RocketTheme Blog

This is a guest blog post written by Christian Rennella, an engineer from the Universidad Católica de Córdoba (Argentina), currently Senior Marketing Manager for OMT Online for Brazil. Passionate about developing new technologies in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

Personally, I am convinced that the first rule for designing an excellent landing page is being able to explain in less than five seconds what we do and the corresponding benefits. But this is just the beginning, what makes the difference is “how” we communicate.

We should understand that human beings, in our most pure essence, are creatures dominated by our emotions. These emotions decide our actions and, at the end of the day, account for conversions obtained.

Consequently, in order to improve maximally our conversions, we should point towards awakening the emotions of our potential clients in order to close the sale.

In a study done by the Association for Consumer Research (ACR), it was found that buying decisions are not exclusively based on rational points such as the characteristics of a product compared with that of the competition, but in the emotions of jealousy, pride, greed, fear, happiness, love, pleasure, etc.

There are 3 basic ways to transmit emotions on a landing page: text, images, and video.

The First is Text

We should never underestimate the value of words and the less words we need to explain what we do, while transmitting successfully the adequate emotions, even better!

The starting point is learning what the hidden emotions of our potential clients are. What everyone looks for is to understand their interests (Buy a car? Go on a trip?), but it is their emotions which define their actions, and it is in this area that we should focus in order to generate a deep and direct connection with them. Exactly which emotions should we transmit to them so that they use our product?

So that this theory can be better understood, we will compare 2 examples having the same goal: “sell a hotel”. The first is Booking.com, where we can directly begin to search for any hotel in our desired destination.

On the other hand, we have HotelTonight, where the central message is NOT to directly begin searching, but to transmit first the emotions that we are seeking: “Pleasure,” through ease and comfort with a message of “Let’s not plan so much. Let’s take off right now and relax.”

The difference in these two landing pages cannot be any clearer. The first alternative does not transmit anything more than the need to begin to work, work in order to begin our vacation! (search for the place, the date, the hotel, etc.). Yet, in the second option, they first invoke upon our emotions that had us wanting to travel in the first place: “the ability to relax” (and even with less planning!).

As we said in our own business eMT over 8 years ago before beginning to design a new landing page: “We won’t touch the computer until we understand 100% what it is that the client is looking for and the emotions that create this need.”

The Power of Images

Just one image can summarize thousands of words. Searching for the ideal image for our landing page can take days, weeks, even months, but once we find it. The emotions that it conveys will be awakened and, without a doubt, result in conversions.

I don’t think there is any other company that has the experience of trying out landing pages like MailChimp, not just due to the number of times they have changed it, improving over time, but also due to the fact that they have millions of new users in order to test it better than anyone.

These images transmit the emotions that their clients in email marketing are looking for: seriousness, satisfaction, and completeness. And in the last line of text when they invite us to become a part of the more than 7 million people that are already using their platform, they are transmitting the last emotion for closing the sale: Security.

Worth noting, as we can see, this landing page does not have the typical list of their product’s characteristics as we see in the majority of landing pages today. The message is clear and is transmitted in only 3 words, “Send Better Email”. And the rest? That is left up to the image and its associated emotions.

In Today's World, Video is Best

For me, what gives the best results today for a landing page in terms of transmitting emotions and increasing conversions is video.

One of the important things here is that it absolutely must be of high quality; all videos that do not have excellent production and therefore do not transmit professionalism should be discarded.

An example of this is Robinhood, a new application that allows you to exchange stock without paying commission. If someone sees the video, they can feel the same emotion that I personally felt and that led me to use their product: Shame. “If I don’t make a decision now, I will be seen as a fool!”

Robinhood from Robinhood on Vimeo.

In conclusion, in order for a landing page to reach its maximum potential, we need to discover the hidden emotions in our clients. If we can achieve awakening them, upon landing on our website, whether it be of text, images, or video, our conversion rate will really begin to take off.

The rule of thumb for designing a landing page that I would like to define is quite simple: communicate calmly the characteristics of our products (what we do and how), but be more insistent when it comes to the benefits to the client (what are the advantages of using our products) and lastly, go all in on our resources in order to shake their emotions, because this ultimately will close the sales.

If we see it from another point of view, no one cares about “What do we do?” (characteristics), on the contrary, the only thing they care about is “What’s in it for me?” (benefits), but even more importantly, which they don’t realize, is “How will it make me feel?” (emotions).

Just take a look at this video by the Dollar Shave Club and tell me what man does not feel a healthy mix of “Pride”, “Jealousy”, and “Curiosity” in order to belong to the club.

And for the ladies, this video from Tinder Plus, the paid application of Tinder, their only method for generating income at this time.

Tinder Plus from Tinder on Vimeo.

Where they awaken the most valuable emotion of all: Love.

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