Are your email campaign metrics on the rise, without a similar increase in conversion? Perhaps it’s time to take a look at your landing pages.
Your email campaign can very well be the bait for “catching” leads, it’s not the hook. This hook is, of course, your landing page. That is where your leads actually sign-up, download, make a purchase, or, in other words, convert.
It makes sense to give your email landing pages at least as much attention as your emails. Email and landing pages are the two most important pieces of your campaign. They must complement each other and work in perfect harmony, moving leads to become customers.
How can you weave your emails and landing pages together to improve conversion rates and achieve higher ROI? For the sake of illustration, we will use an example of a travel agency called “Safe Landing Agency” or SFA, that is offering deep discounts on packages to popular travel destinations.
Tip; if you are really into the travel industry, this s a good guide: Strategy roadmap for Email marketing in Travel and Hospitality
1. Maintain Focus – Get the Lead
It’s tempting to overload a single email with content, gimmicks, slogans, and offers, but do so at your own risk. You could end up confusing your leads instead of carefully leading them down the conversion path. A well-crafted email has only one objective; to generate leads, and that’s exactly what you should focus on.
Keep your emails simple, clear, and straightforward, crisply conveying the action that you wish your customers to take. Make your offer attractive to potential leads by highlighting what’s in it for them, and make their next step obvious. That starts with priming your subject line. Minimize messaging – if possible, communicate only one message per email. For instance, in the case of Safe Landing, the single message and action might be “Click to get a discount on your next trip.”
2. Tie the Content of Your Email to Your Landing Page
Imagine receiving a promotional email offering a hefty discount on a pair of running shoes. The offer is a steal, so you immediately click on the link to make the purchase, only to be directed to the shoe store’s homepage. Where’s the shoe sale? Nothing! Nada! Your next move would probably be to leave the site, making a mental note not to visit again.
Avoid driving your leads away by making sure that you take them to a landing page containing precisely what they expect to see, as described in your email. The easiest way to turn off customers is to direct them to a page with information that doesn’t fit in with the picture you have painted for them.
You should always strive to create the best customer experience possible, focussing on the goal of the landingpage. It is smart to ask yourself “What can i do to make this a Perfect Landing Page?” for one it is allignment, but even then, experimentation and testing can further sharpen the focus of the page.
In our example, if SLA were to direct recipients to their home page, which focuses on the various sectors of travel SLA deals with (business, recreational, sports…), leads might become bewildered. Even if there is a banner for the promotion described in the email, it still requires an additional click, giving leads another opportunity to abandon their site.
3. Maintain Focus, Take II – Get the Conversion
Consider the following two content options for Safe Landing’s landing page:
Option 1:
Have you been longing to see the Big Apple, visit Buckingham Palace or grab a pound of pizza at the Trevi Fountain? Whichever destination you have in your sites, we have a blowout price just for you.
Click here for more information.
Option 2:
Select your destination and start packing:
New York City – $400 (instead of $600) Book Now
London – $250 (instead of $400) Book Now
Rome – $200 (instead of $300) Book Now
Tokyo – $600 (instead of $900) Book Now
Sydney – $800 (instead of $1100) Book Now
All offers expire tomorrow at midnight, so act now!
While Option 1 might be more interesting to read, it does not clearly express the benefits of the promotion, cover all of the destinations, or describe how you can cash in on it. Alternatively, Option 2, while not as “pretty”, distinctly gets the message across and urges the user to take the next step.
Your email landing page should always communicate the same content and make the same offer as the email itself. People have short attention spans when visiting landing pages.
Think of it, once an interested recipient has clicked on your email, they have already spent valuable time on your offer. You have only 5 seconds to keep a lead hooked. So when creating or choosing a design for your email landing page, and generating content for it, keep the following tips in mind to help maximize conversions.
Break down texts with bullets. Big blocks of text can be intimidating. Make your messages digestible by using bullet lists and limiting each bullet to one piece of information.
Avoid distractions. Just like the content of your email, keep your landing page free of irrelevant texts and elements that may divert attention. This includes social sharing buttons, navigation bars, and other external links. Once on your landing page, leads are one step closer to converting, and the last thing you would want is for your leads to walk away because they see another eye-catching aspect of your landing page.
Create a sense of urgency. You only have 5 seconds, remember? Stir up the need to act immediately. One, very important place you can do this is with your call-to-action (CTA), leading us to our next pointer.
4. Use a Compelling CTA
Whatever form your call-to-action takes on your landing page, button, link or banner, make sure that your CTA is noticeable. One way to do this is to play with colors. Pairing complementary colors like green and red or orange and blue can easily draw attention. For Safe Landing, maybe they could use the color of country flags on their “Book Now” buttons.
In addition, make sure that the text is crystal clear (“Book Now”, not “Proceed to Next Step”), make use of action words in your CTA, such as ‘download,’ ‘sign up,’ ‘get,’, buy’, or, of course, “book”, depending on your goal, and use adverbs or phrases that provide a sense of urgency, such as ‘now,’ ‘limited time,’ and ‘hurry’. You can also add texts in strategic locations, e.g. “All offers expire tomorrow at midnight, so act now!” in our Safe Landings example above.
Your email marketing campaign doesn’t end with the email alone, and neither should your design and planning efforts. Having a well-designed email landing page fully aligned with the email and the campaign can substantially increase your campaign’s ROI.
To start you on your path to better landing pages, use a top of the line email marketing platform, with an excellent, easy to use landing page builder and templates. So, what are you waiting for? Start working on your email landing pages now and boost your conversion rates!
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