Landing Page Optimization: 11 questions to ask about your landing pages to increase conversion
We frequently receive questions from our email subscribers asking marketing advice. Instead of hiding those answers in a one-to-one email communication, we occasionally publish edited excerpts of some of these conversations here on the MarketingSherpa blog so they can help other readers as well. If you have any questions, let us know.
While most of those questions are to a general MarketingSherpa customer service inbox, this email was sent directly to Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director and CEO, MECLABS Institute (parent organization of MarketingSherpa). The email has been stripped of any identifying information but includes general information that will likely be helpful to many of our readers.
Dear Flint McGlaughlin: I have been watching your videos, including:
- “The Power of Perceived Value,”
- “The High-Performance Landing Page,”
- “Why 80% of the Words on our Webpages are Wrong (Parts 1-3),”
- “Reprioritize Your Marketing Spend and Transform Your Results,”
- “Aligning the Brand with the Value Proposition,” and
- “The 21 Psychological Elements that Power Effective Web Design (Parts 1-3)”
Based on these videos, I’ve been putting together a treatment on our current landing page. We did not change much design-wise, but the main points I’ve tried to address are:
- Changing the personality of the page … i.e., toning down the direct-marketing “hype” voice on the page and presenting information more objectively
- Communicating the value proposition in a way that hopefully is more credible
- Using short testimonials to make specific claims instead of just bullets by an anonymous copywriter
- Trying to increase the overall credibility of the page with more evidence spread throughout —not just in the form of testimonials but also data on the underlying science, quantitative evidence, customer satisfaction and awards.
I am wondering if you might be willing to look at it and give me your immediate feedback and perhaps refer me to anything in your videos or book which I might not be understanding or using correctly.
I am not looking for free copy editing, more just feedback whether it looks like I am applying these principles correctly or not. Obviously testing is going to help determine if we have the right value proposition and appeal.
If you have a chance to do this, I would be extremely grateful 🙂 Thank you!
And here is Flint’s (generalized) response, which I thought would be helpful for many marketers, especially anyone focused on conversion rate optimization or landing page optimization…
Dear Reader: I don’t have enough information to give you proper guidance, but I would like to understand your thinking. I focused on the top two sections.
These are the questions that intrigue me as I look at the treatment and the control:
Who is the intended audience?
- Who is the intended audience?
- How do they think?
- What are they afraid of?
- What are they attracted to?
- What experiences have they had in the past that might lead them to view this page?
- Most importantly, where are they in the thought sequence from unbeliever to believer?
What is the hypothesis?
- What is the hypothesis of the control?
- What is the hypothesis of the treatment?
I can recommend a lecture where I teach how to form hypotheses if you’re not sure how to answer this question, but each hypothesis should have four key components. Indeed, you speak of the science of the mind. This is precisely what I have been studying for 30 years. I focus on metanoia, a Greek word that relates to the change from one stasis to another. With laymen, I use the word conversion. I point this out because it is so tightly connected to my next question.
What is the trigger?
- What is the trigger that stimulates the internal shift from one stasis to another as it relates to your movement?
What is the spine?
- What is the spine that connects each section of the control and the treatment?
I’d be careful of the words “dear friend” in the control — it doesn’t sound genuine. I wouldn’t say anything that doesn’t sound true, and these people are not your friends yet. Calling them a friend is a sales technique that throws people off. I think that was a good change in the treatment. On the other hand, the letter provides a sequential flow. It needs significant improvement, and it doesn’t last long enough. It gets to the testimonials (the “why”) before people understand the “what.”
Video use?
The final question (and I have many more):
- What keeps you from using video, and how could video support what you’re doing in a much more powerful way?
I do not like focus groups except to answer “why” questions. People are horrific at predicting their own behavior. Most focus groups lead marketers astray. The exception may be this: asking someone why they behave a certain way, what was on their mind, what worried them, and what attracted them. This can be powerful. I believe that you need to get clear on the segments. You need separate landing pages for each segment, and you may want to speak very carefully for those who have recently changed in stasis — who have experienced metanoia, who have begun the journey.
I would certainly like to write more, and I would certainly like to ask more, but I am afraid that if I don’t get this note out to you, I won’t keep my promise. I despise breaking a promise. Whatever you do, I wish you well.
In any event, I am impressed with the way that you’re engaging with the content, grappling to understand it. That sets you apart from most marketers. Keep up the good work.
Flint
Dear Flint: Thank you so much for the extremely kind and thoughtful response — I really, really appreciate it!
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If you would like the chance to get actionable conversion marketing advice from Flint McGlaughlin in an upcoming MarketingExperiments lecture broadcast, you can send us your information using the form on this page.
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Categories: Marketing B2B content marketing, B2C, b2c marketing, conversion marketing, landing page optimization, web design
