If you’re thinking of spending some of your marketing budget on Internet marketing strategies like Search Engine Marketing, direct marketing e-mail, or banner advertising don’t forget to include landing pages in your web design & development budget.

Landing pages are the destination point of your emarketing campaign. This is the page you want your customs to land on when they click on a banner, paid link, or email.  Why not point them at the home page you ask? Well, a landing page is designed with one task in mind, to convert the visitor. That could mean you want them to buy something, download something, provide their email address, or simply click on a link.  Your home page is designed to help visitors navigate through your site so it presents visitors with many options. A landing page is much more effective at achieving the goal of your campaign because it has a single focus. 

5 Key Landing Page Elements

A well-designed landing page will increase the conversion rate of your campaign and in turn increase the ROI of your marketing spend. Here are some elements to consider when designing your landing page:

1. About 50% of the traffic you generate to the landing page will abandon it after 0-8 seconds. So, if you only have 8 seconds to make an impression, think carefully about what elements you are highlighting and be very focused in your message.
2. Match the look/feel and messaging of your ad with the design of your landing page. It provides consistency for the user and keeps the message relevant. There was something about the ad that enticed them to click, so capturing that on your landing page will help maintain interest. 
3. Ask only for information you absolutely need to convert the visitor. If you want visitors to download something, you don’t need a mailing address. If you do need a mailing address for delivery, help the user out by pre-populating some information. With some technical know-how a zip or postal code will provide you with a city, province, and street information. Ask for the postal code first, and then pre-populate the rest of the form. 
4. Stay focused! A landing page is meant to achieve one goal and one goal only.  Don’t be tempted to talk about other products or services. The time to cross promote is after the user completes the task and lands on a ‘Thank You’ page.
5. Building a customized landing page for different campaigns, mediums, and even referral sites can significantly improve your results. For instance, when designing a landing page for a search campaign be sure to use the campaign keywords prominently on your landing page. This will re-enforce the relevancy of the landing page’s message. After all, those are the exact words the visitor typed into the search engine. 

Test, Measure, Test

Now you’ve worked hard with your design team, copywriters, and marketers to put together a winning landing page in time for your campaign launch. Unfortunately, you’re not done yet. In order to build the best landing page possible you have to test, measure, then test some more. By leveraging your web analytics numbers and some free industry tools like Google’s Web Site Optimizer you can change some elements on your landing page (like images, sign-up form, submit button, and copy) to determine what page converts the best. If you’re not testing, you’re leaving conversions (and money) on the table. 

If you employ all these elements you’ll be sure to get the most out of your Emarketing dollar. More importantly you’ll have the numbers to back it up and you’ll look like a rock star at the office!