Landing Pages for Lead Generation: 5 Ways to Drive Conversions for Non-profits
Get more donors and volunteers by following these 5 tips for landing page optimization.
Landing pages are one of the most versatile and useful tools for online communication. This is especially true for organizations with a lack of resources which means that our communication has to work even harder to get the message across.
It could be that we have spent a lot of time and money into ads and marketing campaigns but our conversion rates are still low. Ideally, we want most of our visitors to turn into donors. Luckily for us, it does not necessarily mean that a complete overhaul is needed. Usually, it is common practice to go from the bottom up. The smallest changes are the most cost-effective and can potentially bring the biggest results and grow your non-profit online: donations, subscribers, volunteers, etc. In this article, we will go over several ways on how to create high-converting landing pages.
1. The basics
First of all, what is a landing page? A landing page is a web page. It has no links, internal or external and incorporates multimedia files like images, along with the text. It serves for a sole purpose to guide the visitor towards a predetermined desired outcome. If a website were a common, everyday store, a landing page would be a conversation with a sales representative helps the customer choose a product. But since we are talking about digital, online mediums of communication like the Internet and mobile devices, we do not have this eye to eye opportunity. Instead, we are using tactics like a landing page to catch the attention of our audience. It is important to mention that a landing page should not be mistaken for a sales page. A landing page can be used to work with a specific offer and serve traffic from a specific place. In other terms, we can use separate landing pages for traffic from social media, blog posts or webinars. The main takeaway here is to match the offer from the source of the link to the content on our landing page.
2. Running a campaign
We can use landing pages as a quick way to generate online content for specific campaigns. It can be used to create a topic, add images and a communication method, forms or call-to-action to start spreading the word and improve the lead generation nurturing process. In the case of a non-profit we should pick one goal and write it down at the top of a page. That way, the page visitor will know exactly what to do, when they open your page.
3. Targeted donations
Every non-profit organization, ironically, has a donate button. The problem with it is that landing pages usually offer the same message to all potential donors. One of the benefits we can create in our landing pages is custom donation pages with segmented messages. If a portion of people has signed up during a specific campaign, we can use a quick landing page with custom messages and visuals to reinforce that campaign. It can also be used to update our constituents on the progress of the campaign and how our organization has aided it. Landing pages offer us the ability to create custom messages and avoid generic donation pages.
4. Delivering value
Since we are constrained by using online mediums in this situation, making an effective pitch on the internet is considerably more difficult than in person. We are devoid of the benefits of human interaction, which is arguably the greatest factor in successfully making a point. Additionally, online interaction has significantly shortened our attention spans. Meaning, if we do not immediately give our visitors the information they need, we have just a few short seconds before they move on. Luckily for us, there are ways to capture someone’s attention and retain it. The most effective method is to immediately pitch with some sort of an offer that directly benefits them. Let’s go over some of the examples. If donations are our goal, we need to tell a visitor how their donation will have the desired impact and where. We can get more members by listing all the benefits of joining our organization. To get more email subscribers, we come back to the notion of providing value. It can come in forms of free resources like guides, white papers and interactive eBooks in return for their email. If we are giving away free reports, we need to state the full name of it and the description of the benefits it provides. Finally, if we are looking for volunteers, it is the same formula. Listing the benefits of volunteering and showing visual content of happy volunteers at our events will put a human face on the entire process. For any further information on how to achieve this attention-capturing combination, we can always consult organizations like the GWM SEO and web design professionals.
5. Knowing our audience
Whatever tactic we choose to employ, it needs to be specific for the type of audience that we have in mind. Before actually building a landing page, we need to do our due diligence and understand who is going to be landing on that very page. What is it that we want them to read? How do we want them to feel when they first see our landing page? And finally, what is it that they will take away from the experience? These questions need to be answered before any action is taken towards building a landing page. Once we have them, our conversion rate will be much favorable from first taste when landing on our page.
Landing pages, if done right, can be a very powerful tool for us as a non-profit organization. To sum it up, it needs to be simple, persuasive and attention-holding. In return, they can help us achieve multiple goals like growing our email subscriber list, increasing our membership base, and bringing in more donations. With these effective methods, we will see the difference they can make for all of our goals in no time.
Other related articles
You have a story to tell. We want to help.
Let’s create memorable content and reach tens of thousands of people.