How to Make the Perfect Landing Page for your Small Business

If you’ve been running an online business in recent years, chances are you’ve heard the term “landing page.” 

Contrary to popular belief, a landing page isn’t your homepage. An effective landing page is a standalone powerhouse that specializes in converting site visitors into precious leads. 

Specifically, a landing page is where you direct potential customers when they click on a link promotional link embedded in your email or any other marketing channel. Once visitors reach the page, they’ll receive a prompt to exchange personal information for exclusive goodies. And since you’re supposed to attract each visitor, your landing page should never contain distractions (site navigation links, we are looking at you). 

While landing pages mean a lot to all companies, it’s a game-changer (as cliched as it sounds) for small businesses. Landing pages are a surefire way to send your treasured first-time audience right down the slippery slopes of your sales funnel — as long as you pay heed to some critical design elements. 

A Polished Headline 

What’s in a headline? Essentially, it is the core message you need to convert your visitor, conveyed with the fewest possible words. Try to limit your headline to five words (or ten words at max, but that’s pushing it). If you need to clarify your offerings further, use a sub-headline or the first paragraph of your landing page copy. 

For example, a headline could read, “Sign up for the Perfect Chatbot,” while your sub-headline follows up with “a revolutionary tool powered by the latest AI technology.” A lengthy headline will lose your visitor’s attention fast, so avoid it at all costs. 

Visuals Are Your Friends

Few people enjoy parsing through a wall of text. Your visitors are more likely to pass on a hot deal than comb through the jungle of words on a landing page. For the best results, add visuals to beautify your offer — anything from brand logos to graphics, videos, and gifs. Create a visual treat that gains attention immediately and make full use of white space. They offer visitors breathing room to ponder over the deal and let the details sink in before giving the go-ahead.  

Optimize Your Form

An incredible landing page for small businesses should cut to the chase. Specifically, use a well-vetted and concise digital form. Rather than asking for the moon, keep your questions practical/reasonable. If your business involves educational software for preschoolers, there’s no need to ask about dad’s position in the office. Keep your fields relevant, and visitors will be more willing to complete the form and give you that conversion. 

Don’t Forget the Buttons

Sure, underlined or emboldened CTA text might draw some attention. But if your small business aims to rally the crowd toward action - you’ll need some well-designed CTA buttons. Also, the CTA text plays a part in generating interest. You should avoid vapid, passive button texts like “sign up” for something more conversational such as “I’m up for it!”

Quality marketing for small businesses is all about visitor engagement, and stunning landing page buttons will do just that. 

Digital Rain Inc. — Landing Pages that Pop

You might come up with the most alluring landing page, but your efforts are in vain without a measurable system. With advanced platforms like HubSpot, you can monitor the effectiveness of your landing page conversions and justify that landing page ROI. 

If you dread content-building semantics and how to make your landing page work without copious risks, then Digital Rain has got the answers. Our talented and dedicated team has the experience and expertise to create an incredible landing page that evokes the spirit of your brand. That’s why 9 out of 10 unicorns choose Digital Rain for their branding strategies. 

So, let’s start the conversation for that conversion. Contact us to learn How to make a legendary Landing Page for your small business.

5 Key Ingredients to Rock a Great Email Campaign

The modern technological age has brought about a new era in marketing. Social media campaigns are taking the world by storm and millions solely focus their efforts there. Yet, marketing rock stars know to not forget one of the best conversion opportunities in the game – the email. Social media might take the cake for hottest marketing tool, but still pales in comparison to the mighty email! According to Campaign Monitor, email campaigns bring 174% more conversions and 40x the customer acquisitions than social media. Moreover, at a return on investment (ROI) of $44 for every $1 spent, emails boast great bang for buck.

So, it’s no secret that email campaigns are a great tool for the success of any business. Yet, why do so many nevertheless struggle to get conversions with email marketing? With data this strong, many businesses are surprised when their campaign doesn’t take off. In this blog, learn the 5 key ingredients to rock a great email campaign that yields high conversion rates!

1. Personalize the Subject Line

The subject line is a huge determining factor to whether or not your email even gets opened. If it seems like spam or irrelevant, it will likely go unread. To combat this, a personalized subject line sets you apart from being just noise. Data from Experian shows that emails with personalized subjects perform a lot better than those without. Emails with customized subject lines have a 29% higher open rate and an increased click through rate (CTR) of 41%.

2. Know Your Buyer Persona

The age-old question of business – who is your target audience? In other words, the specific people who would most likely want your product or service, and as a result, respond positively to your email. The number one rule of any great email campaign is to know your audience. You wouldn’t send a twenty-year-old male an email about a Mother’s Day spa sale, because you wouldn’t get any purchases. An email sent to the right customer demographic will increase your chances at high conversion rates.

The better you know your buyer persona, the better equipped you will be to engage them. This includes demographic information, interests, likes and dislikes, and behavioral patterns. Marketing experts aim to understand their audience and what they respond best to. This enables them to send highly-effective messages tailored precisely to those likely to convert.

3. Change It Up a Little Bit

Are potential customers failing to open your first email? Analyzing and periodically updating your email campaign is crucial to its success. If you’re getting poor results, various factors can be influencing engagement. However, there’s no need to scrap an entire email just because of a few poor results. This process is about experimenting with the different aspects of your email until you find what works. For example, you can:

• Optimize your preheader text. This is the content your audience can read before opening your email. Does your preheader text sound robotic? Does it entice your audience with an offer? Is the content relevant and engaging? Ask yourself what can be done to captivate their attention.

• Change up your subject line. Keep your text short, try to include a name or a more personalized touch, and get prospects excited about what’s inside.

• Pay attention to your send time. The day and time you send marketing emails will greatly affect open rate and CTRs. Keep your audience and product in mind, and don’t be afraid to experiment until you find the time that works best.

• Don’t resend it straight away. The same email sent too soon could mean a one-way ticket to the spam folder. Ideally, you should wait for 3-5 days before you resend the same email to non-openers.

4. Short and Sweet is the Perfect Treat!

Nobody likes opening an email to find a wall of text. Especially when a majority of email opens are done with smartphones on-the-go. Studies by emailmonday have found that 61.9% of all email opens are done from mobile phones. Additionally, 3 out of 5 consumers check their email while on the move. So, if you don’t captivate the buyer’s attention from the get-go, you likely lost at the starting line.

Keep your email short and straight to the point to help your customer consume and digest the content easier. Don’t be afraid to add in an extra pun or catchy zinger, but make sure it’s on point to the theme of your email. To take this one step further, trying adding a photo or gif. Adding visuals can convey a lot without much text, so they’re always a plus.

5. Clear Call-To-Actions

Never underestimate the power of a strong call to action (CTA). At this point, you have the knowledge to skyrocket your open rates. However, this won’t matter if prospects aren’t clicking through to the next step. This is where the CTA comes into play!

A great CTA is composed of two things – a visual element and appealing content. A CTA should stand out in your email. Whether it be a button, highlighted text, or even a gif, just be sure your CTA is easily noticeable. Now that all eyes are where you want them, use a clear and enticing phrase to solidify the click. A CTA should use concise, action-oriented language, with bonus points for creating a sense of urgency. A killer CTA will grab your customers attention and ultimately increase your conversion rate. Here are some great and effective example CTAs:

• Shop now

• Start saving today

• Shop now. Get 40% off

• Get 40% off now

• Learn more

• Get a free demo today

• Start today

• Claim your coupon

• 40% off today only

• Register now

• Start your free trial now

5 Ways to Brand Like a Boss

By Lindsay Kwaselow

1. Be Insanely Unique. This involves diving in and studying what your competitors are doing and do whatever it takes to set yourself apart from the ordinary, monotonous landscape. Do not be vague in your branding approach, but rather zero in on the qualities (or single quality) that simply makes your brand better. According to Entreprenuer.com, “Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.” The actual definition of branding involves a marketing practice that identifies, and more than anything, differentiates a product from other products.

Being unique also requires reflecting your own personal values and underlying principles within your brand itself. First you have to identify, what makes your brand or company tick? What do you stand for? What makes you special? Stay true to yourself and to your brand and your audience will follow. This creates a personal experience and today, the experience really is everything. 

2. Be a Thought Leader. Don’t act like a know it all. You don’t know it all, so act like a leader. Leaders lead by example. Leaders have an impact on others because they don’t just step outside of the box, they skyrocket themselves up and out of the box. They recognize and talk about companies across industries that have altered and improved the way consumers buy goods and services. Leaders recognize their strengths and dispose of their weaknesses. Better yet, they forget about their weaknesses entirely. Find your strength - one single thing you can do better than anybody else, and RUN with it. There is no such thing as a “Jack of All Trades.” So be a master of something. Own whatever that is, and do it in a way that differentiates your brand from the clutter and the competition.

3. Bleed Trustworthiness and Transparency. Despite the saying, “Fake it ‘til you make it,” you can’t fake being honest. Think of your brand as the promise you make to your customers – and you better intend on always keeping that promise if you’d like to sleep well at night, or more importantly, stay in business. How many people trust Amazon’s purchase process due to the brand they’ve built and the way they’ve changed the game? Everyone trusts the service they provide, and if you’re a Prime member, you trust your package will arrive at your doorstep within two business days. Amazon is in fact so transparent, and their customer base is so incredibly loyal, that they have actually forced the United States Postal Service to work on Sundays. Now that’s some bossy, powerful branding!

4. Start a Serious, Eternal Relationship with Mobile & Social. It’s simple. Your brand needs to be present where and how your customers spend their time. For the first time in history, time spent using mobile apps has actually exceeded the time consumers spend watching T.V. This is huge. We’ve seen studies that show results of consumers spending an overwhelming (and somewhat alarming depending on how you view it) amount of their time on their mobile devices. Here are a few stats to let that settle in:

·      According to TechCrunch, “Today’s consumers are spending over 85% of their time on their smartphones using native applications, but the majority of their time – 84% – is spent using just five non-native apps they’ve installed from the App Store.”

·      TechCrunch also reports that for social apps, Facebook in particular takes up a large chunk of mobile usage time. “As a category, social networks claim 14% of all smartphone usage – or more than 25 minutes per day. Facebook is the leader here, with 1.25 billion mobile monthly active users.”

·      Mobile usage occurs on the go in most cases and is often used to compare prices while physically shopping at a store or showroom. A Placed Inc. and Cars.com study reported, 63% of automotive shoppers researched and shopped online while physically at a dealership using their mobile device.

·      In 2013, ComScore reported, “Consumers are spending 1-out-of-3 minutes of all online browsing time on mobile devices and that activity is only expected to increase." - And that was 2 years ago (which is like a decade in digital time). 

5. Do Not Underestimate the Untouchable Power of Your Logo. Your logo is the essential core, the foundation, the attributable starting point for the launch of your brand’s absolute, complete identity. In a word, your logo is everything, and it should be everywhere it can possibly be. Furthermore, there is something about simplicity that is a common denominator amongst the most powerful and successful brands ever created. Interbrand compiled a list of the top 100 brands across the world based on the their overall value and yearly revenue. The list included obvious game changers like Coca-Cola, Nike, Apple, and Google.

The Logo Factory then conducted a study analyzing the logo designs of each company to determine what they had in common. They revealed, “93% of the top 100 brands had a logo design that was relatively simple in form, and this is not a result of coincidence.” According to DesignBuddy.com, “Simple logos are unquestionably more versatile than their more intricate and detailed counterparts.” If your brand is just starting out, first devote your energy entirely into your logo in order to choose one single, simple, solitary symbol that defines who you are and what you represent.

…And that’s how you brand like a boss!

What Can Neuroscience Teach us About Branding?

By Lindsay Kwaselow

Neuroscience is defined as the study of the nervous system or the study of our subconscious reactions within the brain. How can this possibly relate to improving the way we market on mobile? There’s surprisingly a lot to consider when it comes to how the human brain processes data and visual stimulation from one screen or device to the next. By studying the activities that happen within our subconscious minds when shown an ad, we can thus derive data and make justified conclusions that will ultimately enhance the way we visually market our ads to make them more impactful.

Sharethrough, an advertising software company for publishers, commissioned Nielsen to conduct a study in hopes of determining how consumers visually react to, and process mobile ads. The problem with so many survey-based conducted mobile studies is that they only tap into the consumer’s conscious responses. By leveraging neuroscience in conjunction with EEG data and eye tracking, Nielsen was able to quantify where and how the participants’ focus was directed when viewing various mobile ads. Sharethrough reported how important it is to incorporate the subconscious behaviors of consumers, as “the subconscious is the motivating force behind many of our actions, including which brands we buy from.”

Eye tracking specifically evaluates how people visually interact with text or online banner ads. Companies who leverage eye tracking can use it to evaluate the impact of their visual products. According to EyeTracking.com, “The fields of advertising, entertainment, packaging and web design have all benefited significantly from studying the visual brain behavior of the consumer.”

Key Findings:

1.      Native ads, or ads that are coherent with the other media displayed on a device or webpage (such as a feed-based design) were shown to receive twice the visual focus than standard banner ads. The study concluded, “Across native ads and banners, eye gaze appeared to be consistently more concentrated on the native, even though both formats were placed in-feed.” 100% of the top ten most successful mobile sites use a feed-based design. 

2.      Native ad headlines can be enhanced to trigger associations within the brain. Words displayed on an associative network that are similar to words included in the headline of an article resulted in a lift in message resonance and was also shown to subconsciously influence brand perception.

3.      Marketers should always include key branding assets such as logos, keywords and consistent messaging, as Nielsen found that including these assets will facilitate the formation of brand associations within the human brain, and heighten your brand’s lift and influence.

4.    Native, feed-based ads provide markers with an increased rate of capturing audience attention – with the visual focus more so on the text of the ad than on the corresponding image. This heightened focus helps advertisers to create a network of branding assets and related words in the conscious and subconscious minds of their potential customers – ultimately strengthening overall brand perceptions.

“Each adjective or noun in a headline—including the brand name—is stored in an associative network of related concepts. Activating one concept automatically triggers the others, strengthening those connections over time,” says Sharethrough. As mobile adoption evolves and consumers continue shopping and learning on their mobile devices in real time, at exponential rates - remember that native ads effectively demand the focus and attention of the brain.

Mobile users are, for lack of a better word, distracted. According to NativeAdvertising.com, “In the last 15 years, the human attention span dropped a third, to about eight seconds (now a second shorter than a goldfish)! In a lot of ways, this is a response to the increase in stimuli we are bombarded by on a daily basis, from email and social media to smartphone notifications and of course: ads.”

Steps must be taken to ensure your ad stays afloat in the wake of an overpopulated, overstimulated mobile storm. Last year, Nielsen found exposure to mobile ads produces a 45% lift in intent – a significant factor when it comes to winning over mobile customers and prospects and increasing the efficiency of your branding structure.

Click here to view the complete infographic featuring the results from the study.