In Hubspot’s State of Inbound 2016 , both inbound and outbound marketing teams consider “converting contacts/leads to customers” as their top marketing priority over the next 12 months. It’s agreed upon that ensuring landing page conversion is critical.

If you’re not getting the response that you’d expect, or it’s taken a nose dive recently, following are three important keys that will help you refresh your pages. Read on to save time and generate the leads that will make your sales team – and your CEO – extremely happy.

Know Your Customer

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to preach it; taking time to research and develop your target persona is critical for lead generation. Creating buyer personas focuses your efforts and enables alignment between sales, marketing, operations and customer service.

When you develop your target personas, you’ll learn their likes, dislikes, challenges and pain points. What is the problem that they have, and how can you solve it? How do they like receiving this information? What are their common objections?

Once you’ve collected this invaluable information, you’ll be able to create content, specifically landing page content, that speaks directly to them. If your landing page directs your customer to gather additional information, and uses language that speaks right to the heart of their problem, you’re golden…and most likely have a fresh lead.

Take the time. Create buyer personas. A thorough vetting of target persona information will sharpen your customer focus, and in turn, drive you to create content that your customers can’t resist.

Begin with the End in Mind

This is great advice found in Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and can be applied to increasing conversion rates for your landing pages. Simply ask yourself the question:

What do you want your customer/reader to do once they hit your landing page?

Since you’ve already determined what makes them “tick” through persona development, you now need to provide them with a clear and logical path to take them from entry onto your web site, to exit…with an exchange of information (conversion!) in between.

It’s time to think like your customer…address the benefits of how your product or service can solve their problem and take away the “pain” that they experience on a regular basis. Think through their possible barriers – what would prevent them from utilizing your product? Is it budget, staff availability or executive buy-in? And how can you alleviate this barrier? Finally, be sure your page has a call-to-action (CTA) that prompts the reader to download/view additional knowledge and information on how you can solve their problem.

A quick example of an effective CTA – it includes:

• A great headline
• Equally persuasive subhead
• Compelling images
• An explanation (including value proposition) spoken in the language of your persona
• Information on how you address their pain points

Begin with the end in mind, and design your landing page content and layout based on your target persona. The tone, design and delivery of your content will cause them to take action, and in a best-case scenario, generate a qualified lead; further demonstrating the value of marketing for your business. 

Keep it Real

With so much information available from a multitude of websites and social media platforms, it’s inevitable that your target persona will read some helpful, and in turn, some not-so-helpful information as it relates to your product or service. Most likely, some of this information will come from your competition.

One way to stand out and ensure your customers are converting from your landing pages is to be straightforward and authentic. Tell them, in clear, concise terms, using language that speaks directly to them, how you can make things easier for them. This is not the time to use hyped-up verbiage, or lots of exclamation points!!!!! Use “real-speak,” action-oriented language, and facts that relate to your buyer personally…not generalities.  

I’ve read blog posts that included a catchy title and interesting first paragraph, but then immediately moved into “sales-pitchy” language - I was suddenly not interested in learning more. If you want to effectively convert landing page visitors to qualified leads, give them information that they long to hear…not what you want to tell them.

Converting landing page visitors is a big deal – it’s a critical step in nurturing and generating qualified leads for your marketing and sales team. When you take the time to ensure that your landing pages effectively speak to your target personas, provide a logical flow of information, and showcase your authentic self, you’ll find your landing page conversions increasing. A win-win for your marketing team and your business’ bottom line!