Ever get confused about the difference between a Landing Page and a One-Page Website?

One of the most common missteps that marketers make with Landing Pages is turning them into a One-Page Website without even realizing it. Generally speaking, Landing Pages are not meant to be overwrought or monumental undertakings (there are exceptions but we’ll get to this further down this post).

While both types of webpages are applicable to different campaign scenarios and user flows, this post specifically promotes Landing Pages as part of a brand’s set of Micro Moments.

The mobile revolution has created a new consumer habit, which Google refers to as Micro-Moment behaviour. This behaviour sees users turning to a device to know, go, do, and buy.

This shift in consumer habit has helped to position Landing Pages as key brand touch points because they are effective Micro-Moments when designed to deliver just the right amount of information.

Experienced marketers have learned through many trials that hedging their bets–building landing pages that try to cover all of the facets of a business–waters down a campaign’s message impact and generalizes the performance data. In order to win over consumers and stand out from all of the competition, marketers have had to start offering more relevant, personalized, engaging, and assistive brand touch points to each of their targeted audience segments. As data and machine learning become more sophisticated in enhancing everyday consumer experiences, the expectations for these useful Micro-Moments will continue to skyrocket.

This is where the distinct advantages of Landing Pages can help create curiosity, build anticipation, drive demand, and guide users along a better path to conversion. On the technical side, efficient Landing Pages are faster to build, more easily optimized for mobile responsiveness, and simpler to deploy.

So what’s the difference?

One-Page Websites consolidate a full site’s content into a single web page and shares similarities to a full website’s homepage in that it will have multiple call-to-actions (CTA) and messaging focal points. Some brands might choose this style of website because:

  • they don’t want or have time to build a complex site
  • they don’t have enough content to spread over multiple pages, or
  • they want to offer a little more engagement but not as much as a full website
  • a minimalist online presence aligns with their brand, or
  • they wish to minimize perpetual website maintenance

Landing Pages on the other hand, should have a single focus and a single CTA. With 20 links on a one-page website or homepage, your attention ratio per button/link is 5% – compared to an attention ratio of 100% with a Landing Page’s single CTA button/link.

This seems like a simple delineation, but marketers and their clients can often lose this strategic focus in the creative/production process and end up disregarding the key differences. A few other things to note about Landing Pages:

  • they are less SEO-friendly than traditional webpages and websites, however…
  • their traffic is driven by targeted PPC, social media, and content marketing campaigns

When a Landing Page morphs into a One-Page Website, the lack of CTA focus can result in low conversion in the campaign’s performance reports.

We must continually remind ourselves and our clients of the distinctions between the two in order to build campaigns with laser-focused user flow and user outcomes in mind, or to course-correct a campaign that was perhaps launched on the wrong foot.

Remember, there should be a dedicated, promotion-specific landing page for each promotion campaign. Each landing page collects unique insights about your target audience and their behaviours. For example, a landing page with low performance over 3 months can mean that your audience just isn’t interested in that specific offer. In that case, maybe it’s time to let that offer go and try a different one.

Do we even need a caption for this?

The takeaway might be to tweak your offer or messaging, or to completely change up your business’ promotional strategy. Periodically updating and varying your marketing message can refresh your campaign and prevent ad burnout, so don’t be afraid of making tweaks and adapting your campaign assets along the way.

 

What is the right amount of content for a Landing Page?

Landing Pages should provide sufficient information and context to help prospects make informed decisions that they feel good about. This is more effective than simply driving users directly to the end-destination, which is the equivalent of pushing a customer straight to the checkout counter as soon as they walk into a store for the first time. This leads to poor conversion in real life just as much as it does in the digital world.

This also does not mean you should put an epic novel about your products and services in front of the user. Remember, Micro-Moment behaviour still has a time limit so keep your content focused and concise. Help users focus on your juiciest value proposition by only showing information that will serve your campaign goal.

Get them excited or curious first. Save the full-blown details for when they reach out to ask for it.

If they are interested in what you’re selling, they will want more to know more before they commit to a decision. That want is a powerful emotion that can drive users to seek out products or contact your business. Let them want more. Or better yet, make them want more by alluding to some details for them to discover in follow-up interactions.

Scarcity is good for business, as they say.

What are the exceptions?

The exceptions include longer landing pages that ask users to scroll-scroll-scroll to interact with an abundance of info and images. Such landing pages often engage users through a combination of art, interaction, and storytelling experience.

For brand-activation campaigns, the primary goal is to be engaging and to create an emotional connection to the user, which aims to position a brand as top-of-mind in its market category. These campaigns are not simply about serving useful information around a product or service. These campaigns are often consumed as entertainment.

Entertainment value has virability value. If users share your landing page because it makes them look cool, it has virability value. To help make my point, below are a few examples of experiential landing pages. While they all have some interactive elements, if you can look past the razzle-dazzle, you’ll note that they each have one clear goal.

70 Years of Wrangler

This one appears to have a menu, which makes it feel like a microsite, but it is, in fact, just an interactive content sorter. The single-focus CTA is the ‘SHOP’ button in the bottom-right corner.

Ginventory

This Landing Page demonstrates the user interface of a new app that helps cocktail lovers find and serve the perfect gin & tonic. It’s primary focus is to convince users to download the app.

Campaign Monitor Year in Review

Campaign Monitor shares its milestones in a highly visual experience, boosting it’s brand credibility by promoting the achievements of the company and its clients. The only CTA is the social share.

Jess & Russ Timeline Love Story

Although this is not a marketing piece, it went viral nonetheless. This wedding invite site was created by a multitude of the couple’s designer friends and artists to tell their love story. Users scrolled down to see how each artist interpreted different milestones of their timeline love story. You won’t get bored scrolling, and that’s the key to this Landing Page’s success. The experience culminates to an RSVP form.