If you read anything about digital marketing, you will come across landing pages and click funnels. They are both vital to taking a prospect through your sales journey and turning them into a customer.
Though they are similar in looks, they serve different functions along the client path. So which one is right for you? First, let’s have a look at how they work and the best places to use them.
What Is A Click Funnel?
A click funnel is just a fancy word for a digital sales funnel and defines the lead gen process. A funnel usually consists of a series of pages or posts, each one designed to make your prospect take action to progress to the next stage. Access to these pieces of content most often comes from a paid ad (Google, Facebook, etc.) or a social media post.
Marketing funnels are usually designed to capture a massive amount of cold leads at the initial stage and narrow as it goes along until you are left with customers that are hot to do business with you.
If you were to draw the process on a whiteboard, it looks like a funnel in visual form, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. The initial opt-in for potential customers is usually something easy, like providing an email address. Then they move to the next stage, answer a call to action, and move to the next step in the customer journey until they reach the destination that is your ultimate goal. Most times, this involves a purchase from you.
The nature of marketing sales funnels means they can be used to warm up cold leads or provide the perfect opportunity for upselling as you move customers through their journey.
These funnels are an extremely effective sales tool. With the advancements in design tools, the process of building funnels has become more accessible to any business and easier than ever before.
The Benefits Of Setting Up Sales Funnels
Setting up a digital sales funnel has gained massive popularity with people looking for an online marketing solution. Let’s have a look at some of the reasons why.
Collect More Leads
When you think about your target market, it’s important to understand the right pain points every step along the sales process. What piques your prospect’s interest? What do they want the most? Making a list from general to more specific helps outline the basic copy points along your funnel.
Creating ads that appeal to the more general interests of your target market can bring in more prospects and, depending upon your sales cycle, give you more leads to nurture.
Create Relationships
As you capture more leads, you can bring more prospects into your email marketing list where you can hopefully provide enough information to the fence-sitters to eventually turn them into customers.
Upsell More
As prospects nibble at some of your offerings, you can provide more buying opportunities to those that try some of your baseline offerings. Everyone knows that it’s easier to sell someone that’s already had a positive experience with your company than someone who has no knowledge of your business.
When To Use a Sales Funnel
Funnels are perfect for taking customers on a journey. If you need to take someone from a cold prospect through several steps until they become a paying customer, then sales funnels are for you. They are also great if you have multiple services or products you wish to introduce prospective customers to.
What Is A Landing Page?
A landing page is a single web page that sends traffic from online advertising or social media campaigns. It could be your home page or another page on your website, but it’s usually best if you have a page specifically designed for your campaign.
The page’s ultimate goal is to turn visitors into repeat customers who come back to you again and again. That is why it is essential to have a well-designed page.
Most landing pages aim to get visitors to respond to a call to action to keep them engaged. For example, you could be asking them for an email address as part of an effort to keep them engaged. An optimized landing page will allow you to nurture leads until they become paying customers.
Benefits Of A Landing Page
You finally get the prized click on your link after investing all that time and money on online advertising or social media campaigns. What happens then? Enter the landing page, which will be your chance to convince a lead that they want to hear more from you.
A landing page is a gateway your customers see to your business. Here you can talk to your leads and convince them you are worth their time. This page is the place to capture leads and nourish them until they are loyal repeat customers.
Elements Of A Successful Landing Page
There is no strict set of rules to putting together a successful landing page; it is tailored to suit your business, industry, and the image you want to put out into the world. However, there are some elements to landing page design that you should look to include to increase conversions.
A Strong Headline
As the first thing, your customer will see, this is a crucial element to your success. You need to grab their attention straight away, letting them know what your business does and what they can expect from the rest of the page. Ideally, you want to keep this in the 10 to 20 words.
Strong headlines need to be benefit-driven and often pinpoint the unique selling point of your business.
Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
This is where you stand out from your competition. Explain why it is that your product or service is the superior choice. Point out what you’re bringing to the table that others are not.
It is best if you can break your points down to their simplest possible form. Remember, you have only a few seconds to make your case, so bullet points, pictures or videos explaining your product or service are great ways to grab attention. The more engaging you can make your content, the longer a user will spend on your page, and the more chance you will have to turn them into a paying customer.
Customer Testimonials
Visitors to your site are more likely to be converted if you can establish trust with them. The best way to do this is to let people know what your satisfied customers say about you. Showing social proof is an essential element for getting visitors to your page to take action.
Testimonials are best if you have a face along with what they’re saying about your business. It’s even better if those testimonials are from leaders in your industry.
Call To Action
You’ve bought people to your page because you want them to do something. Maybe it’s to join a mailing list, download a PDF, or even “buy now.” Whatever it is, make sure it is clear what the next step is, and make it as easy as possible to take the action.
A clear, obvious call to action (CTA) button should be on your landing page. Ideally, you want something other than “Buy now”. Conversion rates improve if you have a benefit-driven CTA like “Save Money Now” although this can be tough to keep simple (vs huge buttons)
Contact Form
This is the golden pathway to collecting the leads, but so many companies make mistakes here. Far too often, they ask for lengthy and irrelevant information. Ask yourself, “Do I really need all that information right now?”
The key to better conversions (i.e someone actually filling out your form) is to keep things simple. The fewer form fields you have, the better.
When To Use A Landing Page
Landing pages excel when you want a lead to take one particular action. For example, if at this stage you just want someone to subscribe to a newsletter or download a PDF or a similar single action, then you should be using a landing page.
Should I Use A Funnel Or A Landing Page?
The question most business owners want to be answered is which one will work for your marketing campaign? If you want to introduce multiple products or services or upsell different items all in the one experience, then funnels should be your choice. They can also be used as a sales funnel to take cold leads on a journey to become paying customers.
If, on the other hand, you just want a prospect to take a single action, such as joining a mailing list, then a landing page is your tool of choice.
Of course, situations are rarely so simple, and often you will end up using some combination of both, where a landing page is used to entice a prospective customer to enter your funnel.
If you need help with any aspect of your digital marketing, call the staff at Make It Loud. Our goal is simple- we want to help you make more money. We’re not successful until you are.
