Using conversion funnels in marketing is nothing new, however in the past few years they have become one of the primary focuses for websites. Personally, I believe they should be the primary goal of every home page and the primary function of every landing page. I thought it was about time I write a short article about conversion tunnels in marketing and landing pages and why I see them as being so important.
What is a conversion in relation to website marketing?
Successful conversions are interpreted differently by individual marketers, advertisers, and content creators. To online retailers, for example, a successful conversion may constitute the sale of a product to a consumer whose interest in the item was initially sparked by clicking a banner advertisement. To content creators, however, a successful conversion may refer to a membership registration, newsletter subscription, software download, or other activity that occurs due to a subtle or direct request from the content creator for the visitor to take the action.
What is a conversion funnel?
A Conversion Funnel is the path that a visitor takes from point A to Point B in your marketing process. It is called a funnel because, much like a physical funnel, it takes large numbers of people and hones them into a targeted stream by the end of the process.
An example:
For the sake of this document, I’ll define funnels using “>” as in: Step 1 > Step 2 > Step 3 > Conversion Achieved!
What is a landing page?Landing pages are often linked to from social media, email campaigns or search engine marketing campaigns in order to enhance the effectiveness of the advertisements. The general goal of a landing page is to convert site visitors into sales leads. By analyzing activity generated by the linked URL, marketers can use click-through rates and Conversion rate to determine the success of an advertisement.
Putting it all together
When you take these three terms together, you have the principles involved for creating an ‘effective’ home page for your website (or any landing page for that matter). In my opinion, a strong and effective home page should put maximum effort into the successful conversion of a customer in the quickest and most efficient manner possible. To do so, the owner of the site should determine the primary desired action to be taken by a visitor to the landing page. Do you want the new visitor to complete a form, call a number, watch a video, buy a product or take some other action? They choice is up to you, but once you decide what is most important to your business, it is the job of the site designer or developer to make the page effective at accomplishing the task.