A Landing Page is Not an Order Page
By
Leon Altman
To explain my
point I need to first confuse the issue a bit
(you’ll see why): While a landing page
is not an order page, it can, and in many cases
should, contain the order form.
So what is the
difference? Is this just a question of semantics?
Actually, there is a big difference and it can
have a big effect on your conversion rate. Generally,
the order page is another page on your website.
As such, it will have links to other parts of
your site. Since someone who comes to the order
or signup page often comes from other parts
of your site, and has looked at descriptions
of your products and service, you can assume
they are ready to buy or sign up. When that
is the case, there is little need to go into
much sell, if any, before getting to the form
prospects need to fill out.
Prospects who
come to your site after seeing your marketing
communications, online or offline, are in a
different mindset. Generally, they are not prepared
to buy or sign up yet. They need a landing page
that includes some sell before seeing the order
form. Confronting this prospect with the order
form or signup form too early, before they feel
prepared, can seem presumptuous and you can
easily lose this prospect.
How much sell
is needed depends on the communications prospects
came from. A short ad or text link dictates
longer sell than a lengthy article or direct
mail letter. Another factor in how much sell/information
copy is needed before asking for the order is
the complexity of your product or the offer.
Say the prospect
came from a longer marketing communications
piece, either an article or a direct mail letter.
While this prospect has more information than
the one who comes from a short ad, there still
needs to be some sell, even if it is to just
quickly reiterate the benefits and make the
prospect feel smart for coming to the landing
page and taking advantage of your offer.
And in all cases,
the landing page must be consistent with the
marketing piece. If the prospect is suddenly
confronted with a landing page that seems different
or just doesn’t seem to connect with the
piece they came from, a number of unfortunate
things happen. There is a credibility gap. The
prospect senses this is different and becomes
on guard. And you lose the momentum of the sell,
where one benefit leads to another until the
close.
Let’s say
you’ve determined the length of the sell
copy on the landing page. At this point, there
is a crucial decision to be made. After the
sell, do you put the order form or signup form
on the same page or have prospects click to
go to another page to fill out the form?
There are two
opposing prospect tendencies to deal with. The
more clicks a prospect needs to go through to
get to the order or signup, the more likely
the prospect will not continue. On the other
hand, make prospects do too much scrolling and
you’ll lose a certain percentage of them.
In addition, if there is too much copy and graphics
on a page, there is the danger that the page
looks too cluttered and intimidating.
There is no cookie-cutter
solution. Generally, it is preferable to have
the order form on the same page as the preceding
sell copy; that is, on the landing page. Having
said that, there are numerous cases when having
prospects click to go to a separate order page
is better.
So you see, a
landing page is an important, yet flexible,
stage in the selling process. Always keep in
mind the marketing piece the prospect came from
and develop your landing page accordingly.
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Leon Altman is
an Internet marketing consultant. To learn more
about his services, go to www.OnlineMarketingExpress.com
. To inquire about using his services , write
to leon@OnlineMarketingExpress.com
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