Yesterday I was at the TCD in Utrecht. This is an event of three days about al aspects of marketing (offline/online).

At the Marketing Success Squarre I visited a keynote of Rob Steenbrink about landingpages. Rob told an interesting story about what the benifits are of landingpages and how to organize a test environment.

A landingpage is a special page on your website, arranged for a specific target group and targeted information. The landingpage can only be found via one way (bannerclick, advertorial link and so on) which makes your landingpage measureable. The main target is to create a higher conversion on that specific target group. And a landingpage is a proces of changing and trying and testing, not an end product.

Another important thing is that your landingpage does not nessicarily need to be in the look-and-feel of the rest of your site. There is not a lot of information on the site and this information is short and action oriented. Another character of a landingpage is that you can test its functionality with the AIDA formula (attraction, interest, desire, action).

As the internet is about speed, the page needs to be simple and the action must be easy to do. A landingpage should be designed in the current standard resolution (at this moment 1024×768px). Scrolling on a landingpage is an absolute NO-DO!!

I mentioned it before: a landingpage is a proces. It is a proces of testing. What photo works the best, what font, what fontsize, what header, colours, etc etc. By monitoring the score in different settings you can improve your conversion in a spectacular way (tens of procents).

Don’ts
- to much text. the visitor won’t read it
- not scanable. use a large font 10pnts is the absolute minimum (also depends on your target group)
- to much steps (your targetgroup will quit!)
- difficult forms with too many questions

Do’s
- photo’s with an important message right below (people scan photo’s first and a short message below will be read)
- photo’s with real people or fragments (eyes!, hands, feet, mouth)
- try to gain trust by quote a trustable party and use their logo!! it is stupid, but it works!
- test test test

What to test and how to start?
1. your proposition. test different propositions and see which one works best. use the proposition that works best, to design your landingpage
2. landingpage, test different approaches of the ‘do’s’ I mentioned above.
3. make reliable testreports. Use enough data to create a result (500 testers per test)
4. take into account that a typical procedure takes a few months
5. use the best setup for a while and keep monitoring

If I can find the time somewhere this week, I will blog the keynote by Wim van der Mark (trainee at dialoogtrainers.nl), too!

I’ve tried to explain several friends why I use Twitter. It’s not the technology that makes it so useful for me, it’s the people I meet up with there. There is a group of interesting Twitter-users for us all, you only need to find them.

Every start at a social network is difficult. You feel unpopular, a bit alone and a bit unpleasant maybe. I started Twittering a year ago and results are thrilling. I’ve caught up with a nice business network that have similar interests. They come from all over the country (Arnhem, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Groningen, Utrecht and so on). Without a digital network the chances to meet them and socialize with them would be many times smaller. After a digital meetup I’ve met several people. My collegue/employer Lucas van der Molen started twittering, too. Also due to Twitter Lucas van der Molen joined the group of entrepreneurs that fly to China within an hour to visit innovative startups and companies.

If you are curious whether or not Twitter suits your lifestyle? Allow yourself this 2 minute presentation of what Twitter actually is!

[youtube]http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=PBq5HyKifJU[/youtube]

Vrijdagmiddag humorrrr!

via: @spitje