How to Design Landing Pages for Promotions?

We all know how exasperating a typical sales guy can be. The stereotypical fellow in a well-ironed suit walking from door to door trying to convince people to buy things they don’t need for money they don’t have. You can imagine that a badly-designed landing page is exactly like this guy - unwanted and lonely. 

Trust us, you don’t want to be like this guy nor to have a landing page that instead of encouraging customer acquisition and retention works as a deterrent. But fear not and read on as we have gathered some of the best tips on how to design a landing page that not only catches the eye but also tugs at your customers’ heartstrings.

What is a landing page and some general tips on how to design them

Just to make sure that we’re all on the same page (pun intended), a landing page is what first appears after clicking on an online link. There exist two main types of landing pages: referral and transactional. The first type provides further links and the latter asks the user for some personal information, such as an email address, and by nature is more successful as it has the potential (after proper follow-up) to convert anonymous visitors into full-fledged customers.

Transactional landing pages are especially important in running promotional campaigns as they have the capacity to attract new customers and by offering special deals make them stay longer.

Here are a few general tips on how to design a successful landing page:

The best converting landing pages are minimalist in design

Ever heard of minimalism and the idea of living more by having less? This way of life does not only apply to what you consume and what you do, but it may also be used in designing a successful landing page. Here everything counts - colours, formatting and the general layout. Let’s take a look at two examples. One is bad, one is good but which one is which?

You’ve guessed right! Chase Bank despite being the US national bank can’t really pride itself on its landing page. As you can see their page displays too many elements at once and runs the risk of being overwhelming or at worst unintelligible. Potential customer may feel lost, unsure whether he/she should click here or there or do this or that. And a customer confused is oftentimes synonymous with customer lost.

On the other hand, Airbnb managed to get their point across pretty clearly and the minimalistic design of the landing page ensures intelligibility of what the user is supposed to do. Airbnb-Chase Bank 1:0.

CTA – the heart of every landing page

Call to Action (CTA) is like a Holy Grail of all landing pages. All the design and content of the landing page should lead the user to click on CTA to for instance sign in or search for something. Due to its importance, CTA ought to be clear and unambiguous so that the user knows what he/she will actually accomplish by clicking it. Similarly to the previous example, any ambiguity may lead customers to lose interest in the product or service you’re offering. In addition, you may add a directional cue as means of persuasion. Again let’s take a look at one bad and one good example. Can you guess which one’s which?

You’re the smart one, aren’t you? You are right. Travel Wisconsin loses this battle to HotJar as it introduces ambiguity to their CTA in two ways. Firstly, there are two CTAs; secondly, “Our Family Vacation” CTA is like a puzzle. Are these ideas for future family vacation or a recollection of my past travels? The moment, doubt is introduced, the user is more likely to just leave your landing page and look for something else. Additionally, the design could be better, as these CTAs are not prominent enough, upstaged by a humongous “A 58 Year Tradition” banner.

On the other hand, HotJar does not only grant well-deserved prominence to their CTA, but also sweetens the deal with the phrase “For Free”, which makes it almost irresistible to click on. Because, you know, who doesn’t like free stuff?

Create personalised landing pages

The third piece of advice is about personalisation, but be careful, because excessive personalisation is like playing with fire - you may end up as world-renowned fire-eater or a patient in the emergency ward with third-degree burns. In the times of a general privacy and data craze it is easy for marketers to cross the line. What we recommend is to strike a balance between anonymity and friendship. Something like “Hi Anne” instead of “Hi Anne Green from Brooklyn with three beautiful children and a hilarious pup called Benji” for starters.

You may base your personalisation on a number of elements, such as user’s gender, location, or their history with your company. Personalisation allows you to better present the functionality and the importance of your products or services to solve problems faced by the particular customer. Amazon is usually quoted to use personalised landing pages in an exceptionally efficient way by basing it on previous purchases made by the given customer.

If personalisation or account-based marketing is done right it may be 4 times more effective than a wide scale, non-targeted campaign – Insightera.

Use effective imagery in your landing pages

The last piece of advice on the general design of a successful landing page is to use effective, non-generic imagery. We all know that Stock Photos are the main source of images for many business. In itself there’s nothing wrong with Stock Photos, but the problem arises when visitors are forced to look at yet another image of a smiling businesswoman or a corporate meeting, which resembles a contest for the happiest employee of the month.

Take your time on choosing the right imagery, making sure that it is both original and relevant to whatever you’re offering as I’m sure you’d agree that having cute puppies on the funeral services landing page is somewhat inappropriate.

We hope that these tips will help you begin your journey with the creation of highly successful landing pages, yet if you still have doubts whether you are up for this task, you may use pre-made landing pages templates tailored to your promotional campaigns, such as the ones offered by the Voucherify platform and rest assured that now you’ve got professionals on the job.

Speaking of which, did you know that Voucherify Landing Pages Creator offers a number of additional features designed with promotional campaigns in mind? If not, let us introduce you to just a few.

Designing landing pages for promotional campaigns

Billboards, TV, radio and internet ads have become our bread and butter. Most of them get on our nerves, however sometimes there are some that stay with us for longer and by possessing some mysterious and mesmerizing features make us want to use a particular product or service.

What are these mysterious features and how can you use them to make your landing page stand out? Let us use Voucherify platform as an example of some of these features and see how they can be used to increase customer acquisition and retention rates.

Let the rewards steal the show – display rewards on your landing page

Everybody enjoys winning something. You enjoy it and your customers enjoy it, so why not make use of it? While creating a landing page for the specific purpose of a giveaway or other program which offers the possibility of earning a reward, make sure that the visitors may clearly see what rewards you’re talking about. Another clever trick you may use is personalising the rewards which would resonate better with your customers, however, just like in the case of landing page personalisation, just make sure not to cross the line and infringe on someone’s privacy. Here, a good idea would be to create several landing pages, each designed for another target audience in mind and later on run A/B tests to ensure efficiency of this strategy.

Voucherify Landing Pages Creator allows you not only to place images of the rewards offered in your campaign but also supports you in the process of rewards creation, and validating or tracking your campaign.

Waste no time – have a timer on your landing page

Nobody likes being told to hurry up, however in the promotional context the sense of urgency can do wonders. You have to make sure that your customers feel compelled to take action right now because a chance like this happens just once - and nobody likes to feel left out. Sense of urgency is usually achieved through a countdown timer, information on limited participation in the program (usually on a first come, first served basis) or the general use of language, so make sure that the copywriter in on everything. To increase the dynamics of your landing page you may also ask visitors a question to boost their interest in whatever you’re offering.

Gear up that Social Proof to boost the credibility of your landing page

People are social creatures and as such we rely heavily on communication and other people while making both big and small decisions. This innate need to share and reciprocate information can be used as a tool to attract and retain more customers. We’re talking here about Social Proof. Social Proof in the context of promotional campaigns can be boiled down to highlighting positive experiences and reviews of other users of your platform.

Research shows that approximately 92% of online shoppers consult other people’s reviews before making the purchase – Vendasta.

To make it even simpler, most people follow other people for the sake of correctness and fitting in and you, as a landing page designer, can and should tap into this phenomenon. Another important factor is the so-called Fear Of Missing Out (or FOMO) which is pretty self-explanatory and which allows you to keep people glued to your service or a product just because other people are doing it, which is a strategy often used by Apple marketing teams.
Here, check out how Voucherify may help you to present your Social Proof:

Cloud of suspicion – make sure that your landing page is clear and unambiguous

As we mentioned before, any ambiguity in the design of your landing page may lead to dropping conversion and retention rates. The same goes for suspicion. Even if you enjoy fish, please for the sake of your campaign, avoid any fishiness. If your landing page is going to present unclear, conflicting or suspicious information, the visitors are likely to avoid it like a plague. There exist several ways on making your page more credible, such as:

• presenting clear and simple rules of the giveaway or a promo campaign,
• attaching FAQ section to your page,
• letting the customer choose if and how they’d like to be contacted and make your program non-committal so if need be, they are able to easily cancel their subscription or participation in the program.

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