Are your website’s landing pages getting great traffic but struggling to convert sales? If you are converting sales, do you think you could be doing better? Is there room for improvement?
There is.
Landing pages should constantly be tested, updated and optimized. Not because you may not have a great one, but because there’s always room for improvement. How people respond changes. What your target audience responds to changes. Even who your target market is changes. So you have to adapt.
This article will give you five variables you need to test in your landing page to get the highest sales percentage possible. I’ll identify why these variables matter, and how a sales-optimized landing page is different from a lead-generating landing page or homepage.
Before we start, let me quickly break down why testing and optimizing is essential.
Let’s say your SaaS landing page is currently converting visitors at a rate of 15% – the low-end of respectable. Let’s say you’re seeing a monthly traffic of 2500 visitors. Their average purchase is a monthly plan, valued at $35. You’re currently making about $13,125 monthly. Awesome!
But wait a second, let’s say you add a new main image to your landing page, this time one of your many photogenic customers, with an awesome testimonial describing how your business was beneficial to theirs. This image, overnight, increases conversions by 20% (totally possible). You’re now getting 450 conversions each month, and your monthly income is $15,750. From changing a single image you made $2,625 more. Per annum? $31,500. Yeah, woah indeed.
Here are the five variables you can test that will increase sales conversions.
1. Try a new USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
To encourage a sale (over a lead, for instance) focus on the dollar value of your service/product, or what kind of ROI (Return on Investment) visitors can expect.
For e-commerce companies, think of a phrase that makes your products sound incredible, even if it doesn’t a huge amount of relevance. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about from BMW’s website:
Here are 5 USP examples to generate interest in purchasing:
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E-commerce (Winter Jacket): “Designed by Outsiders, for Outsiders” w/ image of snowy hike
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E-commerce (Hammock Chairs): “Relax Different” w/ image of chair on sunny porch
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B2B (Office Furniture): “Relaxed Beauty” w/ image of beautiful ergonomic chair
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B2B (Marketing Automation): “Your business, made easier.”
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SaaS (Lead Generation Software): “The next generation of lead generation”
2. Focus on Benefits, not Features
Your landing page should focus on how your product can solve your visitor’s problem – whether they know they have the problem or not. This is the stuff people are actually sold on.
Combine a solid list of benefits with a good offer (see #3 below) and a great image, and watch your conversion rates hit the roof.
Yes, it’s more difficult to identify the benefits of your service or products than it is to spout the features. You have to leave the safety of jargon and technical details and venture into the real world. But test re-framing how you talk about your products and see what results you get.
For a better idea of what I’m referring to, here are a few examples:
Selling Features:
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The AcmeMiron12 has 300 gigabytes of space!
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Our AcmePad2000 has a 1.7GHz processor!
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Our AcmeWebTool’s templates have over 5000 color options!
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The AcmeDownJacket has hydrophobic down and a box baffle construction!
Selling Benefits:
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The AcmeMiron12 has enough space for 75,000 songs!
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Our AcmePad2000 is our fastest than ever, making browsing a cinch!
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We guarantee our AcmeWebTool’s templates will have your business’ brand colors.
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The AcmeDownJacket uses the latest technology to keep you warmer and dry faster than any other jacket on the market!
3. Make the Deal your Focus
The right deal will sell itself. The right deal makes your product secondary. Highlight the crazy value your landing page visitor stands to get and you’ll increase conversions.
Keep in mind the risk over reward ratio when creating your online ads and their corresponding landing page. Sell people on great value, and give them the specifics after
I recommend a tight relationship between your Google and Facebook Ads and your landing pages. Your deal will be far more effective if you drive half-nurtured leads to your landing page – something the targeting tools within Facebook and Google Ads allow you.
Promoting a hammock chair? Target your online ads at retirees. Promoting your automation tool? Target your ads at CEO’s, CMO’s and people who have listed ‘email marketing’ in their Facebook interests (yes, Facebook Ads can be targeted that specifically).
Driving half-nurtured lead traffic from an optimized ad means visitors to your landing page are more likely to understand how great a deal you’re offering. Someone who has no experience with how much an email automation tool should cost per month won’t be as amazed at your free one-month trial and basic plan starting at $39.99.
4. Sell with Customer Testimonials
Face it, you’re not trustworthy when it comes to your own product – so don’t expect your landing page visitors to believe, immediately, that you can deliver on your awesome-sounding USP.
To back up your selling point and benefits, emphasize customer testimonials in your sales-generating pages. These aren’t so essential within lead-generating pages, in which a trust symbol is more effective. But for B2B and E-commerce businesses, reviews and customer testimonials are one of the best ways to sell your product without shoving it down the throat of your landing page traffic.
Here’s an example from the Wishpond homepage from our good friend Matt Fraser:
5. The Right Visuals
So much of selling is visual – whether its your product itself, your landing page design, or both. A great way of selling your product without pushing your product is to put it in the best possible visual light – sell the product’s beauty, or at least the model holding it.
E-commerce companies should put their product in the best surroundings. Have a model hold it – and A/B test the model your target audience responds best to. Use a professional photographer and a studio – it’ll be worth the cost in the long run.
SaaS or B2B companies should focus on landing page creative. Use sophisticated and clean colors – combinations of dark and light blue, whites, and blacks. Test out abstract designs behind your image.
All businesses should test having the image of a person in their landing page – whether your CEO in a tutorial video still, or a model showing how beautiful your product can be.
You’d be surprised at how effective the right visuals are to your conversion percentage. If you’re curious about how this kind of stuff can possibly make that much difference, check out my three-part series on the Psychology Behind a Successful Facebook Ad.
The Bottom Line
Hopefully you have a better idea of how to optimize your landing page for a sale. Focus on promoting your service or product without pushing so hard your lead bounces.
Here are a few more top tips:
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Make your CTA appealing, not demanding: Use pronouns like ‘you and my’. Try ‘start’, ‘get’, ‘try’ and ‘learn’ instead of ‘buy’.
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Test a trust symbol in addition to customer testimonials: Give credence to your business with the symbol of a trusted, and relevant, authority.
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Keep the text short and to the point – avoid paragraphs. Make the focus of your landing page easy to see and avoid distractions. Use bullet-points and format your page based on priority of sight.
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Use a heat-map to ensure your focus is the same as your visitor’s: Test if your traffic is reading your customer testimonials. If so, encourage repeat purchasing by switching them up periodically.
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A/B Test often: Test the variables I’ve laid out here as well as any others you’ve heard of or think might improve conversions. Work of a hypothesis and note your results to use in the future.
Have you tried or tested any of these landing page variables? Do you have any success stories, or frustrations? Start the conversation below!
About the Author: James Scherer is a content marketer for Wishpond and author of the ebook The Complete Guide to Facebook Ads. Wishpond makes it easy to run Facebook Ads, create landing pages & contests, email automation campaigns & manage all of your contacts.