It’s late in the afternoon on Day One, but energy levels in the Grand Ballroom haven’t flagged. I just dropped into a session focused on how to make the most of your web site. Among the tips for getting the best conversion rate out of your landing page…
* Keep the design as clean as possible.
* Make it simple for a visitor to take action.
* When testing, don’t change the design too dramatically. Instead, make gradual adjustments.
But this tidbit really caught my interest: If you’re going to make lots of tweaks to a landing page in search of elusive conversion rates, you need to have lots of traffic to that page. Otherwise, the data will be fairly meaningless–you’ll be basing future tweaks on the reaction from too few visitors.
And this all unfolded in the first five minutes of the session.
I will be interning with Mattel this summer so I brainstormed some words for marketing in the toy industry as part of our homework assignment on landing pages. Some of the key words I came up with included:
Toy Marketing
How to market to children
Barbie
New toys and games for kids
etc.
It was really interesting analyzing the paid search ads they came up with these searches on Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.
An example of the search term “Toy Marketing” brought the following paid search ads and landing pages:
Google:
Co-op B2B Marketing
Reach 25,000 New Business Owners
Every Month By Direct Mail .03¢ ea
http://www.B2BCouponMagazine.com
What I liked about the landing page: Not much. It captures the fact that most toy manufacturers must sell to retailers so the landing page is how to reach b2b customers. My search term was pretty general so it makes sense I land on something not specific. Ad sales in a magazine is a form of marketing.
What I didn’t like about the landing page: Since the ad lands me at the homepage rather than something more specific, I feel like I am being sold on something I probably don’t need based on my search. It forces me to have to find where on their site toys actually come in to play, and since the website is not visibly pleasing, I probably am less inclined to search further to find more about the types of toy magazines I could advertise in, and would probably bounce pretty quickly.
Yahoo:
Exeter Toys
Find Toys in Your Area. Maps, Reviews & More.
http://www.LocalGuides.com
What I liked about the landing page: it was relevant to toys- but where I could find toys if I were searching in Exeter, Rhode Island. Pretty off-base.
What I didn’t like about the landing page: Had absolutely nothing to do with toy marketing. It was a local search site for Rhode Island and happened to allow me to search for toys in that local market. If I were a marketer looking for ways on how to sell my toy, I would immediately bounce from this landing page.
Microsoft:
Toys & Games Industry
Global Source for Market Research Reports on Toys & Games Industry
http://www.marketresearch.com
What I liked about the landing page: It was the most relevant landing page based on my search term compared to Google and Yahoo. It was a market research firm that probably has knowledgeable insight into toy marketing. It covered my industry- consumer goods, and my specific segment within the industry- toys. The landing page provided a laundry list of relevant marketing research reports for the toy industry for me to buy so I could self-select my needs based on topic and price. The site offered RSS feeds and
What I didn’t like about the landing page: Not much. It was pretty spot on.
Thanks for the great insight into Landing Page experiences!