Tips for Using Landing Pages With Direct Mail

A landing page is a Web page with content dedicated to a specific campaign, sales offer, product or service. Marketers try to get prospects to visit a landing page in order to capture more information about the prospects or to convince them to sign up for a service or purchase a product.

Printing a landing page URL on a direct-mail piece, such as a postcard, can be a great way to connect with customers. Using layers of navigation, marketers can provide more thorough and detailed information about a product or service, which the customer can navigate at will. Landing pages are also a great opportunity to digitally capture information about your audience. Here are four tips on how to profit from landing pages: 1. Use cohesive creative It's best to create a flow from the mailing to the website to indicate to prospects that they're in the right place. Use the color scheme, fonts and any photography or illustration from the mailing on the landing page. To maintain credibility online, be sure the URL and the landing page itself are branded with the company name, offer name or the product name. 2. Provide an incentive One of the biggest challenges in direct mail-to-landing page offers, is motivating the prospect to visit your URL. That's asking the prospect to stop what they're doing, go to the computer and focus on your offer. Try providing a special incentive for going online, such as "Orders placed online will receive an added 10 percent off." Or you can throw in a free gift, subscription to a digital newsletter or entry into a sweepstakes for those who visit the landing page. That way the prospect is likely to hang on to your mailing and visit your site the next time they're online. 3. Make the buying path clear A landing page is different from any other Web page or home page because your goal is not just to provide information, but to get the visitor to take action. Treat the landing page in much the same way as an order form. Reiterate the offer, restate the product benefits and be sure the order form or order button are highly visible and easy to use. 4. Collect data Be sure to capture as much information as you can about the landing page visitor. Placing a registration code on the mailing that customers can key-in online will help you track response. Using cookies and basic Web analytics you can also track what each registered visitor does once on the site. Do they place an order, browse more product information, leave the site, visit your home page instead? If you ever plan to do e-mail marketing, use landing page campaigns to collect e-mail addresses and build up an in-house e-mail file. E-mail lists from outside vendors are extremely expensive and not as effective as in-house lists.