How do you know if you need landing page management software?

There are many ways to make landing pages.  You can hand code static pages yourself, outsource the work to contractors or an agency, or you can even use certain tools like a website CMS, blogging platforms or modules of a marketing automation system to make pages.  So, how do you know when it’s time for a landing page management platform? 

It will feel like you’ve hit a wall.  It will seem as if there is just never enough time or resources to launch a new campaign, start testing, or even to just implement a content change.  Each of the methods mentioned above will certainly help you make pages, but they aren’t designed to help you manage, grow and optimize a large, sophisticated landing page program.

Here are a couple red flags signaling that it’s time to change the way you manage your landing page program:

1. Your pages are disorganized

Do your landing pages ‘live’ in different areas?  Perhaps some are in your website CMS, others are handled by an agency, and then more still are handled by a different regional team? When your content isn’t centralized and organized it’s almost impossible to scale your efforts, because you’ll constantly find yourself recreating the wheel. Landing page management platforms centralize and organize all of the content that goes into creating landing pages so that you can, for example, make a lead generation form once and then reuse it on several different pages.

2. Your analytics are opaque

Can you easily and confidently compare how well campaigns did compared to each other?  Opaque analytics go hand-in-hand with disorganized pages.  If you don’t have one central location for where your pages are stored then trying to analyze and compare metrics across campaigns is going to be very difficult. If your landing page and test analytics are managed seperately or by someone who isn’t part of the team guiding your online marketing strategy, then that’s also a sign that you should consider landing page management software. If your decision makers don’t have complete, easy access to real-time data, how will they be able to act in time to take advantage of what your tests and analytics are telling you?  

3. Your branding is inconsistent

Are your latest branding guidelines accurately reflected on every landing page or do some show old messaging or use an outdated look? If it’s difficult to update all of your pages with new branding guidelines or if you’re not even sure whether they are all up to date, then it’s time to change the way you manage your program.  By centralizing all of your content within one platform, a landing page management software will make it easier to implement mass changes and to enforce brand standards.

4. Changes are inefficient

Does a relatively simple content update take days to implement or does testing just seem like it would be impossible? If your current landing page creation process involves a lot of hand-off points from, for example, someone on your marketing staff to a writer then an agency or developer (or something along these lines), then your answer is probably yes. Since landing page management platforms eliminate the need for code or help from developers, you can let marketing take direct control of the strategy, implementation and management of your landing page program.  When it takes fewer resources and less time to both launch and test landing pages, all of the sudden the idea of launching a new campaign or localizing pages doesn’t seem the least bit daunting.

5. Testing is rare

When all of your resources are tied up into getting pages live, there’s often very little time left to start testing.  If you’re only running a few tests or not any running tests at all, then this is a major sign that it’s time to consider landing page management software.  Most platforms, like LiveBall, will help you create, launch and track several – if not hundreds– of A/B and multivariate tests without code or help from developers.  If you’re not testing, you’ll have no way of knowing if your landing pages could be doing better and if you could be getting higher conversion rates or improving your CPL.

If any of these scenarios sound too familiar, then check out our free 10 Point Landing Page Management Buying Guide.  Although we obviously hope that you choose LiveBall, this guide is completely objective – it will just walk your team through the key points you should consider before starting your search. 

8 High-Converting Landing Page Designs

Stuck in a landing page design rut? Need some inspiration for a new A/B test? Here are 8 landing page design examples to help ignite your conversion-focused creativity.

1. Capture as many leads as possible with a strong benefit and short form, like MarketingProfs did on this landing page.

2. Seduce your clicks into leads by including a very strong benefit with a simple design, such as the one we included here. (Who doesn’t want to graduate faster?)

3. Is your audience creative and passionate? Engage them with a sexy design, such as the one we developed for eMusic. 

 

4. This page we designed for Anthem Blue Cross features a multi-step form and social proof. Multi-step forms are an excellent way to increase engagement and conversions.

5. Want to segment your audience and learn more about them? Try a conversion path like this one we created for Citrix Systems.

 

6. Are you driving mobile traffic? Capture as many mobile clicks as possible with a simple, mobile-optimized layout, such as this one we developed for Intuit GoPayment.

 

7. Want to pitch each of your segments the unique benefits of your offering? Segment them like we did on this multi-step conversion path for the New England Journalism of Medicine.

The first step: 

The second step:

8. Get conversions on the spot by engaging visitors with video.

Let us know if any of these high-converting page have inspired you change your landing page design!

26 Ways to Improve B2B Online Marketing

We love B2B online marketing. Leads. Revenue. Optimization. Sales. This is what lights the fire within us and get us excited to come to work every day. So, we rounded up our favorite B2B online marketing tips to help you drive more leads, faster. Each tip headine leads to a recent post with more details on how to implement the tips listed below. Enjoy- and let us know which tips you try! 

Content Marketing 

1. Create content that attracts your best prospects 

2. Help solve problems and address pain points 

3. Go beyond your specific offering 

4. Become a trusted resource

5. Delight and engage—let your prospects to get to know you

6. Include conversion points within your content

7. Make it easy to share

Landing Pages

8. Focus on Benefits, Not Features

9. Write Great Headlines

10. Don’t Be Creative With Your Copy

11. Delight with Design

12. Try Adding Video

13. Have a Strong, Obvious Call-to-Action

14. Edit, Edit, and Edit More

15. Reduce Required Form Fields

16. A/B Test Your Pages

17. Socialize Your Thank You Pages

Lead Nurturing

18. Match Your Email Content According to Phases in the Sales Process

19. Stay in Front of Your Leads

20. Use Progressive Profiling to Learn More About Your Leads

21. Don’t Rush for the Close

22. Be Human and Personable

23. Add Humor to Your Campaigns

24. Test Your Landing Pages

Social Media Marketing

25. Be Human

26. Develop Meaningful Relationships with Your Ideal Customer

And of course, if there’s anything else you would add to the list, let us know in the comments below.

4 new "wow" landing page case studies

We interuppt this blog to shout a few cool stories from the rooftop. Over the past few weeks we’ve launched a handful of new case studies that I thought you might want to check out. These made me sit up and say “wow”—hope you like them!

LiveBall agency alliance, Anvil Media, helped their customer Axway achieve a 291% increase in marketing ROI. Nick Herinckx from Anvil says:

Using LiveBall to manage and test Axway’s PPC landing page program has helped Anvil save Axway over $100,000 per year, increasing their ROI by 291% (including services costs). Axway has seen a significant improvement in the number of leads and in the cost-per-lead since this program started.

But wait, there’s more! General Mills Canada was able to take advantage of what their counterparts in the U.S. were doing to get double-digit conversion rates and manage pages across 9 brands and 2 languages. Jesse Abrams says:

With the flexible, reactive nature of the LiveBall templates, I can modify and iterate landing pages on the fly which ultimately makes it so much easier to create targeted, specific landing pages.

And that’s not all! Sharepoint Solutions uses audience segmented landing pages for better conversion quality. Walk Michksh says:

We’ve been able to keep LiveBall through the hard [economic] times because of the success of this program. It has been the #1 source of new subscribers since its implementation in 2009.

And last, but definitely not least….Western Union grows a global landing page program from the ground up using LiveBall to help accelerate their production & get global marketing managers on the same page. Josh Carroll sums it up best:

Previously, we had a tool, but no solution. Now, we have a tool and a solution.

I hope you enjoy these case studies as much as I did. Let me know what you think!

Week 1: Best of A/B Testing - DHL Ethnicity & Gender Testing

Welcome to our six-part blog series entitled “Best of A/B Testing.”  Every week we will be showcasing a customer A/B test, along with testing results and learning. 

This Tuesday, we are  showcasing a two-part A/B test from DHL Australia, an international leader in courier, express and parcel delivery services.

Which courier image increased lead conversion rates 30%?

Test 1: European vs Asian
Traffic source: Pay-per click advertising on Google
Market: Australia 
Test Type: Imagery; testing ethnicity & gender

Hypothesis: A European courier image will drive more lead conversions than an Asian courier image because Australian searchers will find a strong emotional connection to a European courier (90% of Australia’s population is of European descent).
 

Results: Surprisingly, the Asian courier drove 30% more lead conversions than the European courier. It is interesting to note that over 8% of the Australian population is of Asian descent (predominantly Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino and Indian).

After the initial ethnicity test, DHL continued to test imagery. The second A/B split tested gender, a female against a male courier of Asian descent.

Which courier image increased lead conversion rates 15%? 

Test 2: Female vs Male
Traffic source: Pay-per click advertising on Google
Market: Australia 
Test Type: Imagery; testing gender 

Hypothesis: A female courier will drive more lead conversions than an male courier because previous testing results (in Norway) showed female imagery as a strong driver of conversion.

Results: The female Asian courier drove 15% more lead conversions than the European courier, similar to results in Norway, where female imagery resulted in a 25% increase in lead conversions.

DHL operates in over 220 countries and territories, and specializes in providing customers with customized transportation solutions from a single source. 

In 2010, Global Digital Marketing Specialist, Rolf Inge Holden, adopted LiveBall and deployed the software to marketing departments in 50 markets. Since, DHL has created landing pages in over and 200 countries and territories in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Learn more.