The Landing Page “Experts” Are Wrong!

The landing page “experts” are misleading you and today I’m going to dispel the myth!

How many opt in landing pages have you visited recently?

How many have you subscribed to? 1 of 2, 1 of 4, or forget it…more like 1 in 20?!?!

How many landing pages are consistent with source you’ve just arrived from?

Keep this in mind and we will come back to it.

What Is A Landing Page?

Landing pages are designed to move you into taking a pre-defined action. When it comes to opt in incentives the goal is to have your visitor subscribe to the mailing list.

The reason for this goal, as you well know, is to provide value to your visitor AND have permission to contact your new subscriber regularly. After all, you are in business and you want your subscriber to become a client as well.

You also know that the “experts” say you don’t want your visitor distracted on your landing page so you should remove the navigation, side bars, use a pre-packaged landing page template.

But you can remove too much!

Now let’s consider branding…

Branding is the art of aligning what you want people to think about your company with what people actually do think about your company. And vice-versa. – Jay Baer (in Amy Porterfield’s branding definitions post).

Can you answer what you want people to think?

You need to be REALLY clear on this.

Factors influencing how people perceive your brand include having a clearly defined target audience; a strong tagline; sharing your true self (yes, pictures and all); a valuable offer;  the design and delivery.

Generic Landing Pages And Why They Hurt Conversions

If you take too much away from your landing page, you actually hurt your chances of conversion. If it isn’t obvious what your value proposition is or that the design belongs to your business, things aren’t going to end well.

Imagine as the consumer of content going from a well branded source to a bland, generic landing page. Can you see how a disconnect would happen? Can you understand why you’re more likely to click away instead of opting in?

Incorporate Branding Into Your Opt In Landing Pages

There are innumerable ways to incorporate your branding into your landing page but for today here are five super simple, super fast opportunities:

• A short video where you explain the benefits of opting in,
• Incorporating your brand colours into the design rather than sticking with a generic template,
• Ensuring your offer specifically appeals to YOUR target audience,
• Featuring your logo,
• Checking the copy is consistent with your normal tone.

Take Action And Increase Your Conversion

1. Look at your opt in landing page. Find a way to further reinforce your brand using one of the options above. Tell me in the comments when it’s done.

2. Share this with your fellow business owners. Tweet, like or +1.

Are you really keen to ramp up your lead generation ready for 2014? Want one to one guidance and support? Apply now for a complimentary 30 minute strategy session!