Dec 20, 2017

How to Create an Irresistible Landing Page for B2B Marketers

A landing page is an excellent way to force your prospects’ hands into taking decisive action. You may want the person landing to download a whitepaper, sign up for your newsletter, submit a contact request, or buy from you. And, since we’re talking about B2B marketing, we are no longer discussing run-of-the-mill landing pages. B2B companies have been around the block. They know their way around marketing and sales. Therefore, you need to step up your game if you hope to make an impression on CEOs, CMOs, VPs and other decision makers.

Here are the tactics to use when your landing pages have to be irresistible to make their mark.

Familiarize Yourself with Your Prospects

An effective landing page should speak to the individual consuming the information it contains. The prospect should find him or herself nodding along as you discuss common industry problems and frustrations, and you should fill the person with hope when you begin to discuss possible solutions.

For your landing pages to resonate, you will need to develop a buyer persona. This is your ideal customer, and you can learn about this individual in a variety of ways:

  • Offer surveys and questionnaires to your satisfied customers. Better yet, interview them!
  • Talk to your sales staff; those that work on the front lines with the very people you are targeting
  • Scan social media for those who interact with your brand the most

Your buyer persona should include a name, age, gender, job title, location, likes and dislikes, and other details, like marital status.

For example, Steve is 32 and works as a Marketing Manager for a B2B software company in Houston. He makes $92,000 per year and drives an older model BMW. He collects antiques and is an avid bike rider. He is divorced with two children, one of them in college.

For your landing pages to be successful, you’ll want to identify various needs and challenges that pertain to your business’s offerings. For instance:

Steve is having difficulty aligning his marketing team with the sales team. Sales are suffering as a result. Marketing doesn’t respect what sales go through in the field, and sales isn’t appreciating the leads delivered by marketing. Steve is at a standstill, and the higher-ups are demanding answers.

Here is a B2B marketing persona example from BufferApp.

 

 

Demand Attention with Your Headlines

Once you have your buyer persona, the next step is to begin crafting your landing page. The headline is often the first thing your prospects will see, and you only have one chance to get it right. It’s recommended that you write several headlines, then choose the one you believe will resonate with your prospect best. Or, test the headlines to see which ones pass muster.

If we are going with Steve as our example, and we are offering software that helps to align marketing and sales, our headline options might read:

  • Stop Banging Your Head Against the Wall and Start Aligning Marketing & Sales
  • Marketing & Sales Alignment for Frustrated Marketing Managers
  • Sales & Marketing at Loggerheads? Achieve Better Alignment Today!
  • Finally, the Answers to Aligning Marketing & Sales
  • 75% of Marketing Managers Fail to Align Marketing & Sales!

Other tips include using plenty of “You” and “Your” so that you are speaking directly to the individual reading, and use your headline to speak to the “one thing” your prospect wants the most.

Furthermore, make sure that any ads or sources that direct people to your landing pages jive with the headline you choose. For instance, if your prospects click an ad that reads “Align marketing and sales today!” and your landing page reads, “Sales Tactics for More Wins!” your prospects will likely bounce rather than stick around and convert. Make sure your message is clear and perfectly understandable if you hope to convert your prospects into paying customers.

Here is an example of a landing page headline that uses a hashtag, which must coincide with the social posting habits of My Unfold’s primary audience.

Get to the Point Quickly

Your prospects don’t have time to read a novel, nor will they bookmark your landing page to come back to absorb every word you write. It is far better to get to the heart of the matter quickly using action-oriented words like “Discover” and “Generate” and “Drive.” Use a sense of urgency in your writing, such as “Align Your Departments for a Better Q3.”

Also, don’t merely list the features of your product. While it is important to note that your marketing automation software scores leads and allows for dynamic and highly-personalized content distribution, it’s far more important to list how the customer will benefit. For example, scoring leads allows marketing and sales to understand prospects’ interest levels and engagement. This information leads to less time nurturing leads that won’t go anywhere and allows marketing and sales to focus their efforts on the leads who are closest to a close.

However, for your landing page to become irresistible, the benefits you describe should be infused with emotion. Talk about the frustration that comes with nurturing dead-end leads, then go into how your marketing automation software can ease that frustration while aligning marketing and sales better than any other competing software. For instance, maybe your software pulls real-time data from the field, allowing marketing to keep tabs on the sales team’s progress, and vice versa; ensuring marketing and sales are always on the same page.

Notice how this landing page by PayPal doesn’t beat around the bush. The copy is easy to digest and offers a free way to grow a business, which is sure to be irresistible to new and stagnant business owners.

Eye-Catching Graphics

Get a designer to develop your landing pages. A designer will know insider tips, such as using images of people looking at headlines to draw the eye. Next time you see an image of a person on a landing page, pay attention to where the gaze is directed, which in many cases is precisely where the prospect should look.

The use of colors is essential, as well. Blues tend to keep people on the page longer, while reds and yellows spur people to make a decision.

Your photographs, videos, and GIFs should be of the highest quality. They should also be relevant and sparsely used. Your imagery should support your copy; not the other way around.

This landing page by Capella University is attractive and uses high-quality imagery and the woman’s gaze to draw the eye while making their point.

Write for Skimmers

Most prospects are going to skim down the page. Knowing this makes your job as a B2B landing page creator much easier. For one, you know that you should be concise with your message. Why write a lot when most of your words won’t get consumed, after all?

Second, you’ll know to use lots of bolded subheads, short paragraphs, and bullet points and numbers to break up the content. These elements also make great places to jump to and from while still giving prospects the general idea.

Knowing that most prospects are skimmers also teaches you to front-load your sentences with the most crucial information.

For example:

  • 75% of marketing and sales departments are misaligned.
  • Aligning marketing and sales can ease your frustration and help you win more deals.
  • AlignmentSoft can help bring your two departments together for the benefit of your organization.

There is no need to drone on when what needs to be said can be done so in short, bite-sized chunks.

Notice how this landing page by Zoho is separated into small sections, each with a bit of copy that can be digested in a single glance.

Don’t Forget the Social Proof

Your words and media may get seen, but they won’t have as much of an impact as testimonials and reviews will; especially when it comes to swaying your audience in your direction. You can say that yours is the best marketing and sales alignment software around. But when a marketing manager from Cisco says that your software beat every other software she’s used in the past, that’s pretty compelling landing page copy.

Other ways you can show social proof include testimonial videos, display counters of how many people have claimed your offering, and logos and icons from high-profile customers, as well as logos of locations where your brand has been featured.

This landing page by Protomold has a very powerful quote front-and-center.

Easy-to-Use Form

Your form should ask for a minimal amount of information. For example, a name and email address are sufficient for a newsletter signup. Also, make sure visitors know which fields are mandatory with the use of asterisks, and don’t use placeholder text, which gets lost once your prospects start typing. Instead, place directions above the form fields where they can be easily seen and understood.

This landing page form by Merchant Advance asks for a name, phone, and email—easy peasy. But they, unfortunately, use placeholder text that will no longer be visible when text is entered into the field. This can cause confusion while filling in the form when users can’t remember what information is being requested at that moment.

Enticing Call-to-Action

Your call-to-action should speak to the benefits your prospect is sure to receive by downloading, submitting, or buying from you. For example, “Stop feeling frustrated and align your marketing and sales departments with this free download.” Your button could then read, “Show me how to stop feeling frustrated.” “Stop My Frustration!”

DesignCrowd doesn’t ask its prospects to Click Here. Instead, its landing page CTA tells visitors to “Start a Packaging Design Project,” letting them know exactly what they’re getting by giving their button a click.

Conclusion

As long as you know whom you are marketing to and why—your landing pages will become irresistible. You will still need to test and learn over time what your audience will best respond to, but using these tactics is an excellent first start. As an added tip, make sure you remove all navigation from the page. Your prospects should have one choice and one choice only: Convert by following through on your call-to-action…or bounce. With the knowledge you now have, bouncing should be the less likely of the two options.

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