When optimizing a landing page, one of the challenges webmasters and marketers face is whether to go with a single-page landing page, conversion path or microsite (also known as a minisite). The question we often get asked here at VigorFish is - which one converts higher? Which is better? The short answer is – They all work well. Any landing page approach have the potential to convert at a high rate as there are many factors that goes into the success of any landing page or online marketing campaign.

Before we get into the benefits of each, let’s define each one.

What is a Landing Page? (Single Page) – From Wikipedia, In online marketing a landing page, sometimes known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. Ok, that’s pretty simple. Example of a basic landing page

What is a Conversion Path? – A conversion path is a sequence of pages that a user navigates through after reaching the page from a particular marketing ad or link, qualifying the user, narrowing their decision on a particular product or service before taking the final step in completing the web form. Simple Conversion Path Diagram

What is a Microsite or Minisite? - A microsite (also called a minisite) is a small website, normally containing a few pages and with a narrow focus. The microsite is often always a section of a larger site. For a good example of a microsite, you can look at almost any car dealership website and find one. Take Honda.com for instance, Honda.com isn’t a microsite as you’ll find information on their total product suite (all of their vehicles). But like many other car dealerships, Honda may build microsite’s to hightlight specific cars like with their new electric car, the Honda FCX Clarity.

Each of these different landing page experiences (single page, conversion path or microsite) can be linked to any online or offline marketing ad. They’re all used with the goal of getting the user to commit, sign-up, complete a web form, call and inquire on more information etc. Each of these experiences has been successful overtime and remains true today.

Let’s take a look at each landing page approach in more detail.

The Single Landing Page Approach
The standard single page approach has been used from the beginning of time (and it works). You can run a search on Google and find articles and blog posts saying otherwise, that single landing pages only convert in the single digits while other landing page approaches convert higher. But that is simply not true in all cases. It’s simply a matter of how well the landing page is designed and presented. I’ve personally managed many online and email marketing campaigns using single page landing pages and have had great results in many cases. One tactic is to add an incentive to your message, provide an incentive for the user to sign-up or complete a web form and watch your conversion rate jump. I’ll actually discuss the power of incentive in later article. But for now, my point is, don’t throw away your single landing pages just yet.

Single landing page experiences work well for items (PDF downloads, Reports, Brochures, White Papers etc.) that can be explained in a few words. For example, an ad that reads “FREE 40-Page Guide on Email Marketing” is fairly self explanatory. Meaning, as a user, there’s not much more you need to know to want to download the free guide. As the end user, knowing that it’s free, it’s 40 pages of information and it pertains to email marketing is really all you need to know. As the marketer, you only need to present a simple one-page well designed landing page, few bullet points, a cover shot of the PDF etc. All of this can be done using a single page.

The Conversion Path Experience
Conversion path experiences are great for segmenting and qualifying users. If you want to capture marketing intelligence, segment or qualify respondents before they complete a particular web form or inquire about your product/service, then using a conversion path experience is the best approach. For example, let’s say Microsoft runs an ad campaign for their Vista operating system. Upon clicking the ad and landing on the landing page, Microsoft may want to segment users between home base users and business users - leading each group down a path that better pertains to their needs. This is both helpful to Microsoft as well as the user.

The Microsite Experience
Microsites are great when there is an opportunity to present an abundance of information about a product or service in an engaging, user friendly manner. For example, Honda may run an ad campaign on a new electric car. In this case, Honda’s marketing team may want to direct users to a well designed microsite featuring the electric car. A microsite in this case could possibly have several pages featuring car specs and details, pricing options, photo gallery, consumer reviews, videos, brochures and wallpaper downloads etc.

In Conclusion
Each of the different landing pages has its benefit. My suggestion is to use the appropriate landing page experience based on what you want to accomplish with your campaign and the type of product/service you’re providing. Always remember that there is no right or wrong answer. There is no one secret – it’s all a process. Great success in any campaign is based on testing, measuring and evaluating. Also, gaining high conversions depends on many things such as landing page design, user incentive to follow through and target audience. Good luck with your next campaign. If you have any questions, shoot me an email.

Which approach you are using or have had success with?

When designing a website, knowing what your customer’s needs are is pretty important. You’re probably thinking “well, duh”. Ok, sure, we all know that it’s important to know your customer, but what I’m talking about is understanding what your customer expects when they visit your website. In other words, put yourself in your customer shoes and ask yourself, does my website answer their needs? Answering these questions and improving your website can build strong customer relationships and increase your conversion rate.
 
Role Play as Your Customer
When analyzing a website for potential clients (a service we offer free at VigorFish), one of the things we like to do is role play and browse through the site from beginning to end as the customer. This allows us to point out potential problem areas.

When analyzing the website, we gather everything we need to know about the customer and write out a few real-life scenarios. For example, let’s say we’re reviewing a website for a company that sells shoes (i.e. Zappos.com - not a VigorFish client, I promise!). An example customer scenario/profile would be:
 
Customer: Joe Smith
Gender: Male
Age: 45
Shoe Buying Budget: $30 - $50
Needs: Not sure what brand he wants. He’s just looking for a comfortable shoe that he can where for working around the house, running errands etc.
What’s Important: Price and Comfort

Now that we have a few details of our fictitious customer Joe Smith, we can then proceed to go through the website as the customer and begin to list out all the problem areas.

In this scenario, the most important things that I would look for in the website are:

• Featured Selections – A featured selection of popular shoes due to the fact that the customer doesn’t know what brand he wants. Having a starting point of featured popular choices would be a good starting point.
• Group Shoes By Price Option - Ability to categorize shoes based on price would be helpful.
• Shoe Description – Detailed descriptions and features of the shoe would be very helpful since Joe is concerned about comfort.
• Customer Reviews – Customer reviews would be helpful to Joe since comfort is really important to him. Product reviews allows customers to make educated decisions.

If you take the time and run this process on the zappos.com website, you’ll notice that they’re actually right on and does answer all the needs from our scenario.

Is Your Website Designed Based On Your Customer’s Needs?
If you run a web business or are in charge of your company’s web presence - I would encourage you to run through this process a few times. Create a few customer scenarios and run through the site from the home page to the end conversion. Along the way, list out all the problem areas and things that your site doesn’t have that would benefit the customer. In doing so, you could end up with a long list of possible problem areas. There isn’t a need to correct them all at once. Just chip away at them one at a time and you’ll begin to see progress overtime.

If you would like a free evaluation of your website, please send me an email.

I’m currently in the market looking to buy/lease a new Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) for the family and I find myself visiting all the popular dealer websites – GMC, Lincoln, Cadillac and Infiniti. I have been going from site to site reading/viewing as much content as possible.

Content is King
It’s actually been a while since I’ve been on the consumer end researching a product/service of interest and really relying on the web for answers and details. In this particular case, being that it’s an important purchase for me and a long term commitment, I need as much information possible for me to make a decision. I’m interested in everything from photos, videos, 360 degree interior views, exterior views, written reviews, etc. The more information I have on each vehicle, the better. In other words, as the consumer, I need content – lots of it.

This entire process has reminded me of the importance of valuable product content and how it leads to longer visits as well as higher conversions. At VigorFish, we’ve experienced this first hand with our redesign of Tredent.com. Our redesign of Tredent.com included an overdose of content, which we’ve seen a huge increase in conversions as well as higher search engine rankings.

People Do Read!
It’s been said that people generally don’t read on the web – they scan. That only applies to browsing. When browsing, people generally scan pages, read headlines and move on. But when the visitor is a serious buyer - the more content provided on that product/service to that user the better. When I speak of content, this includes everything from written web content, photos, flash demos, videos, articles, brochures, data sheets, white papers, case studies, product reviews etc.

This applies to any website in any market – Business-to-Business or Business-to-Consumer. If you sell a product or service, having valuable content on your website will increase visitor stay and increase your chances of converting that visitor into a customer.

Content Presentation is Important
On a final note – the presentation of your content is crucial. If you have tons of content to offer, you want to make sure visitors can easily access this content without any difficulty. A cluttered website may overwhelm the user and discourage repeat visits. Always keep it simple.

If you’re currently in the market, in need of professional help with your website or information architecture, please send me an email – we can help.

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses of all types and sizes.  It is inexpensive and has been known to be 20 times more cost effective than direct mail. But delivering your message can be tricky. With all the different email clients on the market today (Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL etc.), you have to make sure you design your email so that it’s compatible across the board.

Without overwhelming you with all the requirements/details of each email client, below I list a few simple tips you can start using today that can assure you that your email has a chance of being read on any email client.

• Keep it simple

I would argue that this is probably the best approach to designing anything. Less is more. Whether you’re designing a website, promotional email or even an email newsletter - keep it simple. Keeping your design simple, using less code, being clear in your message will offer you the best chance of your email being read, regardless of the email client (either on PC or mobile device).

You can really say more with less. In addition, people really don’t have time to read through long emails. Your headline or subject line should give the end user everything they need to know. Follow your headline with clear, easy to read paragraphs (I would say no more than three) and use simple graphics (right aligned). Just keep it simple. Remember, simple is safe. And with all the various email restrictions out there, you’re better safe than sorry.

• Keep graphics to a minimum

Graphics are great, but keep them to a minimum. Many email clients today have images turned-off by default. It’s a great security measure for the user but a pain for marketers when they want to get their brand message across. The best approach is to keep it simple and stick to no more than three graphics in your email. One, for your logo/header, and possibly one to two graphics within the body.

A few other tips on using graphics - you shouldn’t use graphics for important information such as headlines or key messages. Also, test your email and make sure that the main point in your message can be read if images are turned off.

• Always provide a link to a web version of your email

You’ve probably seen this before where there’s a link at the top of an email that reads something like this: If you have trouble reading this email, please click here. This is a must have!

Sometimes your email design isn’t that simple, but quite informative and packed with tons of information (such as a monthly newsletter). And with the various email clients and restrictions, your email design for whatever reason may not display properly. So linking to a web version of your email allows every recipient on any email client (PC or mobile device) the chance to read and view a complete web version email in it’s entirety within their default web browser.

There’s a ton of information out there to learn on email marketing. Lot’s of valuable stuff to discuss another day. But for now, using these simple tips in designing your next email will assure you that your message has the best chance of being read.

If you are currently running an email marketing campaign or looking to start and are in need of assistance, simply send me an email. I would be glad to discuss your project in more detail.

I’m sure we all know the importance of a strong brand. But not everyone understands what it takes to develop their brand. When I speak with clients and business owners, they’ll often agree with me on the importance of building a strong brand. But quite often, I’ll find that the people in charge of maintaining the brand (the employees) are often so busy and caught up in day-to-day work that they lose focus and simply forget about maintaining brand consistency.

Consistency Is Key
Consistency solidifies a strong brand, while inconsistency weakens it. Creating a brand is instant. But strengthening that brand takes time. The number one rule in building a strong brand is consistency.

At VigorFish, we primarily deal with the web so we’re often preaching the importance of a consistent web presence to our clients. It’s very important to keep a consistent style throughout your site. Whether it’s being consistent with color scheme, font choice, button styles or quality of stock photography – keeping the website consistent and using consistent brand elements will only strengthen the company’s brand image over time.

Inconsistency Weakens Your Brand
This concept of staying consistent not only applies to the web, but any portion of your business where the brand is being represented. An example I like to use is with Bank of America. For the record - I’m a happy customer with BofA for over 14 years. Also, I think BofA has a great brand. I only use BofA in this example because they’re the first bank that comes to mind. 

When I think of Bank of America, I get this image of a large company that values great customer service. I imagine it’s a part of their brand image. Let’s say I walk into the bank and I’m helped by a representative that has a bad attitude and that isn’t so helpful. As the customer, I’ll leave the bank thinking BofA offers terrible service. I then tell my friends, they tell theirs and so on. On the other hand, other customers served by other representatives with good attitudes will leave the bank on better terms. 

In this example, Bank of America’s brand is still intact – it’s just inconsistent. Some customers will be happy with their service, but others will not. The inconsistency of quality customer service will only hurt Bank of America’s brand image over time.

It’s the same when you visit a website with a poor design, inconsistent behavior or an unfriendly user interface. Most users will leave the site with a bad impression. Others may not. In the end, the inconsistency only weakens the brand.

Keep it Consistent
The concept is quite simple (Consistency) but the follow-through can be difficult. That’s why companies like VigorFish and other brand agencies are so important. Our passion is brand development. We’re passionate about building strong brands and improving brand awareness. So having a team like VigorFish on board to maintain your company’s brand image is invaluable.
 
Thanks for visiting and reading our first blog post here at VigorFish. We hope to continue to share our insight, thoughts and feelings over the next several decades.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss how we can help improve your brand or online web presence, send me an email.