By In order to start converting website visitors into leads, you are going to need landing pages. They are an important cog in the inbound marketing machine where we convert our leads into prospects; gain more insight into our existing leads; capture important lead data and position our brand as experts in our field. Read on for the full low down on the importance of landing pages...
Definition of a landing page
Turning once again to our trusty friends at HubSpot, a landing page is simply defined as:
"...a web page that allows you to capture a visitor's information through a lead-capture form."
In essence, a landing page is where we bring website visitors into our marketing funnel and convert them into leads by offering them something (whitepapers, webinars, free product trials etc) in exchange for a little contact information.
Why do I need landing pages?
Here are five great reasons why you need landing pages:
Landing pages generate new leads
All too often in digital marketing you will find big and small companies using SEO, email marketing and social media to drive traffic to product pages with no data capture or blog posts with no calls-to-action. Every time someone follows this link, the opportunity to generate a new lead has been missed. By driving people to landing pages that offer something valuable, you are well positioned to be able to convert website visitors into leads and begin the process of lead nurturing rather than letting valuable traffic disappear in to the ether.
Give your premium content a home
With so much discussion surrounding content marketing at the moment there are many firms creating good content and just giving it away for free. Now, I'm not saying you need to charge a fee for your premium content, rather you simply need to get something - even just an email address - in exchange for your premium content. The landing page is where you can do just that whilst also optimising the page for lead conversions.
Collect demographic information about your prospects
Every landing page you create presents a new opportunity to learn more about your prospects and leads. Capturing important demographic data will tell you two things: 1) Is the content you are producing reaching the people you want to reach? If not, you might want to reconsider your content strategy. 2) Are these leads worth passing to your sales team? Knowing the size of the company in advance of any sales calls will help reduce time spent on unqualified leads.
Understand which prospects are more engaged
Not only can you see who is engaged with your content through landing page data capture, but if you are using the appropriate marketing software, you can also see who is repeatedly engaging with your content. By utilising different forms and gathering more information each time a lead downloads a new offer you can help to qualify your leads before your sales team contact them, thus reducing unnecessary time spent speaking to people who are not sales ready.
Landing pages can be used in multi-channel campaigns
Content is king is the phrase they keep telling us, so that means we need to have great content. Fortunately for us, our landing pages are the key to merchandising our great content. As such, we can share links to our landing pages via social media channels and through CTAs on our website. We can also use them in our PPC campaigns and in our email marketing messaging. The beautiful thing about each of these routes is that each and every lead will be tracked along the way.
In summary, landing pages are where you take an unknown lead and turn them in to a prospect and add them to your marketing funnel. They have one goal and one goal only: generate new leads. As far as inbound marketing assets go, landing pages are as important as they come.
By Martin Broadhurst
Image credit: One Way Stock