Landing pages are an important part of your digital marketing strategy. While they aren’t quite the same as your website’s web pages, they’re still extremely important.
Especially when you’re trying to utilize them in your email marketing strategy as well.
While there are plenty of stunning landing page examples in 2020, you first need to understand exactly what a landing page is, how it works, and why you need to incorporate these pages into your strategy before beginning the design process.
Defining a landing page: what makes it different from a web page?
A landing page is defined as a type of web page. This particular type of web page brings your audience members to your website through specific sales or marketing strategies.
While a typical web page often includes various links connecting to other pages on the site, a landing page is considered a standalone page with a very specific focus.
For example, here’s our own live demo landing page:
Source: Campaign Monitor
This page has a particular focus: signing new clients up for a live demo of Campaign Monitor and all the services we have to offer. What makes it different from our other pages is the fact that there’s one CTA. There are no other links about the campaign monitor features and it stands on its own.
Now, for the sake of defining the differences, here’s one of our Campaign Monitor web pages:
Source: Campaign Monitor
What makes this web page significantly different from our landing page is that we’re presenting several different pieces of information to the reader instead of focusing on a single specific call to action. While the end of the page does include a “get started” CTA, there are several others to watch various demos or to learn more about different aspects of our product.
While these are two very different pieces of a much larger digital marketing puzzle, they’re both essential to your strategy. That’s why learning from landing page examples in 2020 is going to be crucial, especially if you’re planning on reaching new heights with your strategy.
How do email marketing and landing pages work together?
If landing pages play such a vital role in your digital marketing strategy, why would you want to make email marketing and landing pages work together? Two reasons:
- Email marketing gets your audience to act: Email marketing averaged a conversion rate of 1.32% in 2019 and a click-through rate of 2.6%, while landing pages average a conversion rate of 2.35%—a powerful combination.
- Email marketing has the highest return on investment over any other digital marketing channel: The average ROI for email marketing is $38 for every $1 spent, while typical content marketing average is hard to determine, since there are such a variety of different factors that can be included.
Source: Campaign Monitor
When it comes to driving sales, one of the best methods for getting eyes on your landing page is through email marketing. Later, we’ll show you several landing page examples that do a wonderful job of making those conversions. For now, let’s look at this example from MacPaw:
Source: Really Good Emails/MacPaw
The email example on the left was a part of MacPaw’s holiday sales email campaign. In the email, they make it clear that they’re offering up some great deals on a particular service—their CleanMyMac X. Since their primary CTA is placed not only in the text at the email, but again emphasized as a pull-out CTA with a 30% off text to draw reader’s attention, they know what the purpose of this message is. While there’s a secondary CTA below, chances are, MacPaw’s readers have already clicked on that “get at 30% off” CTA. This will then take them directly to a designated landing page intended for one purpose—to sell the CleanMyMac X license. That’s how you incorporate a landing page into your email marketing strategy.
Landing page examples 2020: best practices and examples worth noting
Now, like anything else in your digital marketing strategy, there are several things to consider before diving in. Before we look into landing page examples for 2020, it’s critical to touch on the fact that several landing page best practices need to be considered before linking to them in your email marketing content.
Landing page best practices you need to know
Before you can even begin to add your landing pages to your digital marketing channels, email included, you have to design top-quality landing pages worth sharing with your audience members. To do that, consider each of these landing page best practices:
Always put your audience first. You can’t necessarily design your landing pages for you. Although you can make them pretty and brand them to match the rest of your website (as you should), you should be designing your landing pages for skimmers (a.k.a. those looking to get straight to the point), those who have to view your landing page on a mobile device (a.k.a. small screen users), and so much more. Use your analytics to see what’s been working for your pages in the past and optimize them accordingly.
Your goals matter too. Remember, we mentioned that your design should be appealing and matter to you. However, you also have to consider your other goals as well. Keep in mind that this is a piece of marketing material, so you must make sure that each landing page is keeping your marketing goals in mind.
The benefits to your readers should take priority. Again, these pages should be designed with them in mind. What are you helping them with? How are you helping them simplify their life/work? Now, don’t focus too much on features, but how your specific product/service will address their particular issue.
Don’t be generic. This isn’t a webpage designed to summarize. You want to get as specific as you can, so that your readers know what you’re talking about and why they should even care.
A/B test not once, but multiple times. Once you think your page is ready, start A/B split testing it. This is the only viable way to find out what your readers like and respond well to. Once you’ve tested it out, test it again to be sure. There’s no such thing as testing too much.
3 landing page examples that convert
Now that you know what goes into creating an optimized landing page that you’ll want to include in your email marketing and other digital marketing strategies, it’s time to look at some excellent landing page examples for 2020.
1. Free webinar signup – Bynder-Forrester
First of all, anything free is going to catch the attention of the public, and, when you have the content to share, having a designated landing page for it is an absolute must. In this case, Bynder-Forrest created a designated landing page to help draw the attention of both new and existing clientele.
Source: Bynder-Forrester
What we absolutely love about this landing page is not only it’s simplicity, but the fact that it bullets out each of the benefits of the free webinar that’s being presented.
They also go ahead and give the details right to the reader, from the date/time details to an author bio, so that readers know who they can expect to show up on their screen.
Finally, they only ask for relevant information form the reader, which is excellent for those who are wary of sharing too much, and their CTA is easily identifiable, thanks to the bright blue color.
2. Report download – eMarketer
Reports, roundups, and case studies all make for great sharable content. Again, if you have the content worth sharing, you want to create a dedicated landing page for it, just as eMarketer did for their Personalization Trends roundup.
Source: eMarketer
Right away, readers know what they’re getting (thanks to the listed bulleted points), they get a quick sneak peek (thanks to the included snapshot), and, again, the CTA is easily identifiable (thanks to the bright blue coloring). We also like that they’re taking the time to get to know their reader; however, having too many questions on the signup form could scare off some new visitors.
3. New customer registration – Kabbage
Lead magnets are a must if you plan on attracting new clients to your brand. In this new customer registration form Kabbage, users are attracted to the offer immediately, thanks to the benefits that are conveyed in the headline.
Source: Instapage
From there, the lead is presented with the simplicity of the signup process and what happens next, once the signup is complete. Even better, they use a very simplified form that doesn’t ask too much of their lead.
Wrap up
When it comes to the best landing page examples for 2020, the best are the ones that can easily be incorporated into a brand’s email marketing strategy, as well as their digital marketing strategy as a whole.
Now, to make these combinations work, you want to make sure your landing pages are optimized and ready to go. To do this, make sure you remember each of these landing page best practices:
- Always put your audience first
- Consider your ultimate end-goals
- Your focus should be on the benefit of your audience members
- Get as specific as you can
- Test, test, and then test again
Want to learn more about landing pages and how they play a vital role in email marketing? Check out our definitive guide to landing pages today.