CAS Mini Cast – The Landing Pages Lesson

Show Notes

Transcript

Welcome to the Custom Apparel Startups podcast, your best source for information, news, tips and tricks to get you off the ground running, and earn success with your custom apparel decorating business. So, get ready to soak up some knowledge!

Now, here are your hosts, Mark and Marc!

Hey, everyone. Welcome to another CAS mini-cast. My name is Mark Stephenson, from ColDesi.

Today, I want to talk about landing pages. I was in a pretty deep marketing conversation with this gentleman that owns a big company. He sells products all over the world. He was kind of struggling with the idea of having an ad run, and the ROI – the return on investment – of just sending people to his website, so they might purchase expensive products.

I started thinking about this idea of landing pages, that ColDesi and Colman and Company uses all of time in their business. A lot of our more successful customers do, as well.

So, I thought I would communicate that with you, in this little 10 or 15-minute version of the CAS podcast.

This is definitely going to be best for you to watch on video, because I’m going to be sharing and talking about my screen.

Let’s define a landing page, first. A landing page is kind of like it sounds. It’s where you end up, after you click a link. ColDesi does tons of advertising. We have Google ads and Facebook ads, and we advertise in enews and magazines and all of that stuff, and we are very careful about where we send you, when you click on one of those links.

Now, I wanted to show you this particular page. It’s kind of a classic landing page that we’ve used in the past. If you haven’t read this or seen it on Facebook, I’d be surprised if you haven’t seen it, but this is what you need to know, starting a custom t-shirt business.

I started writing this three or four years ago, and have updated it pretty much every year. It’s something that we use to educate customers before they become customers, just about the business. It’s designed to get you interested.

When you see a Facebook ad that’s got this on it, or one of the other ads, if you were to click from this advertisement onto the ColDesi.com home page, you would be very confused. Right? Because there’s so much going on here! You might be able to download the ebook here, but that’s really not the purpose of this page.

What happens is you click on this page, and when you click on “Download now,” it just pops open a little box to put your email address in, and then we send you the ebook. So, you see an ad that makes sense, that you’re interested in, that is getting into the custom t-shirt business. I want to know how. Here’s a free ebook, so you put in your email address, and you get the book.

That is a very simple transaction. It makes a lot of sense. Nobody is going to be confused by the process. There’s no bait and switch. They’re not surprised when they get to the website. They’re getting exactly what they expect, and they’re doing exactly what we would like them to do at that point.

The whole point of this ad was to deliver this ebook, get people interested in the custom apparel business, and then send them a series of emails that introduce them to the possibilities. You get one about Digital HeatFX, and you get one about DTG, and embroidery. We make sure that you know everything that we do. That’s kind of the purpose of a landing page.

You’ll notice also, for this one, there’s no way to get out of it. There’s no links to our website. This is the back end of a landing page software, so it’s a little different. But if you were looking at this just as a consumer, then you would have a choice here.

You could either download the free ebook or you could click, and not do that. But you’re not going to get lost in the website where, for example, if we had “Download the free ebook,” and we sent you to ColDesi.com to try to find the ebook link, just look.

What a confusing experience, if you didn’t know we had a podcast or know what all of these products were, or knew which one of these videos I should watch, to learn more. It’s a very informative, but very confusing kind of mental transaction that you’re going to make.

So, that’s the basic of a landing page. If you were doing any kind of a digital ad, you do have a landing page. It’s just wherever you’re sending people from that ad. For most people, it’s the home page on their website.

Now, I want to give you a little look at something that we did on Digital HeatFX, to kind of differentiate or show you the difference between just sending somebody to the website, and sending someone to a specific landing page.

Digital HeatFX, I think we’ve done a great job. Marc Vila has done an awesome job, along with Kathy, on this website. She is our Art Director. What you see here is I can send you a Digital HeatFX ad, “Get into the custom t-shirt business,” “Make custom t-shirts at home.” We could do an ad to this page, and it would be okay.

What you’ve got is a “Getting started.” You’ve got the different systems that you can choose. So, you can go here. You can investigate these systems. You can fill out a form, to have a professional contact you. You can learn more about these three parts. You can chat. You can watch these videos. You can click away, to learn more about the Custom Apparel Startups course, or you can contact us.

So, with this page, I really don’t have a single place that I want you to go and interact with us, that makes the most sense. What we normally do in this circumstance is, on our website, we created a landing page called “Getting started.” You’re going to come to this page, and you immediately see a difference.

See, there is a lot going on here, and then there’s less going on here. I’ve got this young lady looking to start a custom t-shirt business. You want to watch a video. It’s taking up the whole screen, so you know what you’re supposed to do. I can scroll down, or I can watch this video.

As I go down, it kind of speaks to you guys about what you are interested in. You’re really close to being able to start a business. This is what ColDesi has done in the past. We’ve helped more than 30,000 people start it. You get support, you get great machines, you get affordable prices. You get to start your business the smart way. Here are a few options. And then, “Tell me more about my options,” or chat.

So you see, it’s not that first one that we looked at for the ebook, where you don’t get any choices. You just have this one button to click. But you do have kind of limited options, and it talks specifically to whoever is coming to the website for the first time.

I’m not going to get into too much detail here, but I do want you to kind of think about an ad that says “Hey, get started in the custom t-shirt business! Learn more here,” that goes to this page, that says “Are you looking to start or grow your custom apparel business?” That makes sense.

Now, for your business, it might be a Facebook ad that is on a new line of cheer wear or cheer bows that you’ve come out with, and you’re marketing to cheerleaders. So, it will say “Brand new selection of cheer bows! You won’t believe how blingy!” Then, when you click to it, it should go to a page that shows the cheer bows.

If it goes to your home page, and you also sell soccer clothes and headbands and t-shirts, and all those things, you’re making your customer hunt around for what they were interested in, in the first place. Your ad, the text in your ad and the image on your ad, or the video in your ad, should match up with the page that they land on.

I will tell you what we’ve found. We only do this because the math is terrific. We look at the difference. We’ve tested. If we send people here, not that many of them ask for help or fill out a form, or call us, as if we send them here. This is one of the best converting pages that we’ve got.

If you’re interested in Digital HeatFX, you’ve probably been here, and you’ve probably filled out the form to learn more.

This is my little blurb, my little CAS mini-cast on landing pages. I’d just like you to do, as a takeaway, go back and look at any advertising that you’ve done. If you’ve tried Facebook ads or if you’re tried Google ads or Bing ads or newsletters, anything that you’ve done, and if you’ve just sent them to your home page, then you definitely haven’t gotten everything that you could out of that ad, and I suggest that you try again.

Make sure that the copy in your ad and the picture in your ad, and the pitch in your ad, match the page that you send them to. Take a look at your landing pages for your entire digital life, with that in mind.

Listen, I hope you’ve enjoyed this mini-cast. This has been Mark Stephenson, from ColDesi. You can visit us at CustomApparelStartups.com, ColDesi.com or ColmanAndCompany.com, and until you do, I hope you guys have a great business!