etc.). Rather than creating multiple websites, total-experience testing uses the website platform to create several persistent experiences, and monitors which one is preferred by the customers.[citation needed]
A call to action (CTA) is a word or phrase that encourages readers and subscribers to do something specific. Examples of calls to action include “subscribe”, “shop now”, “get the free ebook”. You use CTAs on email signup forms, landing pages, in email newsletters, and more. When someone does what you want as a result of your call to action, that’s called a conversion. In email marketing, a conversion often means following a link in a email newsletter to visit another resource.
A landing page has one purpose – which is to make a sale or capture a lead. It is a single page used in digital advertising so that potential customers have a page to land on after they click an ad or post. Landing pages don’t link to other pages on your site and typically do not include a navigation bar. You do not want to distract potential customers with additional links because your goal is to make sure they convert. And you want them to convert on that landing page right then and there.
Companies considering the use of an email marketing program must make sure that their program does not violate spam laws such as the United States' Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM),[10] the European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, or their Internet service provider's acceptable use policy.
Gaining Google's trust doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. Think about building up your relationship with anyone. The longer you know that person, the more likely that trust will solidify. So, the reasoning is, that if Google just met you, it's going to have a hard time trusting you. If you want Google to trust you, you have to get other people that Google already trusts, to vouch for you. This is also known as link-building.
Are easy to scan at a quick glance. It’s absolutely vital that you visitors can capture the essence of your offer with a quick glance. It’s estimated that you have about 8 seconds to convince users to stay on your page, so value proposition needs to be quick and convincing. When building a landing page, make it easy to scan by highlighting your main point in the headline while using sub headings and bullet points for added info. Use fonts and colors to indicate information hierarchy. As Jakob Nielsen notes, your page visitors are wild, frantic animals looking for a quick meal, so serve it up fast!
This doesn’t necessarily mean that your visitors won’t scroll down the page to read more information. But hopefully, at least some percentage of your visitors will be ready to buy as soon as they arrive on your landing page, either because the email or link that brought them there already persuaded them, or because it’s not their first time visiting the page. Putting a call to action right near the top of the page just makes things easier on these visitors.
Have a flawless design. Information architecture comes into play here, as it’s important for a landing page to have a clear, crisp design that leaves all questions answered without inspiring any new ones. Navigation should be obvious and simple, all required information should be provided, and nothing should come between the visitor and the conversion (aka no pop ups!) If at all possible, visitors should be able to convert in one click. Let every additional click weigh on your conscience like a heart beating beneath a floorboard.
Digital marketing is also referred to as 'online marketing', 'internet marketing' or 'web marketing'. The term digital marketing has grown in popularity over time. In the USA online marketing is still a popular term. In Italy, digital marketing is referred to as web marketing. Worldwide digital marketing has become the most common term, especially after the year 2013.[19]
Sarah Pickersgill at Cancer Research UK says it’s important to be clear what the charity wants to learn from testing and how it will add to the supporter’s experience. “Simple A/B testing is a great methodology for us, as well as gathering insight from heat maps.” Ultimately, the interaction rate with its supporters tells the organisation how it is doing, she adds.
In the 2000s, with more and more Internet users and the birth of iPhone, customers started searching products and making decisions about their needs online first, instead of consulting a salesperson, which created a new problem for the marketing department of a company. In addition, a survey in 2000 in the United Kingdom found that most retailers had not registered their own domain address.[12] These problems made marketers find the digital ways for market development.
If you are using certain pieces of software or web apps that you need to integrate with a mailing list, you might find that Mailchimp is an attractive option – whilst it’s not the cheapest autoresponder tool out there, a lot of well-known services provide an ‘out of the box’ integration with it (Squarespace and Shopify, for example, use Mailchimp as their preferred tool for integrating a mailing list with your website / store).
If you want to code your own emails, you have the freedom to do so. But this is an advanced skill that requires a good bit of technical know-how. Here’s what you need to take the coding leap—whether you’re just getting started, wondering about the basics of HTML emails, or looking for a guide to coding them. We’ve also rounded up a few more resources you might need as you become a certifiable email pro. If you're considering another platform, check out our comparison guide before you make any decisions.
Can you split test a landing page? Of course you can! A split test is when you create two versions of a web page, advertisement or email and test them against each other. Try a different layout of your content, change the color of your call to action button, or interchange images to see which one receives more conversions. If you are creating a landing page for a special deal or promotion and it won’t be used again in the future you probably don’t want to waste time split testing. However, if you know you will have similar promotions in the future you can try split testing this promotion and use your data to improve future landing pages.
MailChimp 12,000 emails per month (daily limit of 2,000), for up to 2,000 subscribers. MailChimp’s autoresponder range is comprehensive. It includes basic autoresponders (welcome, date-based, RSS etc), as well as more advanced options (e.g. ecommerce, tag-based). The main drawback – their autoresponder editor isn’t the easiest to use. (Full review)
One discouraging trend I’ve found is that some business owners assume when you trade business cards at a networking event, that you have opted in to their newsletter. To me, that’s disrespectful. Ask verbally at that time, or ask permission when you connect via email or social media, before adding anyone to your email newsletter distro list. That’s my practice, and my open rates are consistently over 40%.
For some business owners, they’ll think of a website. Others may think of social media, or blogging. In reality, all of these avenues of advertising fall in the category internet marketing and each is like a puzzle piece in a much bigger marketing picture. Unfortunately, for new business owners trying to establish their web presence, there’s a lot of puzzle pieces to manage.
If rounds of split testing, segmentation, and resends still result in low engagement scores for some of your subscribers then don’t be afraid to clean your list. Review subscriber data regularly to monitor activity and engagement ratings. Remove or further segment those who aren’t engaging in order to improve the overall open rates of your primary subscriber segments.
"Long story short, we are in the middle of a BIG MOVE and all the quality traffic you've been driving to our web site has been keeping us busy. There hasn't been a night (except for maybe today, Memorial Day) where myself and our entire staff has not been burning the midnight oil trying to keep up with all the customers! Oh yeah, this is a GOOD THING. Sleep is over rated! :) Thanks for kicking ass (you are link ninjas... )!" Barry M.
The principal rule of opting page design: Avoid distracting your prospects with banners and advertisements. Many internet users despise pop-ups that appear once the page loads immediately and block them from seeing website content. Website visitors will exit a webpage when they cannot easily close an obstructing optin page. Keep your page clear from anything that the ready may dislike. Importantly, you opting page should have a big visible button to turn off the popup. You can also design a splash page, one with a prominent statement like, “No thanks, continue to the main site.” You do not want your visitors to leave before they see what your site has to offer.
A/B testing, or A/B split testing, is a method for testing two versions of a webpage: version "A" and version "B". The goal is to test multiple versions of webpages (e.g., home page vs. product page) or one specific element that changes between variation A and variation B (such as having a lead form on the left hand side or having it placed on the right hand side), FAQ to determine which version is most appealing/effective. This testing method may also be known as A/B/n split testing; the n denoting more than 2 tests being measured and compared. The data for A/B testing is usually measured via click-through rate or an alternative conversion tracking method.[11]
The post is very informative and the list you have shared with is great, but the Constant Contact is good I think to start the company as the live chat features are powerful in it can solve the one query on time. But it’s chargeable that to $20 at least it should be $10, I don’t know much about its but I’ll try for that free package and check it. Thank You.
Online reviews have become one of the most important components in purchasing decisions by consumers in North America. According to a survey conducted by Dimensional Research which included over 1000 participants, 90% of respondents said that positive online reviews influenced their buying decisions and 94% will use a business with at least four stars. Interestingly, negative reviews typically came from online review sites whereas Facebook was the main source of positive reviews. Forrester Research predicts that by 2020, 42% of in-store sales will be from customers who are influenced by web product research.
Not only was this initial email great, but his response to my answers was even better: Within a few days of responding to the questionnaire, I received a long and detailed personal email from Matt thanking me for filling out the questionnaire and offering a ton of helpful advice and links to resources specifically catered to my answers. I was very impressed by his business acumen, communication skills, and obvious dedication to his readers.
