There has been a recent fundamental shift to put power in the hands of the user — the shift from creating a platform that people must use because there’s nothing better, to creating an experience that users will choose and enjoy above all others — by implementing user feedback or even crowdsourcing new offerings or features.
And now the user experience is essential to everything in B2B marketing — you can’t develop your brand, message, or product in a vacuum anymore. User research is key to creating a brand that resonates with your target audience, a message that talks to users in their language while communicating your unique value proposition, a product that gets them and makes their lives easier and better, and a promotion strategy that reaches your buyers where they are.
According to a MarketingSherpa study, 68 percent of B2B marketers use landing pages for lead generation. Chances are, you use landing pages as a gate to the content marketing and thought leadership assets in your library.
In the same way that product design is held under increased user scrutiny, your content marketing efforts are expected to be designed with the end user in mind.
Here are five user-friendly landing page tips to keep in mind as you boldly go where few B2B marketers have gone before:
- Do some A/B testing: We get it. A/B testing is this amorphous thing you’re supposed to be great at. It’s scary for most marketers. But leaning into data is the only way you’ll know what’s working and what’s not. Challenge yourself to test messaging or creative for your next content marketing initiative.
- Use it: Spend some time going through the landing page process before you start promoting your new content marketing assets. Send the link around internally and ask for feedback on where users lose interest or trust in the process.
- Make it functional on all devices: As of June 2013, 27 percent of Web traffic comes from mobile and tablet devices. Do your landing pages give those users the same experience as traditional Web visitors? When they complete the form on your landing page, can they view the assets they’ve requested without downloading? Can they easily share from mobile?
- Track the metrics that matter: Decide what landing page metrics you’ll benchmark at the start of your new campaign. What matters to the success of the campaign overall? Make sure you have a plan to monitor attribution for sign-ups and have all of the analytics tools in place to measure what matters to you.
- Remember the importance of message: Do you understand what keeps your users up at night? How does your content solve that problem? Use the real estate on your landing page to tell them how your webinar, white paper, or other gated thought leadership asset will make their jobs easier.
This week, we’ll dive into what makes a successful landing page and how to understand what your users want out of your content so you can increase conversions and drive your content marketing initiatives with new insight.
In the meantime, register for our upcoming webinar with George LaRocque, “Putting Drive Into Gear — Executing on Your Company’s Obsession to Achieve Market Supremacy.” You won’t want to miss it.
