Every marketer has heard of something called a landing page. It is one of the most used strategies to make leads turn into paying customers because it truly works. 

A fully functional landing page can make your email list grow, while you provide valuable information to your subscribers.

Let me illustrate an example for you. We will suppose that a landing page is like a trade, in which you give something as a heartfelt gift and the other part gives you a form of contact in return, an email address, to be more exact. 

As you know, a trade must be appealing and convincing, and the same applies to any landing page. In light of this conclusion, we prepared this article to share some concepts and ideas about what is a landing page and how you can explore it in different marketing campaigns.

• What is a Landing Page?
• Website vs. Landing Page: what are the differences?
• Types of Landing Pages
• The importance and benefits of a Landing Page
• Landing Pages: best practices 
• Landing Pages: quick and useful tips

What is a Landing Page?

The landing page definition can be defined as a page inside your website whose objective is to collect emails from visitors. There are many ways to generate leads and LP (landing page) is one of them, as well as posts on social media, promoting paid ads, and elaborate email marketing.

In other words, it is a standalone page that visitors can land on after they click on a specific link, found through search engines, social networks, emails, and even by chance.

In exchange for their information, you can give them a special gift, such as e-books or exclusive content, after visitors fill out a registration form, asking for personal information, (name, job title, email address, and subjects of interest, for instance).

This method is widely used to capture leads, making your subscriber list grow. After you get the emails from your leads, you can start sending them promotional sales and special content, intending to turn them into customers.

Usually, a LP always brings an effective Call to Action (CTA) phrase, in order to make the visitor take the desired action, such as giving the solicited data or concluding a purchase. If the user really takes this action, the landing page achieved its goals.

It is important to have a single goal on a LP, that is, only one CTA sentence. When you solicit much information and request different things from your visitor, it’s likely they leave your landing page without taking any action at all. That’s why landing pages are very specific, clear, and direct to the point. 

You must know that your leads can’t convert themselves into customers. You have to do your part. 

After you get contacts of promising leads through specially-designed landing pages, your marketing team should explore different types of email marketing to guide them in their conversion journey.

Finally, from specific landing pages to many attempts to convert leads, the final purchase will eventually happen. Hopefully, the first of many others. 

Website vs Landing Page: What are the differences?

People often mix up the landing page definition with the concept of what a Website is. A website is a homepage on which a visitor can find general information about a certain company or business.

For example, companies use their official website to tell their history, mission, board of directors and employees, and, of course, all services and products available. There is a lot of information going on.

In a completely different way, a LP is a channel containing specific data about a short-term project, whose goal is to get information about the visitors in exchange for some material of their personal or professional interest.

While a website is focused on the long-term objectives of a company and can be understood as the main introduction of a brand to the world, a landing page definition turns to the short-term goals of the same company. We can think of other differences between websites and landing pages, such as:

• you will find many links on a website: a homepage is filled with links, from top to bottom, as you are invited to visit many places on it, while an optimized LP usually displays only one link;
• the Call to Action sentences are not specific on a website: a homepage brings many information and the Call to Action phrases are quite vague and ambiguous (such as “Learn more”, “Click here”), while a landing page brings a very specific CTA, for example, “You can download your e-book now”, “Get your invitation now”;
• a website tries to introduce your services and products: when people visit your page online, they haven’t decided what they really want (sometimes, they want nothing at all), so you must show them all of your competencies and items. On the other hand, when they end up on your LPs, they know exactly what they are looking for.

When you are promoting a single offer, landing pages are able to execute a wonderful job at generating new leads, showing them the way through conversion. But you also have to show your brand, services, and products to the world.

Another important feature of landing pages is that they capture valid emails most of the time, preventing fake addresses from arriving at your lists. When they are protected by an email checker service, the result is even more impressive.

This way, combining email validation and landing pages will boost your ROI, making your marketing campaigns more successful and worthwhile. What you shouldn’t do is use your website as a LP.

Types of Landing Pages

Landing pages have different structures and objectives. There are two types of approaches that you have to be aware of: lead generation landing pages and click-through landing pages. Keep reading to check the details of each one.

Lead generation landing pages

Lead generation landing pages are also known as “lead capture” pages. As the name suggests, they are designed to collect relevant information about your visitors (and potential customers).

These landing pages are found in the middle of the sales funnel. If you are not acquainted with marketing terminology, it means the visitor is already aware of your brand and products and is considering making the purchase.

But, at the same time, the decision is not made yet, hence the importance of a lead generation landing page. The visitor just needs a little push, and the landing page can help you with that.

You will collect their data and give something in return. For example, you can come up with a form, which asks for their:

• names;
• house addresses;
• email addresses;
• job titles;
• phone numbers;
• and so on. 

After the visitors are done filling out the form, you can give them something in return, such as:

• e-book about a subject of interest;
• free trial of new software that you have developed;
• entry for a certain event that you are organizing, online or else;
• webinar registration;
• some free classes if you are offering a new course;
• special counseling or monitoring.

The list goes on. There are many possibilities, and you must use your creativity. You have also to consider what is available at the moment, without forgetting the purpose of your campaign.

The objective here is to capture their emails or any other form of contact, so you can send them special offers and content, aiming at their conversion.

This is a very useful strategy to help you organize your audience into groups, making you identify the people who are likely to become paying customers. 

This way, you avoid spending money advertising to an audience that is not interested in buying your products or consuming your services. That’s how you make email marketing campaigns effective.

Click-through landing pages

On click-through landing pages, the main goal is not to collect information from potential leads, but to make people take the desired action immediately.

Moreover, these pages bring more detailed information about the product or service highlighted by the landing page. It might display positive testimonials to convince the visitor to finish the order or payment, as well as specific data about a certain product and its features.

This type of landing page is most frequently found on e-commerce websites or sites that are strictly focused on immediate purchases. 

The importance and benefits of a Landing Page

Keep reading to learn the importance, positive qualities and benefits of landing pages and why they are ideal for lead generation.

Landing pages can increase conversion

If you are having struggles with conversion, you should invest some of your time in learning about landing pages. 

When you have a customized page to advertise one of your products (usually the releases and brand-new stuff), it’s easier to target a public that is likely to be interested in it. With optimized landing pages, you can:

• create engagement opportunities;
• attract new people to your brand;
• introduce your products and services to the world;
• grow your number of conversions and sales.

Landing pages help you build respectable credibility

A landing page is all about the item or service that you offer. You can include all the clear and specific information the customer needs to finish the purchase. 

In short, as you display the necessary data, the customers start trusting you. They give you credibility, and you can use them to bond with first-timers. They will certainly come back for more.

Every company has a mission and values. Landing pages help spread these messages, reaching different audiences, which will increase the brand’s popularity, hence, its credibility.

If you want to organize your audience, you should try landing pages

An audience is composed of different people, with distinct tastes and preferences. When you put out LPs that are designed to attract each one of these segments, people will give you valuable information about them.

You can use these answers to organize your audience into groups, creating different marketing campaigns to target them. This way, you can have more success in your projects, and you will not send unwanted messages to members of your audience.

Landing pages are great when you want to have more insight into the people who arrive on your channels of communication.

Landing pages are the perfect tool to make your list of subscribers grow 

One of the goals of having landing pages is to make people give you their email addresses. But the main benefit here is to get a valid and active email, which belongs to a real person.

There is no purpose in getting more and more emails if they are not linked to a potential buyer. Or worse, when you randomly add email accounts to your email lists, you might come across emails that can destroy your reputation as a sender.

Landing pages are good resources for finding emails that fit your target audience, the ones that are responsive and engaged at the same time.

When you use LPs to be combined with effective marketing campaigns, you can achieve great results. But to enjoy all these benefits, your landing pages must work. So, learn how to use the best practices to optimize landing pages.

Landing Pages: best practices

Landing pages are all about your products and services. Newcomers find them because they got interested in something that you are currently offering.

Having this fact in mind, check out some of the best practices regarding landing pages on the next topics.

Focus on the offer rather than your company

A very serious issue that many companies face is sending prospective visitors to their official page on the internet. As such users are not linked to your brand yet, this can be a mistake and result in a fruitless visit to your website.

You should know these fresh visitors are interested in a specific offer, so pointing out the direction to a landing page that details this product or service might be the more adequate strategy. 

It’s not the proper time to introduce yourself, tell your history, or show the milestones of your company. Put the product or service under the spotlight.

After this first moment, and if the experience is positive, your relationship with this new user can evolve.

Forget distractions and pointless information

The more specific you are, the most successful your LP will become. Keep it simple and go directly to the point.

When you are designing a landing page, you should highlight the product and its features. Everything else doesn’t matter. 

The same goes for your forms. If they get too long, people will give up the registration process. Think about the user experience, simplify your questions and make sure the registration process will be completed.

Elaborate one landing page for each marketing campaign

Audiences are plural and mixing them up is a huge mistake. The more personalized and segment-oriented your landing pages are, the more lead generations you can get.

When you target specific customers, making them find your landing pages, you can guide them from product awareness to final purchase more easily.

There is no point in sending ads to people who are not interested in what you have to offer. Save the time and effort (not to mention, the money). After all, people hate receiving unwanted messages or emails that are not interesting to them.

Another thing that is worth mentioning is that you can have different LP running at the same time, being each one of them directed to a certain public or customer population.

Email listing management is extremely important. Organizing your audience into particular segments, with the help of landing pages, is a decision that you won’t regret.

Make the navigation intuitive

People get distracted too easily. They are filling out your registration forms, and, all of the sudden, an intrusive ad shows up on the screen. The result is as follows: the user gives up filling out the form and you miss out on a promising lead.

This is a very common situation and possible outcome. That’s why you must make the navigation intuitive in your landing forms. Get rid of all the distractions, unnecessary features, and popups. 

They might be welcome on your homepage. However, in landing pages, the fewer distractions, the better. Think of a clean screen, with all the focus on what you are offering.

Another thing that you can forget is that people are not patient at all, especially when they are using the internet. If your LP loads too slowly, you will lose countless leads.

Work on the loading speed. Try reducing image sizes, and consider including only short videos, for example.

Offer exclusive and valuable pieces of content

If people end up on your landing pages, first of all, it’s because they are interested in what you are offering. People hardly ever find landing pages by chance.

Once you get the attention of your target audience, you should take advantage of this and mention that what they are currently seeing is just the tip of an iceberg, meaning you have so much more to show.

So make sure the content you have is compelling and interesting to these newcomers. For example, you can offer them a free e-book in exchange for their data and use their information to send exclusive articles by mail.

Over time, as your content is high quality, you target them with a special product, let’s suppose a new course that you are launching. The chances of achieving a conversion are high at this point. Landing pages plus email marketing combined can be a quite profitable match.

It is an opportunity to be in constant improvement

Landing pages are not meant to last forever. You can run experiments, and validate hypotheses as much as you like. When combined with useful email marketing tools, they show you the current situation of your company.

In this sense, landing pages are excellent tools to help improve marketing strategies, making you find what works best for your audience.

Use the email marketing metrics and KPIs provided by your LP to withdraw conclusions, such as Open and Conversion Rates. This kind of analysis will make you reach better results, increasing sales and brand awareness. 

Running tests and experiments using landing pages is an excellent way to achieve success and keep improving approaches on how to have more conversions and sales, which is extremely important when you are starting your own business.

Landing Pages: quick and useful tips

Check out some quick and useful tips to enhance the quality of your LPs:

• when you come up with a special offer or project, elaborate an appealing landing page to go with it;
• your forms should not be lengthy and boring, if your questions and requests are too long and intimidating, people will not get to the finish of the LP;
• use the data you get from landing pages to segment and organize your audience, making future offers according to these different groups;
• don’t forget to say thank you; It’s important to demonstrate gratitude to newcomers because they will feel welcome and comfortable, feelings that you might want to explore when building a more solid relationship with them;
• people must find your page, so you can think of SEO strategies to implement on it, so you can get more organic traffic, more visits, more responses, and more conversions;
• pay attention to your headline, vocabulary, and word choices, aspects that are usually ignored, but they make a huge difference;
• Call to Action sentences must be seen and easy to understand, you might want to try highlighting keywords or position them in strategic places on a page;
• social proof and positive testimonials are powerful on landing pages because the user is almost making a final decision and a positive comment might be the last thing they need to submit their information;
• another strategy is to make the users feel some kind of urgency when they find your landing page, such as limited promotional sales, holiday sales, or organize sales that are valid for only a few days (or even hours), to make the decision-making process faster;
• when you set up a LP, you should add an email checker API to it, in order to avoid capturing invalid email addresses, that is, the ones that can hurt your online reputation.

The moment you put these tips and suggestions into practice, you will be amazed by the results you reach. Landing pages are impressive tools to make the most of your marketing campaigns.

If this content about what is a landing page has helped you, you might be also interested in the content about email marketing for beginners that SafetyMails prepared.