One of my goals is to make money.
I’m betting you share that goal.
As a great influence in my life, Mr. Zig Ziglar once said, “Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the ‘gotta have it’ scale.”
The challenge is: how do you make money in the best way?
One of the wins I’ve found, over and over, is to use landing pages very specifically to gather leads and convert leads to customers.
Landing pages are entry points into your website or pages that serve as a conversion point.
Why use a landing page?
A landing page is complete in and of itself.
It’s very focused on one goal: converting the person through an opt in.
Note: a landing page doesn’t replace your website. It works with your website.
Think of it as an arrow in your quiver, one that will help you hit the bullseye to conversion and more customers.
Use a squeeze page when you’re generating leads by offering something for free, called a lead magnet.
I give you the free download, and you give me your email address. It’s an exchange. Instead of money, we’re trading information.
So before you make your squeeze page, make sure you have a lead magnet.
Consider what you can offer people. How can you frame something you already know into a resource that will be valuable to someone else?
Sales pages are often much longer form or include a video. They offer a product to purchase.
Landing pages are part of every step in my sales plan, and they should be part of yours too.
There’s a catch to landing pages.
If you want them to work, they have to have one focus.
Only one.
No distractions, which means no exit links to other parts of your website, no sidebar, no header or footer.
The highest converting landing pages have FOCUS on ONE THING.
Secret #1 to Great Landing Pages: Make it look great.
I’ve used Leadpages successfully over the years, and I’ve also used their Leadboxes and Leaddigits as ways of also gathering leads and interacting with customers.
They have templates that look great and are easy to customize.
You can set up a test, too, between two different layouts or the same layout with different copy (or any combination!). That lets you find out what works better for your conversion rate.
Try Leadpages for free!
Leadpages has a 14-day free trial that will give you access to all the great features they offer. Don’t miss this chance!
Secret #2 of Great Landing Pages: Offer something compelling.
If you’re offering something, it needs to be worth the exchange. People are giving you either contact information or money…is what you’re offering them worth that exchange?
What you’re selling (because you are selling if you’re asking for contact information in exchange) has to be well-done. Spend time, effort, and maybe even some money making it valuable.
Consider:
- Is it beautiful?
- Is it useful?
- Is it worth my time?
- Is it easy to use?
- Is it something people already want?
Secret #3 of Great Landing Pages: Use killer copy.
Because words matter. And how you use words also matters.
That’s the secret of effective selling.
Here are the elements that you’ll need to write copy for:
- Your headline: What is it?
- Your subheadline: What does it do?
- 3-4 bullets
- Be specific about what it is.
- Be specific about what it does.
- Inspire curiosity to make people want to download it.
- Stress ease of use.
- Show speed to results.
- If it makes sense, mention scarcity or urgency.
- The opt-in button (“Download Now”)
- Social proof with an endorsement or testimonial
The tools you need to build a landing page
There are actual tools you need to build a landing page.
You’ll need something and somewhere for the landing page to reside: a website, a tool like Leadpages, etc.
You’ll also need an email marketing software. I’m a big fan of Infusionsoft*, though AWeber, ActiveCampaign, and ConvertKit also work well.
Interested in more about Infusionsoft? I can help you get set up and using it to optimize your business. Send me an email.
Checklist for your landing page
- Have a single message
- Make a single offer
- Easy to understand in 5 seconds or less
- Heading that’s short, sweet, and tells the benefits
- Call to action that’s above the fold (so they don’t have to scroll down)
- Contrasting color call to action button
- Custom button text (“submit” won’t work)
- Social proof, such as an endorsement, testimonial, icons of customers, numbers of downloads
- Limited navigation
- Visual cues and natural flow
- Great image of what you’re giving away
- Limited form fields (only ask for what you need)
- Branding consistency
- Privacy policy and terms of use visible