Landing Pages are a primary Marketing online tool. Most of the time they are the first visual element that a visitor experiences of your brand. While landing pages are usually designed to be informative, they must also focus on the action expected – completing a form, signing up to a mailing list or purchasing a product, for example.

The biggest challenge faced by the designer is to create a landing page that looks good, but also converts well.

The Mautic marketing automation platform provides the perfect technology platform to convert an anonymous visitor into a potential lead, but the designer is the person who has the power to make that happen.

• Design for the technology platform

Landing pages may be short and to the point, or they may be long-form, engaging the visitor and providing various sources of information to help the visitor come to a decision.

Whether short or long form, navigation plays a critical role in focusing the user on completing the action for which the page is intended. If your visitors will only be spending a few seconds on the page, the design elements must help them to find their way to the relevant information and action points.

As a designer, we try to convey a story through the elements we place on the page, using structure to guide the flow between different chapters in the story, and explaining points which may not be obvious to the reader.

• Design

At Virya Group our focus is on keeping things simple. Our main goal is to create theme which are clean, functional and with minimal distraction.

All our theme designs adhere to research-driven best practices related to landing pages. By dispensing with the fluff and keeping only the essential requirements, we focus on directing visitors’ attention to the appropriate page elements.

In most cases, this will be a call to action such as a button, special offer, lead capture form or video.

It is also important to cater for any eventuality. Each theme we design comes with a library of elements to choose from. This includes design guidance on everything from the weight of fonts to the styling of a table and the dimensions of images on a photo slider.

We try to ensure that we design everything with a focus on the experience of the visitor to the landing page and the flexibility that our end-users might require when customising the ‘off-the-shelf’ or bespoke themes that we provide.

• The Form

No matter what the goal of your campaign is, a great landing page needs to push your visitor to take a specific action and in many cases, this will be through a lead capture form.

The most important element of the landing page; the lead capture form presents a trigger. By this point (thanks to your awesome design work!) visitors are highly motivated to do something (complete the form) and the task now is to make sure that it is super easy, clear, and a nice experience to complete that action.

Sometimes we might add an extra convincer reminding them what they are getting when completing the form, but we always make sure the process is smooth, easy to understand and seamless.

It’s easy to forget the importance of the button on the form – but this is a vital ‘call to action’ – and an opportunity to remind the visitor what they will receive on completing the form.

From the designers perspective a good colour contrast with the background and a careful choice of wording are the two ingredients that will communicate clearly your goal and ensure the conversion takes place. Don’t just leave it at ‘submit’!

• The Language

Here we shift our attention from pixels to people. In Mautic landing pages we want to focus on using a certain language, which builds trust between the brand, product or service and the visitors.

As a designer, we need to think like the potential customers, determining what they need to see and what we want to communicate so that they fully engage with the value proposition on this landing page. We try to keep the language simple, describing why the product or service meets their needs or solves their pain-point, with no use of complex language.

Headers, sub-headers and text are structured to highlight for the reader any important messages.

Well designed Mautic landing pages allow you to communicate your value proposition clearly, without burying the visitor under piles of irrelevant information.

• Mobile First

Mautic landing pages should be designed with mobile in mind – if they are going to be used to target a mobile audience. As this segment is growing rapidly, it is an important factor when preparing visuals for a landing page.

Mobile visitors need to have the same kind of guidance throughout the page, be able to access the same resources, and have the same compulsion to complete the action as their desktop counterparts.

Designing for mobile devices is not simply about moving blocks around to fit a smaller screen, but must focus on a deep awareness of the behaviour differences on mobile as opposed to desktop devices.

• Test

With the growing importance of fast-loading web pages and a need to do everything possible to ensure a conversion when a visitor lands on your page, the overall page size is an important consideration.

Multiple studies have shown that landing pages which take a long time to load result in less conversions.

Optimisation in this regard involves a lot of testing, but also close communication between the designer and the developer to ensure that visuals are delivered in the most efficient way – for example using a single SVG image and applying CSS to select the relevant image, or making sure that the images are rendered and provided in the resolution that is required, rather than in maximum resolution.

Testing does not stop with page speed, however. Full testing should also include running A/B tests to determine the best button placement, applying design knowledge to identify the best colour choice, icons and photos, making sure that the typography is appropriate for the purpose of the page, and of course once the page is developed, ensuring legibility, navigation flows and of course interaction on any device or browser.

When the needs of the visitor are combined with the designer’s qualitative understanding of them, and a thorough understanding of the market, the results can be spectacular.

Are there other elements to landing page design that you include in your process? Please comment below! Thank you again to Betty Chatzisavvidou for allowing us to share this valuable content. For a look at the original post, click here.

In the days leading up to digital sales and marketing, the term improvisation (or improv), often took the role of the savvy salesperson who was able to think quickly on their feet in a sales presentation, or the marketer who was able to think outside the box. Improv has many attributes, but can automation be one of them?

The Art of Improv

The value that improv provides is the element of surprise and delight. But this value isn’t based on random or arbitrary activity. It’s based on a few core elements that are second nature to the people who are able to deliver it.

• Listening for relevance:
  One of the key elements of improv in a comedy context is that one person needs to listen and truly understand where the other person is leading the dialogue. This is why marketing automation should never be a solo proposition. To be truly effective in improv, you must listen to other actors and determine their role and how you will interact with them. To create moments of improvisation you must first listen.
• Know Your Audience:
  In any field where communication is relied upon to provide value, listening and understanding who you’re speaking to are key. Have they experienced what you’ve experienced? Whether it’s a group of realtors or bodybuilders, what each group finds humorous will be unique. The connections we make with them must reflect our knowledge of who they are.
• Follow the flow:
  When you’re doing improv, it’s necessary that your story have a rhythm or a cadence. It’s in this flow of story that an audience will find connection. If you’ve ever been to an evening of improv, you’ll notice that there is a broader story being told. The flow of a story will ultimately engage you in meaningful ways. Breaking this pattern or flow will leave audiences feeling disconnected.
• Delight with a payoff:
  There are many times throughout an improvisational skit or comedy routine where there’s a moment of delight or a comedic payoff. It often leaves the audience even more engaged and connected to the story being told. This is one of the most important elements of improv. It’s the response that our amygdala reacts to. It’s the part of your brain that helps evaluate if something is memorable and full of delight.

Improv is part art and part science. It’s not something that can simply be calculated or easily produced. It comes with practice and a keen awareness of these elements. Now let’s take a look at each of these elements in the light of how we automate our marketing and communications.

Automating Improv

Automation continues to be seen as a calculated prescription of actions that are a result of someone’s choice. These seem in complete contrast to the ebb and flow of a improv comedy routine. Or are they? Let’s consider the factors of improv that we’ve highlighted and determine if there is a place in our marketing automation for them.

• Listening for relevance:
  One of the things that we often miss when developing our automation workflows is a close relationship with the other functions of our business that provide us with real-time feedback. Integrations become a key way for businesses to assess relevance throughout the entire product lifecycle. Are you working with other teams in your business? If you’re able to check for whether an email has been opened or a link has been clicked, what other actions/activities can provide feedback? Payment received? Order processed? Shipment delivered? Consider what notifications can be leveraged to help you make the most meaningful connection.
• Know Your Audience:
  This seems fairly intuitive. When someone clicks on a link, visits a page or fills out a form, it begins to indicate intent or motivation. Your audience is providing you with all manner of information that will help you learn more about them. Knowing this information gives you information with which to validate interest. Are you leveraging each marketing channel and function in your business to truly understand them?
• Follow the Flow:
  Consider flow akin to your buying journey. One of the real challenges of improv is the ability to combine all of these factors into a relevant story. The same is true of marketing automation. Follow your visitor/customer as they make decisions. As you do, be sure to provide value at each milestone. Allow their decisions and your value to steer them into opportunities for delight.
• Delight with a Payoff:
  We all know that with improv the payoff is the punchline or the big finish. As we consider marketing’s role in engaging our audience and maximizing resources with automation, we must use these tools to engage our audience, not simply move them through a funnel. Whether you are listening for keywords, monitoring for clicks, be intentional by identifying specific segments or customers to provide truly delight filled moments.

Many organizations are joining the marketing automation movement. They’re taking their simple, routine communications and moving them into an automation system. This is not altogether a bad thing. But the opportunity cost may be greater than anticipated if marketing teams don’t find improvisational ways to make automation a value added part of their marketing strategy. Here’s our chance to take the stage and make each interaction one they won’t soon forget.