It’s been proven time and again that marketers lose significant leads and sales because the opening copy of their websites or landing pages doesn’t immediately identify what prospects are looking for.
What exactly are the prospects or customers looking for at your site?
Depending on what you’re offering, there could be several reasons for people to check out your website or landing page:

• Your prospects or customers simply to learn more about your product before making their purchases—they need more assurance and convincing.
• Maybe they learned about your product from a friend, saw a banner or Facebook ad, or even got a direct mail piece. Now they want to use the landing page/website to verify that your product is real. They are visiting your landing page to find credibility in your message.
• Many go to your website/landing page to find a better product or service online than they saw in retail or elsewhere … answer the question: is there a better alternative?
• Perhaps they are ready to place an online order now.

It is critical to give them immediately what they want
Once your prospect has made it to your landing page or website, it’s up to you not to slow them down by confusing them or hindering them from quickly getting what they came for.
If the prospect doesn’t immediately see the product or service promised in the direct mail piece, Facebook or banner ad, email, or whatever media that directed them to your site, you have made a huge mistake and will lose leads and sales.
That is one reason it is critical that you follow these 7 direct marketing rules for creating a website/landing page that increases leads and sales rather than killing them.

Web leads and sales make all the difference (Credit: LinkedIn)

1. Don’t use a traditional landing page or website created by a general ad agency or web technicians—they will kill response. The agency you hire must excel at direct response.
2. Use only a powerful direct response offer created by a direct response specialist. Make sure the website is specifically related to the message your prospect has just read in your marketing campaign.
3. Include a powerful, direct response video.
4. Use direct response copy, not tradition advertising copy. Do not allow warm-ups in your copy, but get right to the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and the key benefits for your prospects.
5. Avoid art for art’s sake. Only use art that helps direct the eye flow to the copy.
6. Whenever possible, put your offer up front and make it powerful.
7. Present the CTA—Call to Action—immediately and clearly so that it’s easy to find.

One last thing …
In evaluating and critiquing websites/landing pages and direct marketing campaigns, I found that failure to follow the above rules the biggest reasons why campaigns receive low response and poor sales.
If you would like a FREE critique of your landing page/website, please contact me at (310) 212-5727 or email me at [email protected].