There’s an old aviation adage that claims: “Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.” That may be true for flying, but it doesn’t work so well with marketing. Where your prospects “land” is important.
Marketing people (including us) talk about how important it is to integrate your offline marketing (direct mail, print, catalogs, etc.) with your online presence (your website, your social media, etc.). That’s true, but there is more to integrating your marketing. Simply slapping your home page URL on your mailing, catalog, or print ad isn’t enough.
Let’s return to our aviation example. If you’re flying to the U.S. from Europe, a smooth landing in New York may not be all that thrilling if you you were going to Los Angeles. Sure, you’re in the U.S. but not where you wanted to be.
Let’s return to marketing. If you’ve reached out to prospects with a mailer about a special deal on one of your products or services, you don’t want to simply send them to your home page. They don’t want to read through the information on your home page. They want to get to the specific information that interests them.
How a landing page works
Here’s an example. We know you’re interested in using direct mail to promote your business, so we send you a mailing about how to use direct mail effectively in today’s evolving marketplace. But because we know most people today want to access information instantly, we direct you to our website for specific information. But we won’t send you to our home page. You’d have to hunt around to find what you’re looking for. Instead, we’ll send you directly to the landing page that talks specifically about Best Direct Mail Practices in an Evolving Marketplace.
If you click on the link to look at that page you’ll notice that it doesn’t talk about anything else—even though we do a lot of other things. This page is entirely devoted to the information you want.
There’s a short description reminding you about why you’re there and a quick summary of what you’re getting. Also there’s a clear call to action (“Download this e-book.”). Then, there is a mechanism for doing exactly that: a short form that asks for essential information (and not more than is really needed).
It makes it easy for you. There’s no guessing or searching. You know exactly what you’re going to get. And we get some basic information about you, so that if we can follow up with you to see if the information was helpful—or to see if there is additional information you may want.
Don’t let potential customers crash on your home page. Maybe it’s OK to walk away from a rough plane landing, but walking away from your website is the last thing you want potential customers to do.
