Marketers, it’s no secret you view your campaigns like children—you want to make sure they grow up to be big and strong. That means feeding them the right foods and putting them on the right path. For campaigns, it’s using the right landing pages because using the wrong ones can result in skewed results (and not in the direction you want).
If you want landing pages with high conversion rates, make sure you’re selecting ones that match your intent. Keep reading to see which types of pages fit different marketing goals.
9 Types of Landing Pages
1. Lead Capture
Chances are when someone starts talking about landing pages, lead capture pages are the first to come to mind. It’s only natural since one of the main goals of marketing is bringing in leads to either nurture for future conversion or to talk directly to the sales team.
Lead capture pages live up to their name—they capture leads’ information so your team can contact them. With lead capture, you’re typically looking for multiple identifying details about the visitor, such as their name, company name, job title, business email address, and the industry in which they work.
The more information you capture, the more qualified the lead will be; however, you increase the friction of their user experience with every additional data point you request. The greater the friction, the less likely visitors will complete your form. And poof! There go your campaign goals up in smoke.
So, be careful about how much information you are trying to gather. Be sure the information aligns with where the visitor is in the sales funnel. Generally, the further down the funnel, the greater sense it makes to ask for more information. For example, if the visitor has already downloaded content that shows interest in what you sell, such as a case study or datasheet, you can stand to request more details.
2. Squeeze
Unlike lead capture pages, squeeze pages are quick and to the point. You use this page when visitors are at the top of the sales funnel, so you’re only asking for a single piece of contact information, typically an email address.
Your goal is nurturing the lead because they’re not ready to make a commitment or talk to a salesperson. Having their email address enables you to keep in contact with them, build trust and authority, and eventually entice them to a larger ask.
To align with the squeeze page’s simple request, offer a valuable but simple piece of content—think newsletter, e-book, presentation, or quiz. Once the visitor submits their email address, grant them immediate access to the advertised content.
3. Splash
If lead capture isn’t your immediate goal, you can try a splash page. Think of a splash page as the middleman between a link click and the final (ungated) piece of content. For example, you can use a splash page for advertising an important event or sale before granting them access to a must-read article they saw on your social media page.
Here’s the order of appearance:
- Link on a social media page
- Splash page on a website
- Article on a website
In this example, you link to an interesting article on your social media page. A visitor clicks the link to read the article. However, before being taken to the article, they are first presented with your splash page. After either clicking out of the splash page or waiting for the timer to run out—you should time out the splash page, by the way—the visitor then sees the article.
4. Click-Through
If you market a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, you’ll likely use click-through pages a lot. That’s because these pages help prime a visitor before asking them to commit to your product or service—even if the commitment is just a free trial. Remember that you need to provide value first; otherwise, if visitors are greeted with a purchase or sign up button too soon, they’ll leave.
What does that value look like? Typically, you can generate interest by showcasing how visitors will benefit from what you’re offering. After the visitor has learned how your product can improve their life, you can present a free trial button. This would take them to another landing page with pricing details and require payment information to start the trial.
5. Long-Form Sales
If you’re past the lead capture stage and are creating a campaign focused on eliciting sales, consider a long-form sales page. Unlike with the preceding landing pages, you shouldn’t be worried about doing too much. Now’s the time to pulls out all the stops.
As the name suggests, long-form sales pages are lengthy. Remember that you’re trying to get the sale, so you need to not only showcase how beneficial your product or service is but also address every objection they may have. Research comes in handy here—you should be talking with your sales team to identify all the objections they typically face from prospects.
Beyond objections, you should include social proof. What high-profile or well-known companies have bought from you? What do past and current customers have to say? Be detailed, so prospects have no reason to avoid your purchase button at the end.
6. Product
Do you have a new product you want to jumpstart sales on? Or maybe there’s a product people have been searching for a lot lately? In either case, you can use a product page to help it stand out.
Use this page to highlight a specific product—detail the problems it solves, the features it has, how it works, and so on. Don’t be stingy with media either; show it off with images and videos that showcase how they can use your product in practice.
7. Coming Soon
As a marketer, you know the importance of building excitement with prospects. It’s your job to create interest, so prospects take the actions you want, such as handing over their email address, signing up for a free trial, or making a purchase.
That’s what the coming soon landing page is for. You can hype up a new product, service, or even the launch of your business. Got a new t-shirt line coming out? Use a coming soon page. Planning on offering a new service your clients have been requesting for months? Roll out a coming soon page. Are you finally turning your passion into a real business? That’s right—use a coming soon page.
You want people to be as gung-ho as possible about what you’ll be releasing. Build the anticipation by adding a countdown to the page. Bonus points if you reference the countdown across multiple channels. For example, you can share the countdown on your social media pages as the days near your launch.
And don’t forget to capture visitors’ email addresses so you can notify them on release day.
8. Unsubscribe
Every marketer has faced the dreaded email informing them that people have unsubscribed from the company email list. Even after doing everything right—producing valuable content, sharing relevant links you think subscribers will appreciate, etc.—some people still say goodbye.
While the default action would be for subscribers just to be taken off the list, you can use an unsubscribe page as a last-ditch attempt to keep them around.
Perhaps a subscriber unsubscribed on accident. Maybe they’re simply receiving a few too many emails per month. Or it could be the case that they’re only interested in receiving certain emails from you. Whatever the case, you can provide options to those who don’t want to hear from you anymore.
Allow them to customize their email preferences to hear from you less or only about certain topics. And if they’re canceling a paid subscription, your unsubscribe page could remind them of the product benefits and even offer a discount.
9. Thank You
Lastly, there’s the thank you page. While this page often serves as a confirmation of something the visitor has successfully completed, such as downloading gated content, it can also pose an additional request.
For example, you may present another offer that pushes them further down the sales funnel. Naturally, the offer should relate to the one they just downloaded. Or, if you want to use a lighter ask, suggest the visitor follow you on social media.
Who knew there were so many ways you can craft a landing page? Try out one or more of these on your next campaign and see how quickly you reach your goals.
