Many promotional and branding email campaigns fail to take into account the ultimate goal of such initiatives: for recipients to read the content presented to them and perform specific calls to action.
Campaign landing pages can help recipients become engaged with campaigns and act on calls to action if they meet the following requirements:
- Comfort. Landing pages should convey or match the look and feel of the email. If the main site design is significantly different, visitors may get confused and abandon the site.
- Consistency. Landing pages should reinforce the offer and message at all touchpoints. Repeat the subject line or headline from the email on the landing page to let visitors know they’re in the right place, and encourage them to keep reading.
- Minimize distractions. Landing pages should provide any additional information and value propositions that weren't covered in the email, and offer a clear call to action to let the visitor know what to do next.
- Analytics. Have the proper tracking codes on the email URLs that carry through all the way to conversion to show the effectiveness of the campaign. Success can't be solely based on the number of people who read the content or clicked on a link to the landing page if the desired action of the subscriber occurs on the site itself.
- Testing. Test your landing pages. Google Website Optimizer is an easy and free tool to accomplish this. It reviews content, such as images and copy, as well as navigation. Both content and navigation greatly affect conversion rates.
A good email campaign can offer engaged and interested customers by the handfuls. However, failure to incorporate an effective landing page strategy could derail it. What’s more, the benefits of incorporating such a strategy far outweigh the minimal extra effort required to implement it.
Pilar Bower is the optimization and email strategist for Red Door Interactive, an internet presence management firm in San Diego and Denver. Reach Pilar at pbower@reddoor.biz.
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