It has finally happened. Agency owners are accepting the reality that doing business over the Internet is something many customers actually want to do. Some are having a tough time with this transition because they're still focused on baby boomers, rather than on “Generation Y.” The latter group has no problem with high-tech business solutions. Many of these “Millennials” don't even have phone books, preferring to simply text-message instead of calling. So while boomers may look at the Internet as optional for doing business, for Generation Y it's mandatory.

That being the case, innovative marketers are coming up with new ways of reaching a technologically savvy market. An excellent example is something called a “landing page.” A landing page is essentially a direct-marketing tool. It presents a message to a visitor who is directed to the page by a specific source. The source could be a direct-mail piece, a broadcast or print ad, or a message on a business card.
Types of landing pages
There are two basic types of landing pages. “Reference” landing pages present information that educates visitors on topics relevant to their needs and lifestyles. This type of page can include text, images, surveys and relevant links. In many ways, a reference landing page is much like traditional institutional marketing; the benefit is keeping the brand in front of a target market. The success of this type of page depends on who visits the site and what sort of information they're expecting to find.
The other type of landing page is “transactional.” It tries to persuade visitors to complete an activity, like requesting a quote or consenting to be contacted. A visitor's action on a transactional page is usually referred to as a “conversion.” The page's effectiveness is measured by the conversion rate, which is calculated by comparing the number of hits against the number of clicks answering the call to action.
Benefits of landing pages
To be successful, a landing page should have a clear purpose and a reliable way to measure the conversion rate. It's also essential that visitors readily understand what they are asked to do, and how taking that action will benefit them. In addition to those already mentioned, some of those actions might include:
o Clicking on a link to your main agency Web site or other Web sites.
o Requesting a newsletter.
o Telling a friend about your agency.
o Posting comments or providing feedback on specific issues.
On some pages it may be possible to combine two purposes, but two is the limit. More options will decrease the page's effectiveness and make it difficult to track the conversion rate.
A common mistake is to use an agency Web site's home page or “contact us” page as a landing page. This defeats the purpose of a landing page, since you want visitors to access the page only via a specific source and to receive a specific message. That way, you can track your success rate for a particular marketing method.
The cost of creating a landing page is usually minimal, and the page requires little maintenance once published. Simplicity is critical. After you design a landing page (or have one designed for you), look at it and ask yourself, “What does this page want me to do?” If it takes you longer than eight seconds to answer that question, you probably should revamp the page. One solution might be to break it into two landing pages, so each makes a stronger case for a desired action.
How landing pages work
Understanding how landing pages work is essential for their successful use. When most agency owners think about Internet marketing, their thinking begins and ends with their agency Web sites. They post all information that any customer or prospect might want to view on various pages that all ultimately link back to the home page and the site map. With landing pages, on the other hand, agency owners target specific groups of clients or prospects with a specific message.
Web sites typically are designed to make it as easy for search engines to link to as many parts of them as possible. With a landing page, just the opposite is true. An effective landing page is virtually invisible on the Web, because it's:
o Disconnected from the home page and the site map.
o Not linked to other pages.
o Prevented from being directly accessed by a random visitor.
The page has to be invisible to random Web surfers, since the goal is to get a target group to request a certain action and then measure the conversion rate. To do so accurately, the visitor must have only one way to get to that page.
How can this technology be applied to agency marketing? Let's say an agency has a strong contractor market, and also a strong benefits department. In the past, it would probably mention these markets on its home page, and then provide links visitors could use to access other pages containing additional information. As an alternative, this same agency could create a landing page for each of its lines of business. To get an accurate conversion rate, these new pages would not be linked to the main Web site or routinely used in print, direct mail or broadcast marketing. By controlling how visitors access the page–say, through a specific ad campaign–100% of the hits on those pages can be attributed to the campaign.
How many landing pages should an agency have? It depends on how many customer markets the agency wants to reach with a message. Should there be a different page for each advertisement or line of business? Why not? Should there be a separate landing page for each producer? Again, why not? The more closely you can track what your current and prospective clients want, the more effectively you can grow your agency.
Doing business in the future–the near future–will require agencies to understand and adroitly use Internet technology. This is particularly true as Generation Y overtakes the baby boomers as the dominant buyers in the market. The agencies that understand this and position themselves accordingly will benefit in the years to come.
Ted Baker is the president of Advantage Automation Inc., which for 17 years has offered agency-consulting services addressing a variety of management and agency-development issues. He also is an author and frequent conference speaker. Ted can be reached at [email protected].