My fellow marketers,
This is Week 9 of the weekly marketing roundup email.
A series where I share posts from our Marketers Utopia directly to your inbox so you can execute on the value inside.
This weeks content:
Design Strategies for Profitable Landing Pages
Wealth Wednesday Live Call
Roundup Breakdown
Design Strategies for Profitable Landing Pages
Clear goal and structure
The core difference between the home page of a website and the landing page with the specific offer is in their strategic use. The home page sets the global point of departure enabling the user to take a variety of routes around the website, while the landing page is focused on one particular aim which should be effectively presented and easily doable. Therefore, the first step in designing a converting page is setting this particular goal and building the page architecture which will navigate the users to the ways of achieving it.
Targeting
A landing page is an effective tool when it’s based on the needs, preferences, and expectations of the target audience. Even more, these web pages allow companies to set multiple landing spots for various target users on the basis of:
geographic targeting gender targeting psychographic targeting demographic targeting behavioral targeting AKA Buyer Persona There are many practical cases when companies changed some parts of the products, their names, or even set the new brands to sell successfully in different countries with a diverse cultural backgrounds. The same can be done with landing pages: for example, the page offering the same smartphone can look and talk differently to the users from different countries, taking into account their perception of colors, copy, priorities in product features, and trends on the local markets.
Example: https://youtu.be/pMLrVP_E-jA
Take a few minutes to watch this video from Macdonald’s geo-targeted ads.
Functional minimalism
For soft flight landing, a clear spacious spot is a vital condition. For the landing page, it works the same way: attempts to overload it with everything bring to a negative result. In most cases, minimalist design based on core functionality & visual elements easily guiding the user to the CTA proves itself a good approach.
Maximum attention ratio
For a landing page, the attention ratio should be as high as possible. Too many elements of interaction will provoke distraction lowering the chances of conversion: the more options users have at the same time, the harder it is to make a choice.
Instantly visible CTA elements
CTA presents the most valuable interaction element of a landing page as it is actually the spot where conversion happens. It should be instantly visible, which can be done via color or shape contrast, and informative, which is usually achieved with a proper copy or icon, or both.
Harmonic color palette
Colors and shades chosen for a landing page are not objects of a designer’s creative self-expression: they are as much influencing the conversion rate as any other design element and sometimes even more than others.
It’s not just aesthetic satisfaction that users can feel seeing the presentation but also the hidden message which can be transferred via traditional associations in color perception. So, colors should present the combination pleasant for a user’s eye, emotionally appealing to the target audience & establishing the effective visual hierarchy of the layout.
Typography and good readability
As well as colors, fonts also tell much not only with the copy hidden behind them but also with associations and emotions they bring out. Typographic hierarchy and well-balanced font combinations have a big impact on the readability of the page which can directly influence the conversion rate.
The landing page is not the spot on which users are ready to spend much time so poor readability can drive them away before they make a decision. Being an integral part of the general stylistic concept, appropriate fonts can also contribute much to effective visual performance catching users’ attention.
Strong & consistent branding
Landing pages are widely used as a part of the web marketing strategy so they should support the general scheme of brand promotion. Coming from outer resources, social networks, advertisements, users need to feel and see the consistency of brand image to be ready to trust it. So, identity elements like logo, slogan, mascots, corporate fonts, and colors should be taken into account.
Eye-catching theme image
No secret, most users are visually driven and they scan the web page in a couple of seconds perceiving images much faster than the copy. An appropriate theme image, be it a hero banner, original illustration, high-quality photo presenting a product or service, is a good way to attract users and get them interested as well as inform them about the nature of the promoted offer. Images of this kind save users’ time, send them a quick and appealing message & add much to the aesthetic side of the presentation.
Engaging & attractive scroll animation
Although there are many people who find animation an unnecessary feature overloading the user interface and making it more complicated, most users expect motion as an integral part of the interaction experience. Scroll animation applied wisely can add life and style to the landing page and become another attractive feature stimulating positive emotions. Also, motion creates the feeling of one smooth integral interaction with a whole page rather than several separate parts.
Visual hierarchy of copy content
Copy content is another aspect that has to be well-thought. A designer’s task here is to think about edible copy presentation framed into a clear visual hierarchy: sizes and placement of copy blocks, instantly scanned headlines and short concise call-to-action elements directly influence the level of conversions.
Here is a case study if you want to learn more about this: Nugget Case Study by Olivier.
The length of copy on landing pages is a debatable issue: focused goals behind the landing page don’t always mean that each time it should contain a minimal number of words. If it presents a famous company product or service or informs about special offers, a short and strong copy can be enough to encourage users. However, if a new unknown product or service is presented, it is often useful to provide users with more information persuading them to follow the call to action. Anyway, the presentation of the copy has to be designed for good readability and scannability of the page.
Scannability = Users don’t read everything they see word by word – they first scan the page to find out why and how it’s useful for them. So, scannability is one of the essential factors of website usability today.
No information overloading
Based on the previous points, a creative team working on a landing page – designers, copywriters, marketing specialists, etc. should agree on the priorities and define the core benefits users need to see. Trying to overload the page with all the possible data about the offer, you risk overwhelming them so much that they can start hesitating or even get annoyed. Core information fields included on the landing page usually cover:
the general introduction of the presented offer the concise and informative description of benefits solving user’s problems testimonials and signs of trust a clear call to action.
If the offer is quite complex and it’s hard to describe all its benefits shortly, a good solution can be found by dividing the page into several theme blocks with separate interactive elements (buttons, fields, links, etc) enabling users to get more information or help quickly but on another page.
Promotional video
The big advantage of this technique is the high speed of perception, emotional feedback & the big informative potential of the video in comparison with the copy. On the other hand, creating the video can be more time-consuming and require a bigger budget, so the efficiency of this element should be analyzed from the business perspective to see if it’s really profitable for every particular case.
High loading speed
None of the mentioned strategies will work properly if the technical side of the interaction is neglected. Whatever stylish, sophisticated & informative is the landing page, it won’t make users put up with waiting while it’s loading.
It’s a matter of seconds, without any exaggeration. So, optimization of the images, the thoughtful technical realization of motion effects, quickly-loading video, and fast transitions if they are applied – all of these and similar factors can have a crucial effect on conversion rates.
Respect the users’ time otherwise they won’t be quick to trust you.
Obviously, the list above doesn’t mean that all the mentioned strategies should be applied together on every page. Each project demands an individual approach based on rigorous analysis of the target user expectations, needs, and preferences combined with business goals. When the page is live, A/B testing and analysis of real interactions open the new perspectives and prove if the designer’s initial decisions were appropriate for the established aim.
Landing page vs Home page
Should all the traffic from outer sources be directed to a home page or landing pages? The answer considerably depends on the nature and complexity of the website. The issue to consider is the user’s attention and its concentration on definite areas of the websites in terms of solving a particular problem or satisfying particular needs.
For simple one-page websites, this question is not actual: indeed, they represent only a home page that satisfies one or multiple functions and there is no other place where the traffic could be directed from the outer sources.
The same happens if the website is not complex: a home page is not overloaded with many links & navigation elements, so conversion can be reached right from the home page while other pages play secondary roles. In this case, directing all the traffic to the most informative part of the site is a good idea.
However, for complex websites and platforms, especially if they satisfy the multiple needs of a broad target audience, this approach can be a step in killing profitability and reducing conversion rates.
The user can get scared, distracted or even annoyed with the tons of information they have to get through to find what they need, especially if the needs or wishes are focused on a particular narrow goal.
Conclusion
Using landing pages in the case when you need to concentrate the user’s attention on something important, to make it noticeable and easily available can be an efficient way of solving this problem.
A landing page is a tool to emphasize one item, to make it quickly found & reduce delays in cases when the target user seeks specific operations, services, or items. This is an issue of especially high importance in the case of e-commerce websites when unwise design solutions bring poor user experience and financial losses.
-> The choice of a profitable approach in every case should be based on user research and then thorough user testing.
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