The following excerpt is from Susan Gunelius’ book Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Business. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | IndieBound
Your landing pages should include an opt-in form for lead generation. To develop your landing pages, you need to understand how to create designs and content that make people want your lead magnet enough to submit your opt-in form to get it. To ensure the landing pages you create deliver the best results, follow the 10 rules of landing page design:
1. Stay laser-focused on a single, specific goal. Your landing page should have one specific goal: some type of action that you want visitors to take. For lead generation, this desired action is submitting the opt-in form on the page. Before you create your landing page, ask yourself what you want visitors who land on your page to do. That action should be the only thing you talk about on your page and the only thing visitors can do on your page.
2. Prioritize your messages with the most important information above the fold. Don’t make people scroll to learn what you’re offering and why it should matter to them. Your most important messages should be above the fold so there’s no chance visitors can miss them. Throughout the rest of your landing page, lead with your most powerful messages and use the remainder of your landing page to provide important supporting information. Be sure to repeat your powerful, action- oriented messages to keep visitors engaged as they read.
3. Write an irresistible headline. Use your landing page headline to answer the most important question in copywriting. This is the question that every prospect will ask when they arrive on your landing page: “What’s in it for me?” Be clear and succinct. Visitors should instantly understand that the information on the landing page addresses their problem or pain point and the solution they’ve been looking for is at their fingertips if they follow your call to action (such as submitting your…
