The landing page is an integral part of any content strategy but it is often misunderstood and poorly executed. At its simplest level the landing page is the web page someone sees after clicking a link to your website. How people get to the landing page, what they see on the landing page and what they do next are the basic parts of the landing page process. As a HubSpot Partner I encourage my clients to use the integrated landing page tools but even if you do not use HubSpot, the basic layout of the landing page, its uses, and the processes and techniques of implementing the landing page are the same.
This blog was inspired by a presentation I recently made to the Seattle HubSpot Area Group. You can see my presentation, Stick the landing page! How to flawlessley execute a HubSpot landing page from beginning through the end. This blog fills in the blank spots and covers the purpose and use of the landing page; the basic layout of the landing page and thank you page; building the Landing Page in HubSpot; and the landing page conversion process. Included are links to more landing page resources. You can see the presentation here:
The landing page is a conversion tool. The goal of the landing page is to convert visitors to either buy a product or service, or to give you information such as a name and an email address, that can be used in future marketing campaigns. If you want to build your newsletter email list, find people who may be potential customers or to sell a product you will need to use a landing page.
People find your landing page by following links that tell them about about valuable content, a product or a service that they may be interested in. For example, they may be reading a blog on home refinancing and see a link to download a "Free Guide to Easy Home Finance." When they click the link they will get to the landing page about the free guide to easy home finance. There they will be asked to submit their name and email address to be able to download the free guide. If they are interested enough in the information they will do just that. The role of the landing page is to convince the visitor that the guide is worth the price of their name and email. Of course the price they pay may be different depending upon the offer. They may be asked to pay $19.99 for a product or they may be asked for detailed, but relevant information for an hour-long free consultation. The role of the landing page is to convince the visitor to submit the information to get the content, product or service.
The link to the landing page can originate in many places such as:
If someone follows one of these links and they do not land on a relevant landing page they usually do not follow through. For example, if they follow the link to a "Free Guide to Easy Home Finance," and they land on the home page of a mortgage company or a generic "contact us" page, they usually will not follow through.
There are basically two types of landing pages: The Lead Generation landing page and the Sales Conversion landing page.
Lead generation conversion landing pages are used to collect useful data on prospects. You can attract visitors to your landing page by offering valued content in exchange for their name and email address. For example, if you are looking for people who may need to refinance their home you may have an eBook on "Easy Home Refinancing." When your visitor lands on the your page they will read information about how great your eBook is be told how they can download it for free after filling out a simple form. The form may simply ask for their name and email address. For more valuable content the form may ask for more information such as: they are planning to refinance in the next year, or the value of their home. With this information you can send follow up marketing emails to your prospect or give your sales team a qualified lead.
The Sales Conversion landing page encourages your visitor to make a purchase. This can be anything from making a purchase in your eCommerce store to signing up for a paid seminar or buying your services. It is usually clear that the next step will be that the visitor be asked to give their credit card information and make a purchase.
Like the Landing Page the Thank You Page has some very specific elements.
In the HubSpot landing page tool you can also set it up to automatically send a thank you email when the form is submitted. The thank you email should exactly mirror the Thank You Page. Thank the visitor for their submission, give them a link to the material and re-engage them with new content. If for some reason they do not get to the thank you page, or they cannot get your offer, they will have your email. This will also help accustom the visitor to receive emails from you or your company.
Landing Page Flow Chart
To review, the landing page is part of a process that converts visitors into either customers or prospects. This flow chart shows the main steps.
Landing pages are an integral part of the inbound marketing process and have always been part of the HubSpot platform. The landing pages are designed to work with the entire platform, including contacts, lists, Calls-to-Action, and campaigns.
Landing pages can be accessed in Marketing > Content > Landing Pages.
There you will be asked to create a new landing page. HubSpot will provide a default Landing Page design that should fit into your website theme. If you don't see any templates you like and you can always go back to Marketing > Content > Design Manager and build a new landing page. If you do not know where to start there are a number of paid and free templates just for landing pages. Go to Marketing > Content > Marketplace > Storefront and filter for landing page templates to find one that works for you. When you install it the template will then be available in your Landing Page set up page. Remember that a good landing page layout will not include your website's main navigation window.
Building your landing page is exactly like building a web page or a blog in HubSpot. There will be modules for adding your headline, content, images and your form. Since this is covered in detail in other places I will not spend time here covering this. You can go here and visit the HubSpot Academy for details on How to create and edit website pages. There are a few details unique to the landing page that must be included.
The form is an essential part of the landing page. This is where you gather the information you need from your visitor. You can use an existing form or build a new form just for this landing page. Forms are quick and easy to make. Visit the HubSpot Academy for more details on building forms.
If you need to build a new form for this landing page they can be found under Marketing > Contacts > Forms. You can build a new form that includes standard contact fields associated with contacts such as name, email and address, or fields associated with their company or organization such as company website or number of employees. If there is no field in the database you can create new ones specific to the information you need. For example, if you were screening for people who need home refinancing you make a field that asks if they own a home, or what is their annual income. After the form is filled out this information will be associated with the contact. One of the options when you are building the form is to set up the default notification email.
Once someone fills out a form they become a contact and contacts can be filtered by the forms they fill out. It is also possible to build a Smart List with contacts who fill out a specific form. For example you could build a smart list of contacts who have filled out 3 forms on a specific topic or answered a question in a specific way.
You will need to set up a separate thank you page. You can do this as a separate web page or as a separate landing page with a thank you page template. Once you set up the separate landing page there is a field on the left side of the Landing Page tool that says: What should a visitor see after submitting your form? Here you should direct them to the Thank you Page you just created. Do not choose "Display an inline thank you message." This is a pop up that says "thank you." If your thank you page is not on the HubSpot platform put the Thank You Page URL in the field called: "Redirect to external URL."
Under "Form Submission notifications" you can put in new notification emails. Otherwise the notification email will be sent to the default email used when the form was set up.
You need to set up a new follow up email. If you already have an email made you can select the "Send a follow-up email" block and select an email from the drop down list. If you have not already set up an email, click the "Add new" button or go to Marketing > Content > Email and set up a new email for this landing page. Remember the email should contain the same information as the Thank You Page. For more information about HubSpot's email tools please read HubSpot's Academy pages: Email User Guide and How to create and send emails.
If you subscribe to the Marketing Professional or Enterprise levels of HubSpot you can assign contacts who submit a form to a workflow. Visit the HubSpot Academy and read learn more about Workflows.
The Call-to-Action tool is a great way to create and track Call-to-Action buttons and links. You can set up a CTA to automatically link to your new landing page and put them in blogs and pages around your website. For more information see the Call to Action users Guide in HubSpot Academy.
Once you have published a landing page HubSpot makes it easy to promote the landing page with the Social Media Publishing tools. When you compose a new message choose the "attach tool" to attach one of your landing pages. Learn how to how to promote your content with the social publishing tool in the HubSpot Academy.
We have covered just the basics about landing pages. As with most topics in online marketing, there is a lot of information and a lot to learn. For example, we covered the basics of what a landing page should contain, but there are many creative and innovative ways to do this. Many of the links below will show some amazing examples of landing pages and more information on how to make your landing page more effective.
From the Tim Lorang Consulting Blog: