Tips for creating effective landing page programs

• DO make sure the product or service you're offering is immediately apparent in the headline.

• DO include summary lists of features and benefits.

• DO give your potential customers opportunities to buy more - you might want to up-sell after the customer has chosen to transact.

• DO make sure the site, page, offer and ecommerce gateway are working and test them all regularly throughout the course of the campaign.

• DON'T make creative copy too clever or confusing.

• DON'T have lots of hyperlinks off the page. Try to reduce any distractions you have on the page so so that your visitors can stay focused on the core goals of your current promotion.

• DON'T make your forms and transaction processes (buying and ordering) too complex.

• DON'T just drive traffic to the home page of your website unless there is a strong offer and call to action there. Home pages are unlikely to convert as effectively as specific offer pages.

• DON'T confuse your potential customers! Establish what your core offer or goal is:

  • Online sales

  • Lead generation

  • Enquiries

  • Subscriptions

  • Donations

  • Downloads

  • Branding

The core goal of the Mother & Child website is to sell maternity and baby clothes and toys

Your customers have found you: now what?

A lot of online marketers miss the opportunity to maximise online opportunities with their existing customers or subscription database. Look to constantly grow your database so that you can market directly to your existing customers and subscribers. Be vigilant in adhering to the online privacy laws  and ensure all of your subscribers have easy opt-in and opt-out options.

Weekly or monthly newsletters with regular product discounts and specials have proven to be highly successful for online promotions once a strong database has been established.

The Google Analytics dashboard below illustrates traffic volume peaks for a site that sends out an e-mail newsletter every Thursday. You can see that the web site traffic peaks every Thursday for the month of October.

Step 4. Do the maths!

before you dive in to online marketing campaigns, get out a calculator or open a spreadsheet and work out how much you can realistically afford to spend on your campaign and what you need to achieve to make it profitable.

For example, if you were to budget $500 for paid search:
1. How many leads or sales would you need to generate to get a good return on investment?2. What percentage of the visitors could you realistically expect would take up your promotion? This is know as your 'conversion rate'. If you have a clear understanding of your product's profit margins you can get a good idea of how to manage your online promotions so they are cost effective and profitable.  

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