I’m flipping through my notes from WordCamp last week, looking for a session that could directly benefit our AWG retail members. This guy, Mat Casner, really drew a big crowd considering his session was next to last at 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon. Mat first caught my attention by asking the audience, “How many of you work for someone who would like more customers?” I raised my hand. After that I was pretty much glued to his every word, which I put in italics below.
Customer Acquisition is a Constant Cycle
- Get Attention: They must be aware of your existence
- Convert Attention: They must like something of value you are offering
- Keep Attention: They must be willing to trust you enough to risk a financial investment in exchange for value
The key to any business relationship is trust. It is our responsibility to reduce as many barriers as possible that are keeping your customers from trusting you.
Here, I’d like to insert further focus on “barriers”. Your customers today rely on multiple mediums to get information. Gone are the days of only putting promotions in a print ad. An example of an barrier could be a customer who forwards your store’s weekly email to a friend because they keep complaining how they don’t get your ad in the mail any more. Your promo should be on your print ad, website, email, social media and any other digital tool you have a subscription to avoid customer barriers.
What is a Landing Page?
A special page used to persuade a person to give you a piece of personal information in exchange for something valuable that you have to offer with the hope of building trust with the person.
Anatomy of a Landing Page:
- Offer (lead magnet, freebie, etc)
- Headline
- Relevant Image
- Call to Action
- Simple Optin Form
Keys to a great Landing Page:
- Remove all distractions – This includes a website’s header, navbar and footer.
- Write a compelling header
- Create a valuable offer
- Use a relevant photo (that matches your message)
- Use a Simple Form (don’t require a ton of information, email, maybe first name)
- Communicate a clear call to action
- Don’t talk about the problem. Talk about the effects of the solution.
- Make sure your landing page speaks the same language of the referring page/ad (images, colors, terms)
I’m glad I attended this session because I’ve made several landing pages for our AWG retail members, and expect to make many more in the future. Mat has some good reminders which give better perspective when the choices can get overwhelming. He then went a bit further with suggestions like avoiding website branding on landing pages which reinforce what he taught that makes sense to me now.
