Through a mix of different content marketing activities, it is possible to gain the attention of members of your target audience and, if properly handled, convert them from a prospect into a paying customer. Tweeting, posting on relevant LinkedIn groups, blogging, uploading video material onto YouTube/Vimeo, pay per click (PPC) advertising, direct mailing to your company’s established contact database, or email shots to a database bought in from a suitable media outlet can all be particularly effective ways of doing this. If your marketing team combines compelling content and well thought out calls-to-action they should potentially be able to draw interested parties to your website. That’s great – it will raise your website traffic, however that alone is really not enough.
There are various different metrics that all look very promising – large numbers of visitors to your website, a sizeable number of followers on Twitter or YouTube subscribers. However, none of this automatically brings in any new revenue or expands your client base.
Getting people to visit your website is just the start; you can’t subsequently leave them wandering around aimlessly (with minimal chance for you to engage with them). You need to be able to shepherd interested individuals to purpose-built landing pages that deal with the specific topic they are curious about.
Construction of landing pages will enable your company to implement a more effective mechanism via which to generate sales leads and also increase the ratio for converting leads into customers. This focussed approach ensures that website visitors are guided to the page (or pages) most likely to prove beneficial to them. This will increase the chances of them getting the material they need to make informed purchasing decisions. Furthermore, it will allow you to obtain data about them so that you can develop the supplier/prospect relationship and draw them into your sphere of influence.
After drawing people to one of your landing pages (via an email shot or social media post) your company has the opportunity to offer an item of value to them in return for registering (completing a short form giving some basic contact information). Studies have shown the buyers’ guides, case studies, application tips and industry research are all likely to prove very appealing to potential customers. If the item offered has a limited time/quantity associated with it, it is likely to be perceived to have a greater worth too.
How a landing page is set out is important. Its look and feel should be conducive for maximising the number of people who will register. If the landing page is too complex, it will lead to confusion. This could result in visitors leaving before they have imparted any information. It is therefore advised that the content on the landing page (including title, core text and imagery) is consistent with the content that brought them to this page in the first place. Other items can be placed on the landing page to help encourage visitors to register – such as bullet points underlining the value proposition to those registering, a short informative video, customer endorsements, or an infographic.
Each landing page should be focused solely on the specific area that visitors have expressed an interest in – links to other parts of the site can often serve as a distraction. If you already have them in a position where they want to learn more about a particular subject, diverting their attention somewhere else may be unwise. They might go off to another part of your website and not end up coming back to this page. As a precautionary measure, you might just want to place a couple of buttons for your main social media channels at the bottom of the landing page. This will mean that if they feel they are not quite ready to give you their contact details they may still decide to follow you on Twitter or LinkedIn (allowing them to see more of your content in the future).
For additional tips from Pinnacle Marketing on how to construct more effective landing pages why not request our ‘Maximising B2B Lead Generation through Better Content Marketing’ eBook. Click here
