Whenever you can direct traffic to where you need it (for example from Facebook, Linkedin or Google Ads or from your bio on guest blog posts or social media properties) you should be sending it to dedicated landing pages whose purpose is to get visitors to subscribe to get your Lead Magnet and regular emails.

What makes an effective Landing Page?

It really depends on who is visiting that page, where they're coming from, and what their intention is when they visit. There's a big difference in the sort of landing page that works well for visitors coming from a paid ad who already know what to expect from the ad itself, to visitors from a bio link on social media who are largely coming from curiosity to find out more about you.

I show you how to tweak your Landing Pages to meet the needs and expectations of different types of visitor.

 
The tool I use for pretty much all my landing pages is Thrive Architect. Other good alternative page builders are Elementor and Beaver Builder

*Thee links to Thrive Architect are affiliate links. There are other products you can use, but this is the one I use myself and recommend. If you eventually buy a product from them I'll get a commission. Consider it the online equivalent of buying me a beer :)

 
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Video Transcript

Hi, it's Ian here. Welcome to another five minute marketing tip. This week's tip is all about how to get more e-mail subscribers using landing pages. I'm going to talk about landing pages in a slightly different way than you may have seen before. See you after this break.

Hi, welcome back. OK: the basics of landing pages first. A landing page is simply a page dedicated to getting someone to subscribe, to get your lead magnet, and your regular e-mails. Sometimes called a ‘squeeze' page or an ‘opt-in' page. Obviously the first rule of landing pages is use them where you can direct traffic to where you want. From paid adverts, from guest blog posts, the kind of bio at the bottom, from bios in social media, send people to dedicated landing pages because obviously when you've got a landing page who's sole purpose is to get someone to sign up, you're going to get more people to sign up than if you just send them to your home page where they can easily get distracted by all the blog posts, the social media icons, everything else going on.

Use dedicated landing pages. Sounds obvious. There are still lots of people who send paid traffic to their home page and places like that. Now, when it comes to looking at landing pages, a big mistake people often make is they try and look at the landing page in isolation to get a best practice landing page. There's really no such thing in isolation. You often see people go onto marketing forums and say, “Oh can you please review my landing page?” People will give them all sorts of feedback, well meaning, but often wrong because the thing you need to know about any page is, who is visiting that page? Where are they coming from and what are they thinking when they visit?

Because different sorts of visitors with different things going on in their mind with different intentions on coming to the landing page need different things when they get there. Just to use the two extreme examples. One example is someone coming to the landing page, for example from a paid advert, already having decided yes, I want what it is they have to offer. The other example is someone visiting that landing page more out of curiosity. Maybe from your bio in social media.

Let's look at those two different examples and how you have to adjust your landing pages accordingly. If someone is clicking on an advert, like a Facebook ad, a Google ad, or a LinkedIn ad, then usually in the advert itself you've sold what it is you are offering, your lead magnet and your e-mail. You might say like mine do, “Get your free copy of the 21 word e-mail that could get you more clients”. If someone clicks on that ad, they probably want the 21 word e-mail that can get them more clients. I don't need to keep selling it so much on the landing page. I might need to tip them over the edge a little bit to saying yes, and providing their e-mail address, but I don't need to have lots of bullets and lots of details about why the 21 word e-mail is great because the advert covered all that.

In a way it's a bit like the salesman face to face who gets the sale, but then continues talking and talks himself out of the sale. If you put too much on the landing page then if someone's already decided and they waste their time reading it and scanning it all and they forget what they're there for. You actually lower your opt-in rate. For a landing page where people are coming from paid traffic or from a bio at the end of a blog post where you get a chance to say, “To get a free copy of Ian's X, Y, and Z go here”, you get a chance to sell what it is they're coming for. The chances are that the people going to that landing page already want or are close to already wanting what it is you have to offer. Keep the landing page simple. Just a simple picture of what it is you have to offer for example and a simple headline.

Now the headline can be something as easy as, get the 21 word e-mail that gets you more clients. Now in that case, the benefit of what I'm offering is in the title of the lead magnet, so that's an ideal case. I don't even need to say much more than that because people can see the benefit of it. If the benefit isn't in the title of your lead magnet, so let's say you wrote a report about reducing energy costs, you call the energy blueprint for example, then in the headline you might need to add a few more words that sell the benefit of what's in the report.

You might say, “Cut your energy bills by up to 37% using these five simple shortcuts. Call on the energy blueprint,” or something like that. The headline itself sells the benefit of signing up either in the name of the lead magnet or in the headline. You've got a picture of the lead magnet. You've got a box where people can sign up, get free access, something like that. That's really all you need when you're coming from paid traffic, where people have already decided they want it. Whenever I've tested more complex landing pages with testimonials, with bullets justifying, saying how great the lead magnet is and all the benefits you're going to get from it, that's actually lowered conversions.

Now it's a different story if people are coming more out of curiosity. If you've got a link to a landing page in your Twitter bio for example, then in the bio link you don't really have a chance to say what people will get when they go there. Usually, they're clicking out of curiosity. That's often the case with these social media profiles. People are clicking that link out of curiosity.

Now, if that's the case and you want them to sign up for your free lead magnet, you're going to have to sell it a bit more because they're not coming knowing what it is and knowing that they want it. Usually what you need there, same picture of the lead magnet, same headline. Maybe a picture of yourself you can use if you're trying to introduce them to you and make them feel a bit more comfortable. Certainly a picture of the lead magnet. The headline as we said before that says what the benefit of the lead magnet is, but then you need some bullet points with some more specifics of what they get in the lead magnet and the benefit of those specifics.

I think when I was using the five simple tweaks report, some of my bullets were things like, learn the Dropbox technique for instantly increasing the number of referrals you get. Dropbox technique, a bit of curiosity. What is the Dropbox technique, benefit, the increasing the number of referrals that you'll get. Ideally, add either some testimonials from people who've read the lead magnet, used it, and got good results from it, seeing what the results are, or maybe even some icons of different media where you've appeared or other people's hired you, just as a bit of social proof.

Again, that's probably about it. It's more, it's the picture, it's the headline as before, plus it's also bullets with the what's in the lead magnet, what they'll be getting, and the benefits of what they'll be getting, plus testimonials and/or social proof. Then that's it really. Keep that lead magnet simple and that's what we use. Keep that landing page simple. That's a landing page for people who aren't necessarily sure what they're getting when they go. For your profiles from social media, for paid ads, for links at the bottom of guest blog posts, even simpler just the picture and the headline, I've found always works best for me. Of course, the button or the form to sign up. That's it. See you next week.