A landing page is a website that is one page that has a specific purpose. In this episode, Tami and Joe talk about what landing pages are, how they’re different from websites, how they’re used, when you should use them, and much more.
Episode 14 Transcript:
Tami: Welcome to High Energy Marketing! A podcast with us, the digital marketing agency Ajax Union, where we interview our CEO, Joe Apfelbaum, on key marketing topics and we share everything you need to know to properly grow your business online. This is a question and answers podcast where I asked Joe questions about different topics and trends in marketing, based on his book, High Energy Marketing. You can get the book at ajaxunion.com/book to follow along with us.
This is the 14th official episode of our podcast about High Energy Marketing, and today we’re going to discuss the importance of style guides and marketing briefs in your marketing efforts. But first, a little housekeeping. Wherever you’re listening to this podcast, go ahead and hit that subscribe button so you catch our next episodes and find our previous episodes more easily. Please leave us a review and give us a five-star rating; that would be very helpful. And now let’s move on to our inspiration of the day. Joe, do you want to hit us with a quick inspiration minute before we get started?
Joe: I would love to share some inspiration.
So you might think that people just create problems in your life. Because let’s face it, relationships can be really difficult. And the same thing that attracts you to someone will often challenge you to the greatest, greatest depth. So we’re emotionally attracted to people if there’s something about them that can heal us, or wound us. So that’s where we unconsciously desire to have other people in our life. And the same healing power also has the power to agitate us in that emotional wound that we have.
We need that agitation to become aware of the source of our hurt because hurt people hurt other people. And the best way to heal is to go through the hurt, not run away from it. Other people will support us, mentor us, teach us, and give us lessons that we can learn. But often we can’t learn those lessons on our own. And the right person will say something to you that you probably heard a million times. But when you hear it from them, somehow it made it stick.
I had a friend who asked me, “why do you believe that you deserve to suffer?” I let that question fester. My initial reaction is: I don’t believe that I deserve to suffer. But anytime you have a conviction about something, a stubborn thought, an opinion that if challenged, we almost get angry. It’s a sign that our egos are in play. And so over time, I realized that I was allowing certain people in my life with no boundaries because something inside me made me feel guilty about those relationships. Once I became aware, a brick was lifted off my shoulders. And I was free from that burden. And I’m able to create boundaries with those relationships that helped me limit the negative exposure that I was getting.
Ask yourself the following question: what type of people do you need to add to your life? Really think about that. That’s today’s inspiration minute.
Tami: Thank you so much, Joe. And let’s jump right into our topic of the day. So we have a couple of questions for you. First, what is a landing page? We just talked about websites. So what is a landing page versus a website? And can you share an example of one?
Joe: Sure, a landing page is a website that is typically one page with a specific purpose. When someone lands on that specific page, the page is designed to fulfill that purpose. Often landing pages are used for advertising campaigns that are designed to get people to give their contact information.
For example, if you have an immigration law firm that is looking for HR managers that want to hire people who are not US citizens, your landing page will clearly speak to their pains, and their goals, and also have a form above the fold that they can fill out.
I know if you guys listen to the previous episode, we talked about having a website and making sure that the information is above the fold. Same thing with a landing page. Landing pages usually do not need to link anywhere else. You know the way that a website sometimes has navigation on top with a logo. You don’t need to have that stuff.
You can have your logo on your website. But you want to make sure that your landing page is clear and that your landing page has a specific purpose. I gave you an example, Tami, of the immigration law firm. But I’m gonna give you another example. If you go to ajaxunion.com/blueprint, we have a LinkedIn Authority Blueprint, which is a product that we service companies that need a LinkedIn strategy for their profile. And so if you need a LinkedIn strategy, you can go to ajaxunion.com/blueprint to watch a video about the blueprint, and then you have the opportunity to buy the blueprint.
If you just want to buy the blueprint, you can go to a separate landing page called ajaxunion.com/buyblueprint. And you can see those landing pages right there, where we lay everything out properly. So that’s how what you should think about when you’re setting up a landing page.
Tami: So that’s what a landing page is, right? It’s just a simple page describing one product or service. And you just want people to take one, one action from that page.
Joe: Yes, you want it, you want to take one simple action and don’t confuse people with a million different options. And don’t give them whole navigation with an about us page, the contact page, all that other stuff we spoke about in the previous episode, we talked about what goes into a website don’t include all the same stuff on the landing page.
Tami: Okay, so what should you include on a landing page since you’re not including a navigation menu? What are the elements that we are including on this landing page?
Joe: We always teach our clients that it’s really important to have key elements on your landing page. So for example, you want to have something called credibility icons, because you need people to give you credibility if you want them to buy or enter information.
For example, a credibility icon could be an Inc 500 logo, because we were featured as one of the fastest growing companies on the Inc 500. That’s a credibility icon. There are many other credibility icons you can include. If you take a look at our landing page, you’re gonna see some of them there, you also want to have testimonials on the landing page. That’s called social proof.
So for example, if you go to Joelinkedin.com, that’s my LinkedIn page. And I have testimonials there as recommendations. But we also include some of those recommendations on our blueprint page. If you go to ajaxunion.com/buyblueprint, you’re gonna see some of those testimonials. Many of those came directly from LinkedIn recommendations.
I would also recommend including videos, examples, and anything else that would make somebody actually want to fill in the form, whether it’s to join an event, whether it’s to join your newsletter, whether it’s to download something, or buy something, you want to make sure that you have those credibility icons, Tami, that you have testimonials, videos and examples, and things that will help move people along the funnel.
Tami: Okay, so we have our landing page. And it doesn’t have navigation, but it does have credibility icons, it explains its product or service. So why do we need this? If I have a website, I have a website up with navigation. Why can’t I just add a page to my website? Why do I need to have this separate landing page that you keep talking about?
Joe: The reason you need a separate landing page is that let’s say you’re spending $5,000 a month on Google AdWords or $10,000 a month on Google AdWords. Do you really want to send somebody to your homepage? Is that what you want to do? No. Because if you send somebody to your homepage, you’re not giving them exactly what they clicked on.
If somebody goes to Google and says I am looking for a LinkedIn strategy, should I send them to ajaxunion.com and tell them to figure it out, or send them to a page on my website where they can click around and get lost? I want them to focus. Where focus goes, energy flows. That’s the saying.
So a landing page is almost like a focus place for a particular purpose that will drive people through to take an action. So if you know exactly why somebody landed on a particular page, does it make sense to customize a page speaking only to that particular person. On your website, you have lots of different people from different places coming to your website. So you want to have clear navigation on your website, and you want to make sure you have lots of resources.
But if you’re thinking about your landing page, you need to really think about making sure that you have one that will fill a specific purpose.
Tami: And you say thinking about your landing page, do you really mean landing pages, right? So if we understand now that a landing page is for when you’re telling someone to go to your website, it’s not when people are searching for you and they find your website, and they’re looking around, or they’re just on social media. So they click on your bio link, and they’re looking around your website kind of learning more about you.
This is when you’re talking to someone via email, on the phone, in person, whatever it is, and you say, “Hey, I have a product or service that can solve this problem you’re having go to ajaxunion.com /buyblueprint to learn more about this,” not “go to ajaxunion.com in the search bar, search for blueprint, click on the button, try to figure it out for yourself,” person I’m talking to right? Like you send them directly to a page that speaks directly to the issue that they’re having in this conversation.
Joe: Yeah, and advertisements. So for example, if I want to find a runner or an ad for someone to buy my book, I’m not just going to say go on Amazon and find my book. I’m going to send them to a landing page ajaxunion.com/book. And on that landing page, you might be able to get a free chapter or you might be able to buy the book or whatever it is, but it’s there’s gonna be a clear call to action there. It’s not like I have to send people fishing. Because if I send people fishing, they’re gonna get lost. I don’t want people to get lost.
Tami: And so this helps us answer, how do you decide what landing pages you need?
Joe: So the way that you decide what landing pages you need is by making a list of, for example, a webinar, a presentation, a case study, an eBook, a checklist, those are things you really want to think about, you might want to create a landing page for where you have major offerings when someone asks you about your offering. And you can send them to that direct page. Landing pages are a great bottom-of-the-funnel resource, where your lead has an intent, they’re ready to buy a product or service or ready to book a call, or they’re ready for a quote, you can make a landing page there that really has their focus, we have a landing page for Account Based Marketing. We have a landing page for our final webinar, we have a landing page Tami for our capabilities deck video. So if you go to ajaxunion.com/capabilitiesvideo, literally the only thing you can do there is watch our capabilities video, we have a landing page for our workshop go to ajaxunion.com/workshop and as our whole workshop process there.
So whether you’re doing landing pages for advertising campaigns, like getting people to watch a webinar, a case study and ebook checklist, a template, a cheat sheet, or whether you’re driving people to take a specific action, you want to make sure that your landing pages are in line with what you want to do in your business what you want to accomplish in your business.
Tami: So at what stage of the funnel, should you use a landing page, I heard you say the bottom of the funnel so these are bottom of funnel pages?
Joe: You could have. I believe that you need to have landing pages for each stage of the funnel. That’s why ClickFunnels talks about building out funnels. But you can create landing pages for specific audiences.
For example, we have a LinkedIn course we have a landing page for real estate agents in our LinkedIn course. We have very specific testimonials on those landing pages for clients who are real estate agents to speak to their needs. Landing pages are very effective if you don’t have a budget for a full website and you can start marketing your business with a simple landing page. So I want you to really think about what you really need right now.
You might need a bottom-of-the-funnel landing page for people that are ready to buy in, you might need a middle-of-the-funnel landing page because you’re not building trust. Or you might do the top of the funnel landing page and you already have those landing pages for the bottom of the funnel. So I really want you to think about what you need right now. And that will determine what type of landing pages you need for that stage of the funnel.
Tami: Amazing. Thank you so much, Joe. That was awesome information. I hope everyone listening got as much out of that as we did. On next month’s episode, we’ll be talking about lead magnets your ideal clients actually want.
Make sure to hit that subscribe button to catch the next episode. You can follow us on Instagram @ajaxunion. And follow Joe on all social media platforms @JoeApfelbaum and follow him on LinkedIn at JoeLinkedin.com. If you didn’t catch that, check our description for all of our social media links. ajaxunion.com/podcast can also have that information for you. If you have questions, shoot us an email at amazing@ajaxunion.com. Our music is by Michael Suarez.
This podcast is produced by Sarah and Shannon and edited by Samuel Matitelu. Thank you so much. Goodbye.
