Growing your business in 2020 is going to be a difficult task. Maybe it is time to consider paid traffic. There seems to be more competition out there every year. Plus the consumer’s taste seems to change in an instance. It’s very tough to predict where your potential customers are going to be and how to convince them to purchase with you.
If money’s no object, then go ahead and do what you need to do to get customers coming through the door. But if you’re like most businesses, trial and error will just send you to the poor house. For most businesses, money spent on advertising needs to count.
In a recent post, I talked about the website traffic that you want to nurture in 2020. It’s all about organic traffic and why that’s the best thing for your website. What I didn’t talk about is paid traffic. That’s because paid traffic is not the first place you want to look when you’re trying to make a sale.
However, that doesn’t mean you should ignore paid traffic. It just means that there are a time and a place for it. So, if you have an advertising budget to spend, here’s how we think you should spend it.
Don’t Drive Traffic to Your Website
This seems counterintuitive, but it’s the best advice we can give. When you’re paying for website traffic, you’re sending people to a page full of options and that’s a bad plan.
Intentionally Inspirational founder Jason Wright says, “It is much smarter to drive traffic to a landing page. Fewer options equal more conversions.”
What’s a Landing Page?
I’ll let Hubspot explain this. “Landing pages can be used to capture information on website visitors in exchange for branded content or experiences. These include ebooks, email newsletters, online courses, industry events, free product trials, community memberships, and company mobile apps… Landing pages have one chief purpose: to generate leads for your business.”
In other words, a landing page is designed to help you get warm leads and make sales. That’s it. It’s not a place for people to find out about your business or your team of highly skilled, intelligent employees.
It only has one purpose, generating leads.
Why a Landing Page Can Be a Better Option
The real reason you want to send people to a landing page instead of your website’s homepage is that the landing page is designed with easy to follow, specific instructions and very few distractions. Landing Pages are designed to gather contact information or make a sale. Nothing else. Read it again, nothing else.
You have to remember the landing page is all about that one objective. Do not fill it with needless information about your company. No added links to your blog. Visitors don’t need any reason to navigate away from the landing page. You don’t want your visitors to get distracted from their one purpose.
The landing page is a very simple page with a very simple purpose.
Ways to Improve Your Landing Page
Previously, we talked about how to create an amazing landing page. The article is filled with a bunch of do’s and don’ts for a good landing page. That is a great place to start.
If you already have a landing page, then I check out a few of our other posts so that you can improve it.
I would start with 5 Sales Funnel Mistakes People Make to ensure that you’re operating your sales funnel in a way that is beneficial to you and your business. Your landing page is a key piece of your sales funnel, but it’s not the only piece. Making sure that your entire sales funnel is doing its job and identifying any breakdowns along the path is a big key to making sure your sales funnel operates at its maximum potential.
I would also look at How A/B Testing Can Improve Your Sales. Sales funnels are never perfect; they’re constantly improving. One of the ways you can make sure your sales funnel is improving in a positive direction each time is to conduct A/B testing.
The bottom line is, paid advertising has its place in your sales strategy. You just want to make sure you’re using your limited budget in the best way possible.
Written by Erika Towne