Where do I begin? Marketing is one of my favourite facet of business. It can take many forms, and be divided into many, many roles. From brand managers to social media gurus, marketing is an essential function of product development and overall company success.
Have you seen Mad Men? If not, click on the link to see what you are missing! In the mean time I will fill you in. It is a show that idolizes ad agencies, and illustrates an era where advertising firms were seen as business geniuses and marketing was greatly respected. People revered ad firms.
Today it is a little different. Marketing is no longer an innovative idea, it is the norm.
However companies like Curb Media specialize in OOH marketing. This concept is one I find truly exciting. Breaking free, being disruptive and using innovation to find an appropriate solution to today’s advertising saturation. You can’t even take a p*ss without being bombarded by interruptive attempts to sell you something you probably don’t need. This is where OOH comes into play, create something that will leave a positive, lasting impression.
In a world of expected, safe, average, and ignored advertising it is worth taking a risk to achieve something of lasting value.
However before I go off on a huge tangent check out this cool article of bathroom advertising done right! Hilarious.Gross. Effective all at the same time.
Billboards.Promotional print. Flyers. That seems to be a method of the past. I believe, as do you probably, online advertising will drive the future. To be more specific, I believe mobile marketing is the next “billboard.” To solidify this, Google’s recent update adjusted it’s SEO algorithm to prioritize to websites that are mobile friendly.
You may be freaking out. I apologize. If your website is not mobile responsive take a deep breath, I got you. This link is a google developer forum that highlights the changes your site must make to be prioritized.
To save time, I have attached a link here that provides 10 future predictions about the next medium of marketing. But to summarize, people are social. Your company must keep up with the technological savviness, and social tendencies with today’s end consumer. The old KPI standards are changing and being placed by this!
Many traditional print firms are turning to ad tech to keep up with the demand for tech based advertising. This is truly an exciting time! Companies like Enplug, and ideas like SocialWally are continuing to thrive!
The majority of this blog talks about B2C inbound marketing strategies and pulling the customer towards your brand. You can even take an online, free test to become inbound certified. Try it here.
So take a look around! I hope I was able to help!
A few definitions:
Multi–level marketing (MLM) is a marketing strategy in which the sales force is compensated not only for sales they generate, but also for the sales of the other salespeople that they recruit. This recruited sales force is referred to as the participant’s “downline”, and can provide multiple levels of compensation. AKA Pyramid Scheme.
Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
If you are a service based business, e-commerce business, or any business that relies on a presence on the internet (which in 2016 is the majority of businesses) then you need a landing page where your visitors can discover you via Google AdWords, Email Campaigns, Social Media Ads or even organic SEO.
Here is a little recipe I picked up from the Vancouver- based landing page pioneers, UnBounce:
- Action words + Product reference = Winning headline
- Your exact offering + Promise of ease = Winning subheader
- Your best offerings + Worded in the form of benefit statements + Appropriate sectioning = Winning body content
- Active words + ‘I want to…’ + A/B testing = Winning call to action
Lets dive in a little deeper shall we?
Action words + Product reference = Winning headline
The header is always active — it wants you to do something. The header almost always directly references the product or service, as well. As Kurt Vonnegut said:
To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
What are active words?
In the same way that active voice makes a sentence stronger by shifting focus onto the subject, active words help to promote action and create urgency. Active words in headers are usually verbs like build, get, launch, unlock, pledge, invest and give.
Pro tip: To maximize your conversion efforts, ensure there’s message match between your click-through ad and headline.
Your exact offering + Promise of ease = Winning subheader
Your header is an active statement, introducing your product. Your subheader is the second wave, there to support the header and give visitors a reason to continue reading. In the subheader, you tell your audience exactly what you have to offer, and highlight how incredibly easy the whole process will be.
Easy as pie
Online, all it takes is a few taps and a few clicks to make a potentially big decision, but if it’s not easy, a lot of us won’t bother doing it. That’s especially true of a landing page, which is essentially a 24/7 elevator pitch for your business.
As a visitor to your landing page, I need to know if what you’re offering is going to benefit me, and that by handing over my details, you’re going to do most of the heavy lifting for me (at least to begin with.)
In our model for the no-fail landing page copy, the relationship between header and subheader looks like this:
Header: Introduces the idea or service in an active way (inspire your audience to do something).
Subheader: Backs up the header by giving a reason for your visitor to read on.
Your best offerings + worded in the form of benefit statements + appropriate sectioning = Winning body content
The bulk of your landing page copy does the same job as the header and the subheader: it presents the benefits of your product to the user, and encourages them to act.
It’s tempting to go off-piste in the body content, to talk about your values and how you donate half of your profits to charity, but hold off. You need to make sure that your product is one your audience wants first. Stick to the benefits, and expand on those.
Break up your content
You’ll probably have more than one point to make on your landing page, but even if you don’t, breaking content up with headers and bullet points increases the chances of something catching your reader’s eye. It’s the equivalent of a supermarket arranging its products into categories and shelves, rather than bundling everything together in a big bargain bin.
With your body content, just like with your subheader, focus on what you have to offer, why it’s better than the competition’s and how you’ll do most of the heavy lifting should your prospect hand over their valuable email address.
- What does your product do, and how does it make your prospect’s life easier?
- What are your product’s most ground-breaking or useful features?
- Who does your product help?
- How easy it is to get started?
- Who else uses your product?
Active words + “I want to…” + A/B testing = Winning CTA
Since we’re talking about no-fail copy, like blueprints for you to riff from, we’ll tell you straight up that the most common call to action phrase that makes it to live landing pages, is “Get started”. That’s followed closely by anything with the word “get” in it.
Why does ‘Get started’ work?
It needs to be clear that your call to action is where the next step happens. If you want serious leads, then the call to action button is not the place to test out your funniest one-liners. Just like the header and subheader, the call to action is active, it’s job is to create momentum.
“Get started” suggests a journey, it suggests self-improvement, which is probably why it works better than “Submit” or “Subscribe.” It could also be that “Get started” works because it finishes the sentence we’re thinking when a sign-up is close: “I want to… get started.”
This guide and recipe was brought to you by UnBounce, the Vancouver pioneers in all things landing pages. This is not my work, I merely reposted it from their blog to share with you guys cause c’mon how cool is this stuff!
Best,
#TheYoungBizKid
This random. But I hope it puts a smile on your face! Enjoy.
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**This blog is not all original content- I do not own all the content. The purpose of this blog is to collect valuable insights across various channels, publications, and articles, and present them in a digestible and current way. Some material has been copied, and referenced in some articles, and should not be treated as original work.
TheYoungBizKid 