When running a marketing campaign we are told that landing pages are an extremely important part of the sales journey. This is still a true statement and something we always make clear to all our clients.

In this blog, I want to look at what happens when once you have a landing page created but it still isn’t converting in the way you desire, what mistakes are being made with the page and where could it be improved? I have identified a few reasons why the page may not be performing as you hope...

Social Proof

Reviews and testimonials are incredibly important. Reviews or testimonials will act as social media proof, so when a customer is looking to purchase, they will often look to others for cues concerning whether to make the purchase or not. So making the excellent reviews or testimonials prominent is certainly a good start to improving your landing page.

Being Clear?

Is your landing page actually clear enough? Have you explained what your business offers and how it is unique? Your landing page should always contain a clear description of what your company actually offers! The copy needs to be clear and not overly full of jargon and too many words.

Too Much Text!

Remember you only have 5 seconds to convince the person clicking on the site. This means the landing page must be focused on one single objective, which is clicking on your call to action (CTA). As I said before it needs to stay clear and direct. Not too much text but enough to get the message across. Focus on the benefit: this is what you will get by clicking here.

What is your USP?  

It is vitally important that you have a very clear and exciting USP. An exciting Unique Selling Proposition leads to people clicking on the CTA because they want to know more. Explaining your USP can work well either using a bullet list or a short, informative video, that gets the message across and leads to the results you desire.

Too many details.

If on your landing page you present a form in which you want your potential clients to share their details, make sure you ask only for the information that is really essential. If you want to send the prospective client a white paper about selling their dental practice, you only need a name and an email address. Focus on getting the essential details and achieving the result of someone engaging with your business.

Always be testing.

The only way to know that the content is persuasive, the video or images work and how successful the form is, you have to keep testing and tweaking the page. On a an optimised landing page, every aspect, should be tested to ensure you’re using the right option to maximize your conversion rate.

Thanks for reading and we hope you have picked up a few pointers to improve one of the most important sales funnels in a modern business.

1. Landing pages are the key to converting the leads that click on your facebook or banner ad. So whether you are asking for contact details in exchange for a white paper, offering a demo piece of dental equipment, a targeted landing page is going to help you convert those visitors.
2. Using one specific landing page for your campaign also gives you a clear idea if the marketing campaign is working or not. If you are still getting a high bounce rate on your targeted landing page, the page may need tweaking or reworking slightly. If traffic goes to your homepage, it is impossible to see why the leads aren’t taking the next step. The landing page can always be tweaked and then you can see if your results improve.
3. Having one page also lets you narrow your focus and remove the clutter you would expect on a homepage. The page should enable the visitor to find the information a lot quicker. This keeps the visitor focused on the product or service you want them to look at. 
4. Landing pages need to be seen as part of your sales team. Can the page sell your service or product to the level you would expect? You obviously wouldn’t expect your salesperson to convert every single lead they receive but you would expect a certain proportion. You need to look at your landing page in the same way. The page needs to be converting the clicks.

• As destinations for your banner ads.
• To create anticipation for a new product or service you are offering the dental community.
• To promote a special offer that you don’t normally offer. The landing page can expire after one week or a month, it is upto you. 
• To segment your audience. You may want a landing page that is aimed just at endodontists for example. 

GDPUK remains free to join and to post on the forum. We have close to 9000 members and they love using the resource to keep upto date with all things dental and keep engaged with the dental community. Revenue for the site is generated from banner advertising. Our clients who advertise are predominantly from the dental trade.

Clients of GDPUK often ask us about designing banner ads for the site, so we thought we would put together this simple guide and let you know our thoughts on what makes up an effective banner ad. Obviously when creating a web banner ad, it is important to always look at it from the perspective of the viewers (or your potential customers).

1. Make sure it is correct size. If you are given details of a certain specification or size needed, you should follow the requirements, otherwise the banner ad won’t work.

2. Keep the file sizes to a minimum. Smaller files load faster and it increases the chance of being seen by visitors.

3. Good copy (like all advertising) is very important. Use of graphical elements is good, however, it's the copy that triggers people to find out more about your product. Banners that are effective are kept short and simple. Further info below

4. You want your potential customers to look at your ad, get interested, and click on it, then find out more info about your product on your website (preferably on a relevant landing page on your site). Don’t try to fit all the benefits of your product into that small space, it never looks rights and is ineffective. Simple and clear is the best method.

5. Over the years, the banners that have been the most effective, use an eye-catching hook. Headlines are what trigger people to read the story. Emphasising the benefits of your products more than the features of your products is the way to go.

6. By using a call to action graphic or text you make it very clear to the visitor what you want them to do. For example: For More Information; Download Info Now; Click Here to Purchase. This works with the earlier advice of being simple, clear and direct.

7. Animated GIFs work brilliantly on GDPUK but graphic designers always tell us that you need to avoid using photos and photo-like images on animated GIFs. Because of how GIFs work, the photos won’t look as nice and it will just make the file size huge. It is most likely you will be limited to having just one or two frames for the banner given the file size limits, plus as mentioned before, banners are more effective as a smaller file.

8. If you want to use photos in your ad (for websites only; not on our daily digest emails), consider creating it in Flash or HTML5. It will give you better return in terms of quality and file size.

9. Effective landing pages. We have mentioned this a number of times over the years! When people click on the banner, they should be presented with the relevant campaign or information immediately. They do not want to go to your homepage and be forced to hunt for the information that may exist on another page of your site. An effective landing page produces a great experience for your customer but also better results from your advertising campaigns.

Thanks for reading this guide to creating effective banner ads. We hope you find it useful and a simple blueprint to follow when looking to advertise online.

If you need further information or want to ask a question about this blog. Please get in touch.

Thanks

Jonny

Your Landing Page

Neil Sanderson

Most people think of a website as an entity in its self, this is not the case. A website is a series of pages of which you need to think about landing pages.

What is a landing page? Well the description is in the name really, it’s where people land when they first come to your website.

Most people think that the place people should first see when they arrive at your site is the home page, this again is not the case, ideally you need people to land on the correct landing page, let me explain.

I’m sure that all of you have at one time or another gone to Amazon. Can you ever think of a time when you arrived on a home page which had menu options across the top for you to find what you are looking for?

No of course you haven’t. You always land on the page that you wanted. For instance if you are looking for a camera. I typed in the search “Canon EOS 70D” and below is the search I got.

Camer search screen

All the search items are about the EOS 70D which is what you would expect, some are reviews and technical pages others are sales pages, but effectively all of them are about this particular camera.

So whenI click on the search item which takes me to the “landing page”. It comes as no surprise that the page I land on is about the Canon EOS 70D.

Because Amazon is so good at this you are presented with everything you need to purchase this camera, there are reviews, things that people also bought when they buy this camera etc. In fact just about everything you need to make a purchase, this is a typical Amazon landing page and they are very good at it.

Amazon Canon landing page

So what has this got to do with your website and the landing page that your prospective patients land on?

Well it’s about this, we have all been tought by the likes of Amazon that we want to land on exactly the page we are interested in. We don’t want to land on the “home” landing page, we know what we want and we want it right now.

People are not prepared to come to a “home” landing page and navigate around the website until they find the item they are looking for, this is why you have to promote your landing pages all the time, so that your visitors get exactly what they are looking for immediately.

If someone is looking for teeth whitening, most dental websites are set up so they will come to the “Home” landing page, they will then click on the treatment tab, then they will find the whiting link and click on that, do you see the issue?

If you want people to visit your teeth whitening page you need to start optimising this page so that Google can pick it up and display it, this needs to become your whitening landing page.

The same goes for all your other treatment, such as facial aesthetics, implants, straightening etc. etc.

Writing a blog is a great help but having the right key words on the page is also crucial, along with the correct meta description. Get ahead of your competition and ensure that your treatment pages are optimised to be your landing pages.

However you can bypass all this an just use Google Adwords, which will always send people to exactly the page you require, this is one of the huge benefits of Adwords.

If you would like more information on your website, call me on 01767 626  398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit our Facebook page.

www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

In part 1 of this series, I wrote about the importance of an effective landing page and how it helps to attract new customers to your business. We are now going to look at the key features of an effective landing page. What will make visitors give you the information or business you desire? Below are 6 key attributes of an effective landing page. Please feel free to add other attributes you believe would be effective. 

1. USP – Unique Selling Point

For our clients, they are looking to offer dentists a product or service that sets it apart from the competition. The client needs to break down what they are offering to the customer and when successful, it should be clear and attract attention. The first headline used needs to clearly describe what your product or service can offer and why they should be interested.

2. Picture or video

A picture or even better a video of someone using the product or service gives the users the feeling of what it is or what it looks like. This gets the customers thinking how they could use the product or service in their everyday life and how it would benefit them. A dental example;  A new dental handpiece being shown in a video being used by a dentist, gets the reader thinking about them using it in their practice and how it will benefit them.

3. The benefits of what you offer.

After the USP, you now need to give your reader a few more details. So how will the product or service benefit the reader? You need to think from the customer’s point of view. How will the new handpiece (for example) benefit the dentist, what features or advantages can you prove over your competitors?

4. Keep it simple

You want your reader to make a decision, for a decision to be more likely, the clearer and simpler your page needs to be.  As well as your landing pages, this also applies to a homepage. Traffic will often hit your homepage, so it should be treated like sales specific landing pages; keep your offer and strategy simple. Only offer a few places that can be clicked, keep the reader focused on the reason they clicked through to your landing page in the first place!

5. Testimonials / Proof

You want to show that your product is being utilised by other people in the field. People are more likely to use something that they can see is being used by others. If a product has excellent reviews or testimonials, then you need to shout about it. Other ways of demonstrating that the product is the best; Number of customers, organisations that you count as customers or awards received for your product or service. If you can provide evidence of testimonials, reviews or awards you will build trust and then sales!

6. CTA - Call to Action

CTA or call to action is incredibly important. You need to incorporate a bold, clear call to action into the design of the landing page. This could take a number of different forms, phone number, email address, contact form, social media links. The key is to think like the customer, make it as easy and straightforward as possible. The call to action details should be displayed a number of times on the page if possible.

We are constantly adapting and changing our own website and this is the huge advantage of being an online publication. Pages you create can be changed at anytime, so experiment with what works and what doesn’t and don’t be scared to try out different tactics or marketing plans.

If you would like to discuss how to market your brand or product on GDPUK.com, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We can organise a marketing strategy that will work for your business needs. 

Landing Pages

Part1...The importance of an effective landing page

GDPUK.com earns revenue from banner ads, we display adverts from companies looking to attract dentists as customers. The most successful banners, direct the user to a specific landing page. A good landing page should be seen as a part of your sales team, in the first part of this series I have listed some thoughts on the importance of an effective landing page.

A landing page is a web page that allows you to capture a visitor’s information through a lead-capture form. These are often known as a conversion form.

Landing pages are created to convert traffic into qualified leads. If you can focus on converting visitors into leads, landing pages are all about positive ROI. This is where a good landing page can make all the difference.

So why are landing pages important?

• They help you focus on conversion. The focus has to be on converting visitors into leads. A few simple ideas could be contact details for a free white paper, or contact details for a sample of your product.
• Direct. By using a landing page you will start to find that a landing page can be more effective than just directing traffic to a homepage, which is likely to be a waste of time. Once someone makes the effort to click on a banner, if the landing page matches what is on the banner, the odds of converting the click into a lead will increase dramatically.
• Generation of leads. If an effective page is created, it is suddenly a lot easier to capture leads. Every time a lead completes a conversion form on a landing page your sales team collects valuable information. Obviously this is a great for the sales team, as they are receiving warm leads to target.
• The more the better. Once you start creating a range of landing pages for different offers, the more opportunities you will create to convert visitors into leads.
• Makes the expenditure on advertising worthwhile. The landing page should sell your product; the language on the landing page needs to be customised and persuasive to your target audience. If you are creating specific ads (which many GDPUK clients do) then it is pointless if you’re only going to send potential customers in the direction of your homepage.

I hope this blog gives you an idea of the importance of a landing page and how getting it right can lead to an increase in revenue. Advertising online is something we are all still learning about, but we believe by investing in your landing page, it is a great start to achieving a return from your online advertising.

For further information on how we can help with the marketing of your brand or product or to learn how we can help with a landing page for your advert, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

We will publish part two of this series next week, which will give you some ideas of the key features of an effective landing page.