How To Improve Landing Pages

1. Match the headline of the landing page to the corresponding call to action. Keep the messaging consistent on both your CTA and the headline of the landing page. If people click a link for a free offer and then find out there's a catch on the landing page, you'll instantly lose their trust. Similarly, if the headline reads differently than the CTA, it might lead to confusion., and the user might wonder if the CTA linked to a wrong page.

2. Be clear about what you're offering. This is the most common mistake with landing pages. People often try to be too clever or witty with the headline...and the offer isn't clear. Again, if you're givng away a free whitepaper, say "Download our FREE Whitepaer for Improving X." Plain and simple.

3. Improve the positioning above the form. Just like you want to have your call to action above the fold, it's ideal for this form to be above the fold as well. This way, there can't be any confusion as to what's expected from the visitor on this page. They simply need to fill out the form to get what you're offering.

4. Keep the text concise and easy to scan. Be brief and to the point. It's the offer where you give the prospect more information. In addition to your headline, have a brief paragraph explaining the offer followed by a few bullet points outlining what the offer consists of to include the benefits.

5. Remove links and navigation to maintain focus. When a prospect reaches your landing page, you're just a few keystrokes away from getting their contact information. So don't distract them with links that we'll take them further away from your goal to get a lead.

Next time: How to improve offers.

Increase Sales and Lead Generation

Six ways follow to increase website conversions, not only to the point of becoming a lead, but to the point of becoming a qualified lead.

How to improve your calls-to-action:

1. Calls-to-action do best "above the fold" - the space of your webpage viewable to the user without having to scroll down. According the heat map analysis, "below the fold" will only be viewed by 50% of the people who view your page.

2. Be crystal clear about what the offer is in your CTA...and be specific. If you're giving away a free whitepaper, say "Download our FREE whitepaper for X." If you're hosting a free webinar, say,, "Register for our FREE webinar on X." X should convey a compelling benefit of receiving the offer. This is much more effective than "Download Now" or "Get a Free Whitepaper."

3. Use images rather than text so it stands out. Images stand out on a webpage more than text...and get a lot more attention. Additionally, using an image will allow you to show off an offer in a way you can't necessarily convey using text alone.

4. Make your CTA a hyperlink to the corresponding landing page. Whether intentional or a matter of forgetfulness, the lack of a link will make it harder for visitors to find out how to get the offer. Instead, they'll likely give up. Double and triple check to make sure all of your CTAs link to their corresponding landing pages.

5. Place CTAs on the most relevant pages. CTA's shouldn't be one size fits all. If your company offers various products or services, you may want to consider creating a different offer for each. Then you can place CTAs linking to each offer on the website pages that are most relevant to the offer.

6. Finally, add CTAs to each blog post. Whenever you create a new blog content, choose an offer that's the most relevant to that blog post. Then add a call-to-action to the bottom of that blog post linking to the landing page for that offer.

Next time: How to improve landing pages.

Is Print Dying?

I don't want to burst your cyber bubble, but it's not.

Careful where you stand in the digital wonderland.

As a marketer, perhaps you've experienced the fervor and futility of the newly enlightened who rely solely on digital and social media to build their business brands.

In one category I know of, marketers target their audience exclusively with online media. They shower them with digital content that's devoid of a compelling, unifying creative idea. The net result is that awareness and familiarity of each of the competitors in this category is less than ten percent. They've been marketing like this for almost a decade and no one knows who the heck they are. There is no perceived leader. Even worse, virtually no one knows what the category is about.

Print helps people remember.

Too bad they haven't discovered some of the persuasive qualities that make print powerful in its own way:

* It forces us to synthesize brand and buying concepts into one simple and compelling idea explained and illustrated. As a result, people can easily grasp what the brand is about in their first exposure to it.

* It can portray the essence of a brand in a highly memorable way through the synergy of words and pictures.

* It provides immediate scale and reach.

* It connects the brand's point of view with the unique worldview of a very specific audience.

* It encourages its audience to read and picture themselves in a brand story that it tells.

* It stays around. People can easily put their hands on it when they want it.

* It creates an environment of contemplation and learning instead of simply sound bite gathering.

Source: Gordon Hochhalter, Creative Strategy Connectivity

The Impact of Media On Industrial Marketing - Part III

Further insights from AJ Sweatt...

Brand awareness is critical, especially in industrial marketing where the stakes are so much higher and the buying cycle protracted. Many projects to select technology solutions take months, and in many cases years. So the brand must resonate consistently in the minds of prospects as they enter and progress through the stages leading up to comparison and selection.

Push media (magazines and e-Newsletters) are strong branding vehicles. They deliver information about new technologies and products, R&D, and knowledge leadership in ways that are much more effective than hoping a prospect encounters those messages on their own. Trade magazines still play a vital role in connecting prospects to solutions and options.

Then too, ads in industry-focused websites offer an interesting "brand bump." And, surprisingly, ad banners offer branding advantages beyond measuring a "click." A substantially majority of visitors to top advertiser websites came from people who saw at least one online display ad, but never clicked on the banner.

The Impact of Media On Industrial Marketing - Part II

Social Media and The Capital Equipment Buying Cycle

More insights from AJ Sweatt.

The greatest strengths of social media today are found in its abilities to connect like-minded engineers, manufacturers and, yes, technology suppliers like you. Certainly, networking is a critical piece of any business -- particularly in vertical industries like ours, with their distinctive requirements and qualities.

But when research-minded, stealth prospects enter into the buying cycle, they want control.

They want to remain anonymous. They want to consume, digest, compare and assess information on their own terms. The information they seek often must match ultra-strict technical and proprietary needs imposed by their company, customers and industry/government regulations.

With few exceptions, social media aren't useful for prospects seeking legacy information because of content decay in an archival environment.

Using Twitter for example, most information that's shared there has a very short shelf-life - the quick bursts are useful in a time-sensitive environment but not for an industrial stealth prospect looking for specs, performance, capabilities and features to make technology recommendations.

Then, with LinkedIn, it is above all else an employment site. Its primary purpose has been and is to connect prospective employers and employees.

When assessing the benefits of social media to your company you should always ask, "What are our prospects and customers actually DOING there?"

The Impact Of Media On Industrial Marketing - Part I

The capital equipment buying cycle is the core for your own marketing strategy. It defines the steps and stages industrial prospects follow as they research, compare, scrutinize and select technologies for their manufacturing enterprise.

Created by AJ Sweatt with Gardner Publications back in 1998, the steps of this buying cycle have remained virtually unchanged throughout the industrial age. While media and communications options have evolved to make prospects' journey through this cycle more efficient, they've remained consistent in following these steps in order. And, specific media have unique influential strengths on prospects, depending on where they are in the buying cycle.

Push Media: Magazines, email, direct mail introduce prospects to things they didn't know they need (i.e. discovery).

Pull Media: Your website, elements of trade shows, industry/technical websites serve prospects that already know what they need, but aren't sure where to get it/them.

Next post, but what has social media done to this equation and media's overall role in the buying cycle?

Marketing Lays Groundwork For Sales

How much is masterpiece music worth performed by an internationally acclaimed virtuoso to an audience of a thousand people?

About $32 according to the Washington Post with their experiment about the influence of context on people's perceptions and priorities...and their ability to "recognize beauty." As part of the experiment, Joshua Bell, one of the world's best violinists, played incognito inside a Washington DC subway station. During his continuous 45-minute performance, Bell played six pieces by Bach, Shubert, etc....some of the most powerful music written for a solo violin. Two days prior, Bell performed at a sold-out concert in Boston, where tickets averaged $100.

But back in DC, 1,097 people went through the subway station. Only seven stopped and listened for awhile. About 27 gave money but continued to walk past the musician. There was no applause at the end, and the total sum collected during the performance was $32.17. Very few people were interested enough to pay it any attention, let alone money or time.

What is value?

Though beauty and its place in our lives are the subject of philosophy and sociology, willingness to pay for or "value" a product or service is the consequence of marketing. Value is dictated by customer preferences (demand) and competing alternatives (supply)--not by the product itself. It is a product of time, place, social context and mental attitudes.