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According to Email Marketing Platform Campaign Monitor, the average landing page conversion rate across all industries – the number of people who will sign up, purchase or convert your offer – is 2.35%. So, the hard truth is that in order to increase sales you must drive more traffic, and qualified traffic costs a fair amount of money.
As advertising costs increase and SEO becomes increasingly competitive, it’s best to tap into the lowest hanging results first: existing landing pages with existing traffic.
Here are five copywriting tips for doing so, and increase the conversion rate of your landing page by 10% or more in the process – five times the number of conversions, and without buying more ads.
1. Talk to an audience
The best landing pages are highly specific and set up in a single sector of an audience or market. They speak directly to their true desires and aspirations.
With extensive landing pages, by contrast, you’re talking to everyone, and “everyone” isn’t a good target market unless you’re selling water. Better to fill multiple visitor types and market segments by creating unique landing pages for each.
For example, suppose you sell small business insurance. Small businesses have a fairly wide market, and can fit into any type of niche, from a local bakery to a hair salon to an online digital marketing agency. Trying to create a single landing page that is impossible to speak directly to all these business pain points. As a result copywriting becomes very common and extensive and the reader does not connect with the message.
So, develop unique landing pages for each section and create craft copies to suit its specific needs.
Related: If you want people to actually see the content you create, follow these steps.
2. Control cadence and flow
Each copy line of a website has two goals: maintaining focus and performing a desired task (such as buying, filling out contact information, or downloading a guide). Cadence and flow are powerful tools to help achieve those goals.
When writing information on your landing page, you want to include a mix of sentence length and structure and change the depth at which you expand the concepts. A good example is the “hero” section of a landing page (pictured above the original title and fold), which should be interesting and contain a compelling price offer. It’s short, sweet and points. (“Deliver groceries within 10 minutes or get your money back.”)
As you move further down the landing page, you can begin to expand to include more details, including an explanation of how your service works. Take them through your business process so that they are clear about what to expect when they convert and sign up with you. The goal here is to mix as much mandatory language as possible when solving potential customer questions.
3. Include instant social evidence
Social proof on a landing page is important, but that doesn’t mean it’s limited to just generic quotes from customers. There are countless ways to incorporate valuable and subtle social evidence signals that encourage conversion and are essential for building trust and confidence.
Consider adding social proof directly to the hero section of your landing page, so this is one of the first things users do when they land on your site. Here are some additional thoughts:
Is your landing page a software company? If so, and under your Call-to-Action (CTA) button, share how many companies have signed up this week to use your software. This creates instant FOMO.
Include company and brand logos that use your product or service.
Include third party reviews / stars from sites like G2, Capterra, Google and Yelp.
Mention how many customers you have served and helped this year or during the company’s lifetime.
Related: 3 Critical Principles of Effective Call to Action
4. Reduce CTA risk
A CTA (“Sign up now”) moment is scary because it implies extra work for the customer rather than immediate price. There are risks associated with this, not least the possibility of signing up but not enjoying the service. There is also a financial risk if you try to get sales directly from a landing page These contribute to the dilemma, which reduces conversion rates and closing sales: people begin to second-guess that they really need, want or can benefit from what you have to offer – and in times of confusion and brief consideration, there are often a few seconds of hesitation. The result of missing an opportunity.
To address these issues, enclose your CTA button with a positive reinforcement statement such as:
“No Credit Card Required.”
“Free trial for XX days.”
“30 day money back guarantee”
বিনামূল্যে “Forever free until you upgrade.”
All of this reassures users that they will be covered even if it doesn’t work out as expected.
5. Specify with copywriting
The biggest mistake I see on landing pages is excessive use of elaborate statements rather than specific results supported by customer data. For example, which statement are you most likely to believe?
A) “Get a good night’s sleep, sure!”
B) “9 out of 10 customers have improved their sleep quality by 65% in 7 days.”
Specific data is far more interesting and influential than broad promises. So, wherever you can, turn blanket statements into data-driven ones that sell your product or service for you. To efficiently collect such customer specific information, Talk to them – Survey them for free products and use feedback to improve perceived quality on your landing page.
Related: Market survey
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