Branding Features You Need
Entice Your clients with a Strong landing page
A strong landing page should not only be informative but emotionally entice it’s viewers towards that which you are offering.
Create an enticing brand image
The framework behind every business’s success is persuasion. It is the art of persuasion that dictates every interaction from entrance to sale. After all, without a good brand image to both excite and comfort, prospects would have absolutely no reason to trust the company, nor buy the product. For the business trying to sell to its customers or the artist trying to show off his work, the reaction they can expect from the prospect is dependant on two key things. For a prospect to buy, they must first of all love and trust the product, and secondly, they must be convinced that it will solve the problem they are having.
Online marketing should be a business owners best friend. Its important to have a website that can automatically move your prospects down the funnel from website viewer to an intrigued customer. In the 21st century, having a business without a website is like having a store without a window. Without one the other is other has absolutely no way of proving to its customers why they should enter. Ultimately, the aim of a good website is to ensure that enquiring prospects do not get lost in the grinder of competition, and that they are convinced you are the best possible option for them.
A website’s landing page is a standalone page aimed to achieve one thing: conversion. As the first page a prospect sees when they find you on the search engine, a good landing page should move readers through an attractively enticing funnel of information. This type of marketing is instrumental for generating leads, finding the right customers, as well as for expanding your brand presence. A succesful landing page should also include a call-to-action button such as ‘Get Started’, ‘Learn More’, or ‘Buy More’. Whether that’s to make a booking, subscribe to a trial or buy a product, that way customers are persuaded to take action.
A frequent marketing problem found with most business is that they like to focus on themselves. “We are a marketing agency in”… “we are proud…” etc. From the perspective of the business, this is all very interesting, but from the perspective of the prospect, it means virtually nothing. What matters more is the prospect themselves, and whatever is in your campaign needs to directly speak to them – not you. On those lines, a good landing page should emphasise the benefits of your offer to the reader, only that way would they have any reason to call-to-action.
Every word counts on a landing page. Your visitors only have one page to encourage them to click the CTA and take action. Keep in mind that if your audience understands the benefits of your offer, they are more likely to convert. Rather than utilising your limited site space to explain in depth what your service entails, concentrate on what visitors will get if they buy or join up.
What to include on a website's home / landing page.
Once you’ve understood the importance of a good landing page, you should understand that every scroll the reader takes should be carefully designed to entice them towards your offer. It needs to be written in a way that the information is consumable, but also visually exciting to create reason to scroll further. Here are some key features to include in a home page:
Powerful Visuals
The first chance you get to speak to your viewers needs to visually enticing. Capturing your audiences attention can easily be done with a strong image, video or illustration relevant to your offer. As one of the first things they see, a good visual should be emotionally strong, tempting the viewers to scroll on further. Your homepage is like a book, if its cover does not stand out, readers are not likely to take an interest and start reading. By placing your most valuable content at the top of the page, known as above the fold you can be sure your most important message stands out first, and create a clear indication of what you are offering.
The right image should be one that seduces the reader towards the lifestyle you are marketing. In the same way food magazines place seductive dishes on their covers to entice their reader’s senses, or how fashion magazines place underdressed females on their covers to seduce men, your image should be one that speaks to its viewer emotionally. Subconsciously, they should be thinking “I want that, I want to learn more.” Then you can drag them further down the page until they are ready to click buy.
A Powerful headline
News companies and magazines have long known the power of a strong headline, as when paired with your image is one of the only two things you have to make or break your offer. Visually speaking, a good headline should be written in bold, and consist of the main headline (H1) as well as a subheadline (H2). The purpose of this is not to talk about yourself, but instead to make a promise to the reader regarding how you can help them. In other words, “we are specialised landscapers”, would be a poor headline, as the majority of readers do not care about yourself, they care about themselves – they have to benefit.
On the contrary, a similar headline written as such “transform your life with a fresh new garden” would be far more effective. Not only has it made use of direct address, words such as ‘you’ and ‘your’ to speak directly to the reader, but it has also used power words. A power word is a word used to bring out emotion in the reader. Different power words have different emotional effects. For example, words like ‘amazing’, ‘miracle’, ‘profitable’ and ‘profound’ would create excitement, a particularly good emotion if you’re trying to sell a product or service. Power words for urgency would include ‘breaking’, ‘alarming’, ‘limited’, ‘urgent’. Moreover, for fear, words like ‘severe’ ‘murdering’, ‘shock’, and to create trust, words like ‘reliable’, ‘trusted’, ‘affordable’ and ‘approved’ would work.
This headline should also inclue your ‘big benefit’ to the customer. Whether thats to transform their lifestyle, help them save money, or help them solve virtually any other problem. If you have no bait, the customer has no incentive to reach the hook. Ultimately, your promise with the right use of power words should be strong enough to force readers to have to scroll through your website.
Call To Action Button
A call-to-action (CTA) button is a short phrase calling for the reader to try your offer. Typically, these buttons will describe the action the reader should take, like ‘get started’, ‘learn more’, ‘subscribe’ or ‘book now’. The vast majority of readers who read your headline will also read your call-to-action button, and, if they remain interested in your offer, will rely on it as the means to get there. For an effective call-to-action button, your design should balance between being bold enough to catch the reader’s attention, but not so bold that you appear sales-oriented or desperate.
Summary Of The benefits
On a landing page, every word counts. Keep in mind that the more convinced your viewers are that you can benefit them, the more likely they will convert. Rather then limiting your website space to talking about yourself, its extremely important you put the attention on the only person who cares – the viewer. With every benefit and solution you offer to their problem, you’re moving your reader down the sales funnel, helping them accumulate excitement for your product.
Customer testimonials
Even after you’ve summarised the benefits of your offer, your prospect might be excited, but they’re lacking something else: your trust. One of the best ways to achieve this is to use customer testimonials and reviews. These are real quotes from actual customers who who found utility in what you offer and preferably who found great excitement from it. The purpose of a customer testimonial to is show the reader what real people thought other than simply what the company says.
Moreover, corporate visuals such as profile pictures, reviews and names are instrumental to creating trust, as the reader sees proof that your testimonials are trustworthy. If you’re able to, attaching pictures or videos of your customers using your product can create a profound impact on the way the reader views what you’re offering. Testimonials work because they aren’t heavy sales pitches and they come across as an unbiased and neutral voice. Ultimately, your testimonials will be there to show that more people than just yourself can trust your product.
Closing Statement
While not all readers will scroll to the very bottom of the page, those who do are likely interested and potentially on the verge of buying. This is where you can close with a persuasive argument, clearing any doubts the reader may have left. This statement should reclassify the main points of the page, touching on their problem and the solution you have to offer. This is also a great space to lower the prospect’s action threshold – the risk involved that prevents them from buying. Lowering the action threshold is often done with methods such as offering money back guarantees, free warranties and showing trust certificates.