Landing pages or “lead capture” pages allow you to capture email address that you can use to market your services and sign up new affiliates for your business. Nearly all companies use landing pages, which are also known as “squeeze” pages. These single web pages act a lot like traditional direct mail letters do in the offline world: they bait prospects with just enough information to make them want more.
In the online world, this “conversion” takes place when the viewer clicks on an advertisement, or otherwise interacts with the page (by, say, “clicking here” for more information). Landing pages are great for affiliate marketers because they are supposed to include sales copy. You don’t have to worry about isolating potential customers with a sales pitch, since that’s what landing pages are for.
To come up with an effective landing page, take the time to craft an excellent message for this aspect of your marketing campaign. Do a simple, online search to find out how other affiliate marketing companies are using landing pages.
Both of these landing pages include a fair amount of detail, and then whisk visitors off to the company’s home page for more information. They serve up just enough information to visitors interested, and then make them click through to the company’s website to learn more.
Use a similar approach with your own landing page. When you’re developing it, think about how you can use it to collect names and email addresses to market your business services to. Build relationships with the people on that list, and leverage those partnerships to build your MatchRate PLUS company.
Here are few things that your landing page must do:
- Grab the visitor’s attention: You want individuals who come to your landing page to be wowed by it. There’s too much clutter online already, so don’t add to it. Instead, come up with a compelling design and content that makes visitors want more.
- Sell your product or service: Tell visitors why they need your services, and the value that they’ll get from joining your affiliate network.
- Use a single outbound link: You want to direct people to a website where they can join your affiliate business, so stick to one outbound link that directs them exactly where you want them to go.
- Offer a free report or another hook to get people to opt into your list: Everyone loves freebies. Offering an article, report or other valuable piece of information will get visitors to click through to your website to get their prize.
Enlisting Help
If you don’t know how to create a landing page, there are plenty of marketing and web experts standing by, ready to help. Check out a websites like Elance, Guru or Freelancer.com to find these professionals. You can enter the details of your project and sit back and wait for the bids to come in, or you can actively seek out members of these communities and request bids for your project.
Shop carefully, and look at more than just price. Completion time, past experience and reputation (which you can assess based on the provider’s total number of completed projects and client feedback on those projects) should also come into play when you are selecting a third party to create your landing page.
Don’t be afraid to adjust your landing page if it’s not performing as expected. Maybe you should include a photo of yourself to add credibility, perhaps you need a stronger call to action, or maybe your free offer isn’t strong enough to make visitors want more. Tweak your strategy, use strong content and focus on building a list of prospects.
Here are a few more tips for developing an effective landing page:
• Make every word count. Don’t just add fluff in order to make your page seem longer than it is.
• Stick to font sizes and styles that your prospects are used to reading.
• Don’t go overboard with graphics or videos. Stick to a simple approach that doesn’t clog up the Internet bandwidth and cause your visitors to go elsewhere.
• Have a second set of eyes copy edit your page before publishing it. When you’re writing and publishing it yourself, it’s very easy to make mistakes.
• Be professional at all times. Make your prospect feel comfortable and confident in his or her decision to take the required action (joining your list, clicking through to your company website, and so forth).
• Study your target customers’ needs and address them on a landing page that speaks directly to them, and that includes one or more “calls to action” (as in, click here to order today, or hit this button to sign up for our list).
Testing Your Efforts
Your landing page is not an island. For it to deliver the best marketing results, it must be integrated with your other online and offline advertising methods. Such pages – which are designed to convert site visitors into paying customers – are frequently linked to and from Facebook and Twitter, email campaigns and pay per click (PPC) campaigns, for example.
Once your landing page is set up, market it by writing articles, distributing press releases and creating and uploading online videos that include embedded links to your squeeze page. Drive traffic to the page, and then give visitors a compelling reason to sign up for your list (via your free report or other spiff) once they get there.
Be sure to test your landing page to figure out the best approach. A division of Siemens USA found that testing on a home page improved conversions by 2.3 percent, but that testing on landing pages increased conversions by 115 percent.
Nearly every aspect of your page can be tested, including copy, offers, headlines, forms, bids, colors, designs, lists, and for forth. The testing process removes any doubt as to work is working and what isn’t, and gives you a solid idea about what your prospects do (and don’t) want.
Remember that your goal is to build a targeted list of prospects that you can promote your business to. This is important when you are asking yourself how to market my home business on the Internet.
Experiment with your options, analyze activity and results, and figure out which approach works best for your new business. By creating an effective landing page and adjusting to meet your prospects’ needs, you can tap into an extremely efficient and affordable lead generation channel.
