The Conversion Scientist ARCHIVE™

Science by Email

Why Landing Pages are Important for Dynamic Targeted Banner Advertising

March 3, 2010 on 4:42 pm | In Content that Converts | Comments Off

You wouldn’t play tennis without a racquet, would you?

The machine hurtled fuzzy green balls at me with a “fwoom, fwoom” sound every 10 seconds or so. I dodged most of them, but  occasionally got pegged in the chest, stomach, or some place worse.

“Fwoom, fwoom.” I was on the court. I was dressed in snazzy tennis gear worthy of Wimbledon. I had top-of-the-line footwear. I kept my feet moving.

I just didn’t have a racquet.

The only ball I was able to return across the net bounced off my head. Not only was I missing every shot, but I was experiencing bodily injury.

RANT WARNING – If you are already using landing pages for your targeted banner advertising, you can proceed to my article about landing pages for dynamic display ads on ClickZ. Everyone else, pay attention.

You don’t have to be a tennis pro to know that this is insanity. Yet thousands of businesses across the Web are using targeted banner advertising to drive traffic to their home page. Smart marketers with effective email campaigns are sending clicks to pages that don’t call the visitor to take action; to buy, call or download.

Landing Page?

Landing pages are pages that are specially designed to catch visitors, taking them directly to information that they are interested in, and asking them to become a prospect or a customer.

We can use a landing page anytime we know why someone clicked through to our site. If we know what they expect, it makes sense that we would create a page to specifically address their needs.

How do we know what the landing page should say?

We know exactly what a visitor is looking for when they click on an ad or link that we created because we wrote it. If we wrote the ad, and it caused them to click, wouldn’t you assume that the page they come to should address the offer made by the ad copy?

This shouldn’t even be a question in your mind (and for most of my readers it isn’t).

Pardon my exasperation

I don’t like to be rude, but can you imagine what my tennis instructor would have said if they’d seen me getting pummeled by a ball machine because I forgot my tennis racquet?

If you want to score points, you need to have all of the basic equipment. In the game of online advertising landing pages are basic equipment.

Your Home Page Won’t Do

The primary job of the home page is not to convert visitors into leads or sales. It’s job is to funnel buyers to pages that either provide information or call the visitor to take some action… or both.

Your home page has a lot of work to do, and as a result, it will probably contain the most links of any page on your site.

Paying for an ad that promises “Software that will improve your business,” and then asking them to sift through a page full of links (About Us, Contact, Our Products, Home, News, etc.) is conversion suicide.

Why not bring them to a page that says “Our software will improve your business, and here’s how.” Then explain why it is good for them and how it works. Then tell them how to get more information, or invite them to purchase.

Why Landing Pages are Important

1. Landing Pages will make you more successful by generating more leads, sales and business.

2. Landing Pages will make your visitors love you more. There is no better brand experience that finding what you’re looking for.

3. Landing Pages will cut the cost of your advertising by increasing your conversion rates. As the cost of generating new clients, you can put more into your advertising.

4. Landing Pages will keep me from ranting about landing pages

Technique and Practice Are Important

In tennis, how you swing your racquet will determine how many times you score. It is the same with landing pages.

How would you like to learn almost everything you need to know about landing pages in just two days?

The first ever Conversion Conference is happening May 4 and 5, and I can get you $100 off of the price of admission.

I know of no other opportunity to learn from the best conversion experts and Web site optimizers in the industry.

The Keynote is being given by Jakob Nielsen, the champion of fast and cheap ways of improving user interfaces.

Use the promo code CCW510 when you register for Conversion Conference 2010 to get your $100 discount. Early bird rates end April 10.

This is one of those shows that should pay for itself quickly. Think of it as tennis lessons with a profit.

Science by Email

eMarketing Principles: Words that Convert

February 24, 2010 on 7:46 pm | In Effective Copy | 1 Comment

Persuade with passion. Engage with the unexpected.

His face was slightly ashen, and had clearly fallen since he first entered the conference room. I felt a lump in my stomach as he reviewed the revisions to the copy he’d written just a week earlier. I was a bit sick at being part of this, but it was… inevitable.

I marveled that he still held out any hope to begin with. The work before him was little more than a carcass of the original. Of course, he’d been in this position before.

Eager to bring some excitement to a new client’s Web site, he’d spent more time than he should have crafting a story for our business. His work communicated what the visitor needed to know, and did so using the tools of the persuasive writer.

The heading invited the reader to read the first sentence, as it should. The work started with a story. It generated an emotion, if only a slight one. Details were held back so that the reader’s interest would mount.

Juicy words were chosen in favor of posing adjectives. Simile and metaphor were scattered here and there.

These are the tools that engage those parts of the brain that ask the reader to remember what they’re reading.

I’ve said it before. You can create more engaging images with paragraphs than with Photoshop.

 

The Tyranny of the Managing Amateur

What I delivered to this beleaguered writer was the internally edited version of his work.

It had been squeezed dry, like a lemon.

Those within the company that edited it down meant well. Sadly, they were not writers, but they had the privilege of position. The “rules” that they had heard in passing were to be the undoing of this prose:

“You only have 8 seconds to engage your reader,” and, “brevity is the soul of wit,” and “No one reads below ‘the fold.’”

Unfortunately, all of this is true. Ironically, it is only true for writing that is bereft of storytelling, diluted of color, and opaque with hyperbole.

Here are the quotes business marketers should be spouting:

“Web visitors will give you as much time as you have the talent to muster.”

“Brevity without wit is soulless.”

“You can entice anyone to scroll by entertaining or educating.”

 

I was young. I didn’t defend his work. I didn’t stand behind the very thing that was going to make this new Web site successful. I just didn’t know any better.

Can you recognize and defend writing that will set you apart from your competitors?

Can you identify copy that increases conversion rates? Do you have the knowledge to say “NO” to hack editors, though they may hold the key to your paycheck?

We’re going to be talking about this and much more at the eMarketing Principles Conference on May 9 and 10.

The talented writer Amy Lemen will be joining me for a session called “Writing that Turns Visitors into Buyers.”

We will show you how to avoid the pitfalls of the copywriting process. You can expect more leads, more sales and better branding as a result.

You will also learn from champions of online marketing including Brian Combs, Mike Chapman, Joshua Baer, Lani Rosales, David J. Neff, Dave Holston, and Dave Evans.

Act before Friday, Feb 26 and you and a friend get in for $99. Use the promo code “INSIDER” when you register.

We’re going to learn a great deal about growing our business with the Internet.

Science by Email

7 Things Marketers Can Learn from Pro Wrestling

February 15, 2010 on 11:45 am | In Content that Converts | Comments Off

Playing it safe will keep you from getting hurt — and from getting customers

Fast Company columnist Sam Ford offers an insightful and entertaining treatise on how Corporations — and brands and small businesses – can take a page from the world of “professional” wresting.

In short, Ford follows his own advice with this column.

His assertions are well-suited to illustrating what it takes to communicate online; to communicate in a way that gets visitors to stick around and take action.

“An Appropriate Level of Spectacle Is Crucial”

The outrageous costumes, the drama, the crowd: all contribute to an air of excitement that inevitably makes you stop for a moment while channel surfing. This will also stop the visitor that is surfing the Web.

On your site, you need a hook to draw your visitor in. To assume that they are visiting because they know they want to learn about your company is naive. You’ve got to hook them first.

“Humor and Charisma Always Make a Connection”

It is especially true in the B2B world that humor and charisma seem to have no place. “After all, we’re all serious business people here.” If this is your attitude, kiss the customers goodbye.

“Create a Serialized Connection with Your Audience”

Conversion happens around great content. Great content happens more than once.

There are so many ways to send serial content – email, social media, news wires, blogs – that you should be frothing from the mouth to crank out the articles, posts, papers, audio and video to feed the monster. This monster poops business.

You can even serialize an article. For instance, there are 10 tweets in this post alone. Can you guess what they are?

“Shiny New Objects” Don’t Last

This is a corollary to the last item: Big ideas may carry the day, but what about the next day and the day after that?

Marketers need an editorial calendar for your communications. Get the budget and the resources to be a content machine.

“Your Audience Uses You as an Excuse to Build Community”

Facebook groups can work. LinkedIn groups can become vibrant. When this happens, it is because you have found a seed group of fans who love the product and the opportunity to associate themselves with it.

This doesn’t happen because of price discounts. It happens when you join the conversation.

Wrestlers throw each other into the crowd. What are you throwing in to your crowd?

“Your Audience Is Always Performing”

The other thing that works in Social Media is giving your “crowd” a stage on which to become a performer. Blogs offer comment sections, for example. Let them post, upload, rate, review and comment. Give them a stage.

There is more at the Fast Company blog.

Photo courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/static/