A great email marketing campaign is one thing. But if conversions are what you want, then you need to look beyond them. While open rates and email click-through rates are great statistics to look at to improve your email campaigns, if your emails don’t convert your readers, they have little value in aiding your business objectives.
To maximize conversions, a key role in driving conversions from your email marketing effort is where your readers land. Each email should have its own landing page tailored to the campaign’s purpose.
According to an Unbounce study, conversion rates vary significantly across industries, but the median conversion rate is between 3% and 5%. This may not seem like much, but when each landing page receives thousands of visits, it adds up to significant numbers over time and over each campaign.
The landing page should hold your readers’ attention and increase the chance of conversions by giving good reasons to stay there and take the next step.
Here are the key elements to boost conversions with landing pages.
- Clarity is key
If you ever watched an episode of Game of Thrones without seeing an earlier episode, then you would have a hard time making sense of what is going on. In the same way, when visitors come to your landing page from an email, and the design and content fail to communicate in a clear and simple way, they will have no idea what’s going on. They need to understand:
Where they are
What you do
What you offer
Why they should stick around and act
If any one of these is unclear, your conversions will tank. More importantly, you will lose credibility with your visitors. As emailing trends often change and it is getting hard to keep up with them, people working in marketing often search for information related to this subject. Therefore making a podcast explaining current trends would get you many views. If you would like to have a guaranteed high success rate for your podcast, buy soundcloud plays.
Huckberry uses brief but to-the-point copy and large visuals to make clear to their subscribers what they offer.
Huckberry email layout
The look and feel of the email is similar to the product’s landing page. When you click on the Shop Sweatshirts button, you are taken to a landing page shown below.
boost conversions with landing pages – Huckberry landing page
- Offer one call to action (CTA)
Calls to action are elements within an email that encourage your subscribers to act. They help convert your subscribers into customers. To be effective, a call to action needs to be:
Designed to catch the eye
To catch the reader’s eye, you should use contrasting colors on your CTAs, which need to be large enough to stand out from the rest of the email’s content.
Email design to boost conversions
Placement is also important. A rule of thumb is the inverted pyramid, where the CTA is placed at the bottom of an inverted pyramid, as in this email:
inverted pyramind example
Specific and persuasive
If your copy has been persuasive and your audience is emotionally invested, the time for action is now. So be clear and specific with your call to action. Don’t assume that your audience will know what needs to be done.
Great CTAs shouldn’t simply nudge—they should help the user complete actions that unlock pieces of the product’s core value. Actions shouldn’t be initiated at random, but at specific stages of the user experience, giving the user more than one “aha” moment. This is how loyal users and advocates are made.
In line with the rest of the copy
When your CTA is as simple as “Get the app”, your copy will need to work harder to persuade the reader to act. Any action by your readers will take time and effort, so the return on investment (ROI) must be apparent.
CTAs that convert well should help the reader complete specific actions. Your emails shouldn’t arrive randomly but at specific stages of the user experience. This, combined with your CTAs, will provide your audience with more than one “aha” moment as they go deeper into the product. This is how to keep loyal users and advocates.
Aligned with the landing page
Another critical part of the successful call-to-action is that it takes the reader to the relevant landing page, to what was promised. For example, Dave Ramsey regularly sends out an email newsletter like the one below.
boost conversions with email design and landing pages
If you click on the first link, you are taken to a page that matches the CTA’s expectations.
landing page for email newsletter
However, the main CTA is to help readers find a real estate agent, as you can see below.
image1 1
Don’t take away from the experience
Why should your landing pages look the same as the emails you send?
Because people respond to clarity.
If you address the right people at the right time and send them to relevant landing pages with one, clear and continuous goal, you create a positive user experience.
So, while you need to segment your lists and create personalized landing pages for each segment, you also need to continue the conversation on each landing page about the goal your email introduced.
To enhance the user experience and avoid confusion, the email’s look and feel should flow onto the landing page as well.
- Remove distractions
Distractions are conversion killers. In emails and on a landing page, they might consist of unnecessary copy, images and CTAs. Traditional website elements like menus, links to other pages, and sidebar content also serve as distractions.
A better approach is to focus on conversions centered on design and content. Any information unrelated to the primary offer should be left out. Instead, highlight the main message or offer and guide your audience to the call-to-action.
- Keep it short and simple
These days, with attention spans reduced from twelve to eight seconds (one second less than an average goldfish), you need to say what you need to say clearly. Keep your copy free of jargon and unnecessary words. Don’t use unrelated images and use a well-designed web form.
Take for example Asana’s homepage. It concisely describes what you can expect from using the tool. To start with a free trial, asana requires only an email address.
image5
- Close the sale
While your email may not be about a sale, it is a conversion moment. If potential customers are curious enough to click on the email’s CTA, you can use the opportunity on your landing page to persuade them of a great offer or reassure those who are already customers.
The Muse sends out a newsletter like this:
muse email newsletter
Click on the link and you go to a page that gives further details about the companies they feature and the jobs they offer.
Muse landing page for email campaign
- Test and analyze
You need to test your email marketing campaigns and landing pages for engagement and effectiveness. Landing pages, like email campaigns, are typically designed to allow qualified visitors to sign up for additional information or offers. In other words, by targeting a specific audience and offering something of value, you can convert a higher percentage of visitors into leads.
The elements of a landing page that you should consider testing include:
Headline
Call to action text
The position of the call to action
Call to action design
Length of copy and style
Visual content including videos, if any
Different offers
Good practices to keep in mind include:
Map out a path to conversion
Test early and often to optimize the page as soon as possible
Test variations simultaneously
Listen to the results
Allow the test to run for sufficient time
Allow repeat visitors to see the same variation
Connect the dots to boost conversions with landing pages and email marketing
When you build an email marketing campaign and landing pages as separate entities, you lose out on your conversion potential. This, in turn, leads to poor results.
Instead, use your email marketing campaign as an opportunity to build on audience trust. Create an experience they would love to engage in before and after they click on CTAs.
Connect the dots. Create focused emails for each segment of your audience and build personalized landing pages for each email.
The results of an integrated marketing strategy will lead to a positive experience for your audience and to an enduring relationship with your customers.