Selling from landing pages?

If you’re new or even experienced at selling and marketing in the digital realm, you probably think that doing it without a website is not only impossible, but downright insane. And you’d be

wrong. Yes, making a website is completely essential. However it’s also a complicated and time

consuming process. You have to find a web developer to make it, create content and images to fill it with. Are you going to Self host the website or are you going to use a content management

system like Wordpress? Do you know if you’re paying too much or not spending enough? How about the color scheme? Does it fit with your branding. Is the site mobile friendly? And what the heck is this JavaScript you keep hearing about? Is that some new coffee shop you haven’t been

to yet? Hopefully, because all this web design talk is putting you to sleep!

The Truth is, if you want to start selling your wares before or during the process of website construction, a great temporary solution is to use Landing Pages.

If you don’t know already, a landing page is a short single page website that is completely separate from a company's actual site. It’s called a landing page because you land on it from

somewhere else on the web. Landing pages usually have the narrowly defined task of either marketing/selling a specific product or collecting email addresses. Wordpress, Instapage, Unbounce, LeadPages, and LaunchRock all offer templates or drag and drop builders for making

them.

Let’s pretend you’re trying to sell your own brand of high quality organic scented candles and bath products. For every major product or line of products you offer, you can make a different landing page to market it. These pages will each have a button that links to the ecommerce site

where your products are sold. You can set up an ecommerce platform for little or no money on sites like Shopify or BigCommerce. Depending on how your future website works, you can stick

with that ecommerce platform or switch. Its up to you. You should also set up at least one landing page designed to get email addresses of potential

customers so you can start building a list. Most of the landing page builders integrate with emailing services like MailChimp and GetResponse. However, people usually expect to get

something in return for giving out their email. Typical incentives for email addresses include discount coupons, ebooks, access to a webinar or maybe in this case you could send them a soap sample (Preferably cucumber mint scented but I’m not picky).

The design and layout of your landing page(s) is critically important. If it looks spammy or

cheap, people will leave and probably never look at your company again. Some basic design and layout tips are:

Use high quality product images

Keep the color scheme and logo the same as how they are going to be on your actual website

If it was linked to an ad, then the landing page also needs to match the color and design of the ad

Center align your main image and headline. Studies have shown that more people stay on landing pages with center alignment

Don’t use slogans like “BEST DEAL EVER, BUY NOW!!!!!” Or, “THE NUMBER ONE ORGANIC SCENTED CANDLES IN THE WORLD!!” If you went to a store and

an employee yelled that at you, you would probably leave Keep your CTA (call to action button) above the fold. The fold is a nerdy way of saying

the bottom of the page as seen on most browser resolutions. If people have to scroll down

to find it, most of them won’t If you have input fields for collecting emails, don’t put anymore than you have to.

Usually first name and email address if good enough. So now you have pages that market your candles and soaps, and they link to a store that sells

them. Great! You’re all set up and ready to go. Well...not exactly.

People have to land on your pages from somewhere else (hence the name) which means you have to put links and ads to them everywhere. Your company's facebook and twitter profiles need to be building an audience of potential customers for those lilac and strawberry bath beads

you’re so well known for. Put up ads and links to your pages on both these profiles. Do you have a blog where you talk about the joys of making organic soap? Don’t forget the link to your

landing page at the end. Make a youtube series about your candle making process and…, you guessed it, put the landing page link in the description section!

You should also set up paid advertising for your landing pages with Google Adwords and pay per click campaigns. Remember that you can always switch them to your website when it’s up

and running. Another option is to join an affiliate network and get other websites to help you market in exchange for commissions. There’s no shortage of ad options out there, get familiar with them all.

Remember that people are more hesitant to buy from a set of landing pages than from a full

website so this only works well as a temporary set up. You’ll have to put in extra work to optimize every aspect of your pages from the button size to the adwords you use. However if you build up trust with your customers and develop a following, your website will make an even

bigger splash when it finally launches. What’s more, you’ll already have landing pages, an email list, and ads in place ready and waiting for it!

If you want to learn more about landing pages, check out these great links!

101 landing page optimization tips_Unbounce How to sell your product without selling your product_Wishpond

How to sell online without a website_Pixel Frau Beginners guide to landing pages_KissMetrics When should I use a landing page_Unbounce

The inbound methodology_HubSpot