A landing page is an individual webpage that’s designed to capture the contact information of a website visitor. When it comes to a physical product, landing pages are very useful for gauging the interest level of your website visitors.
For example, let’s say a website visitor happens upon my landing page, which offers the ability to subscribe for updates about my upcoming Kickstarter campaign. Of the people who visit that landing page, 1% decide to opt-in for more information about the campaign.
That’s a pretty low conversion rate for opt-ins. That percentage could tell me a few things, like:
- The traffic I’m driving is not relevant or interested in the product.
- My text, images, and video on the landing page is not compelling.
- My product does not solve a problem in the customer’s life.
This valuable information can help me make smarter marketing decisions going forward. I might need to find better traffic sources, improve my sales pitch, or re-think my entire product.
What’s more, I find out all of this before investing valuable time and money!
I’m going to go through a few tips so that you can get the MOST out of the landing page for your physical product.
1. Use Robust Landing Page Software
I’m waiting for the collective groans of my audience. No one likes spending money. However, I do LOVE smartly investing money, because I’m expecting a great return.
I have a few reasons that I use landing page software instead of trying to set up a whole new website or section of my website.
- It’s less hassle. I can create the landing page quickly and choose from a variety of templates.
- You don’t have to be a Google analytics wiz kid. Most landing page softwares come with great analytics that can show you opt-in conversion rates, and more.
- I don’t have to worry about hosting the landing page. When I was young and cocky, I prided myself on my web development skills. I would fix all technical problems related to my website, and it felt cool to be able to make my own side websites. Now a days, I focus on what I do BEST. That way, I don’t have to devote time to worrying about my landing page going down. I don’t have to deal with updates.
There are a few different software tools that you can use to set up a landing page. I use Leadpages, which is what I’ll be focusing on in this blog post.
I recommend Leadpages, but you could also go with options like Unbounce or Instapage. If you have a bit of coding knowledge, you could set up a WordPress website, download a landing page theme, connect your email list software, and install Google Analytics.
2. Craft a Compelling Landing Page
Thankfully, you don’t have to be a world-class graphic designer now a days to make a beautiful landing page. However, you DO need to provide engaging content that will get visitors interested in your product. This includes text, photos, and/or a video.
When I go into Leadpages, I can see the different types of landing pages and sort them by their conversion rates, as you can see below. There are both free and premium templates.
A lot of these landing page templates are focused on giving a way a free digital product, like an ebook, webinar, or online course. Thankfully, you can use the drag and drop functionality of Leadpages to customize these templates to your liking.
To give you an example, I’ve put together a very short page in literally 10 minutes, which you can see below.
Obviously, there needs to be a lot more information, but this simple demonstration shows you how EASY it is to put one together.
3. Offer Something of Value to Landing Page Visitors
There are a lot of ways to offer value to website visitors. The most traditional way is to come up with a “lead magnet” that a visitor will gain access to once they submit their email address.
For example, at the time of writing, I am offering users FREE access to KickstarterForum.org. All they have to do is enter their name and email address.
I don’t spam people. I just send them useful blog posts, videos, podcasts, and information that will help them run a more successful Kickstarter campaign. Of course, this also builds MY brand, because I want to be the go-to crowdfunding resource.
As another example, I included a bonus with my latest book, The Kickstarter Formula. When you purchase the book on Amazon, you’ll also gain access to a FREE video that I put together that explains EXACTLY how to get people to back your crowdfunding campaign.
Pretty cool, huh?
Other lead magnets could include:
- Behind the scenes videos or photos.
- The first to know about a new product.
- Discounts or coupons.
- Bonus content not available to regular customers.
- Free helpful or entertaining content related to the product.
Take a few minutes and brainstorm on a piece of paper a few different lead magnets that you could offer YOUR audience.
4. Measure Conversions and Tweak The Page
When you begin to send traffic to the landing page, you’re going to start getting data about your marketplace. You’ll be able to see how many people visited the page and how many people “converted,” or handed over their email address.
If you believe you’re seeing low conversions, you can tweak the images, call to action, video, text, and the value proposition. You’ll quickly see how it affects your conversion rates.
You can also create an A|B test in Leadpages. This is also called a “split test.” Basically, you’ll be able to create variations of your landing page and see how they perform. This way, you’re not just guessing which page does best. You’ll be able to verify with data and then go from there.
There are a lot of variables that go into a landing page. Unless you’re an expert marketer, I would mainly focus on the value that you’re offering visitors and the wording/images that you use to describe that value.
Small landing page tweaks might cause a small jump in conversions, but the main goal of your page should be to see what percentage of your audience is engaged, which traffic sources are worthwhile, and how you can use that information going forward.
5. Include Only One Call-To-Action
A call-to-action is simply a linked message in your landing page.
I’m as guilty as anyone else when it comes to including lots of links in my content. I want to be as helpful as possible to my readers. But, this will come back to bite you.
You want to measure one metric with your landing page. That metric is whether or not people decide to hand over their email address in exchange for value, and further updates about the product.
If you have a bunch of links in your landing page that all go to different things, it’s going to defeat the purpose of the page.
There should only be two options. Either the visitor decides to subscribe or they decide to close the browser window.
6. Add Social Proof To Boost Credibility
I talked a lot about building social proof in this blog article. In short, social proof is ONE WAY to lower the natural defensive barriers that we all have when we meet a stranger. If other people say or indicate that this stranger is to be trusted, we are more likely to trust them.
If a bunch of people have left testimonials about your product, saying that it’s amazing, this is great social proof. If you’ve gained a ton of organic Instagram followers as a result of sharing your product online, this is also powerful social proof.
Social proof goes beyond numbers. As I explained in my YouTube video on PR, you can also use the logos of trusted companies to appear more credible in the eyes of your website visitors. Oddly enough, you can also leverage the social proof that you’ve created in other areas to get the press to write about you.
When a landing page visitors see that you are credible, they’re more likely to be willing to subscribe for more updates about your product.
7. Test Out a Sales Page
Not gonna lie, this is kind of scary, but I think it’s worth mentioning.
Your landing page is designed to capture the email address of a potential customer. When that person hands over their email, it says “I’m interested!” You then can send them more information and work on building the relationship with your customers.
What a landing page doesn’t do is tell you whether or not a customer will actually buy your product. If you want to measure this metric, you can easily transition your landing page into a sales pages.
Instead of offering updates regarding your product, or some kind of lead magnet, you can quite simply have a “buy” button. If someone clicks that button after looking through all of the information about your product, you could count that as a sale.
As you can see, this would quickly help you determine how many website visitors are actually willing to pay money for your product. If you get a lot of people clicking that buy button at a realistic price point, that’s a REALLY good sign.
Once you have validated that a lot of people are interested in buying your product, you know for a fact that it’s probably a good idea to set up an online store. There are many different online store builders that you can choose from.
Believe it or not, but I did this myself with my latest book! I set up a pre-launch page on Amazon to see how many people were interested in buying the book, even though it hasn’t come out yet.
As you go forward with your physical product, I urge you to collect as much marketing data as you can about your marketplace. This will help you SO MUCH in the future. Even if you can’t analyze it all now, you can always look back and gain an in-depth understanding of key trends among your customers.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a question below! I enjoy interact with blog readers and podcast listeners. Please note that I’m part of the LeadPages affiliate program, so this post contains affiliate links. I used the software long before they opened up the program.
