Social Networking Landing Pages - How to Turn Your Social Networking Friends Into Customers

By Michele Pariza Wacek

Isn't social networking fun? You get to meet all these people and connect with them and spend hours looking at their profiles and videos and photos and...

Okay, so clearly social networking can take an awful lot of time. The question is, is it worth it? Will spending all that time doing social networking lead to an increase in sales?

And the answer is, yes it can. But you need to be strategic about it -- just like you need to be strategic with all your marketing. And one way you can do that is to have a social networking landing page.

So what the heck is a social networking landing page? Well, it's a special page on your web site or blog designed specifically for your social networking folks. This special page continues the conversation you started on other social networking sites. (This is very important, you should always design landing pages as continuing the conversation started elsewhere, whether it's your prospects clicking on a Google ad or followers intrigued by something you tweeted about on Twitter.)

You see, many people send their social networking friends to the home page of their web site or their blog. And while that's not a terrible thing to do, you could definitely do better. You see, the home page of your web site or the first page of your blog is more general. It has to be. You don't know how people are finding your site. They could be on it because they just heard you on a teleclass or read an article by you or someone referred you. You don't know so you have to keep it pretty generic about the problems you solve and the solutions you provide (and of course, push them to give you their email address).

So by creating a landing page specifically for your social network buddies that continues the conversation already started in the social networking scene, you'll be that much closer to transforming them into eventual customers.

Okay, so what do you put on this social networking landing page? Do you try and sell them there?

In a word -- NO! Remember, social networking is all about building relationships and making connections. And, through those relationships people will naturally want to support you and become your customer. The last thing you want to do is send your social networking buds to a page and try to sell them.

(Now, that doesn't mean your page can't include a couple of links to some products so they can read more and buy, but no hard core selling.)

Instead, share more about yourself, your family, your interests and your business. Then invite them to give you their email address in exchange for a free gift from you.

By getting on your email list, you are now in a position to deepen the relationship. Along with getting your regular newsletter (you HAVE one, don't you?) which contains great information and content, you can also invite them to your free teleclasses, which also contain fantastic content but also includes an invitation for them to become a customer, or you send emails to them also inviting them to become a customer.

See how this works?

So take a few moments to put together a social networking landing page and see how it can start transforming your social networking activities.

Michele PW (Michele Pariza Wacek) owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting LLC, a copywriting, marketing communications and creativity agency. She helps people become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. To find out how she can help you take your business to the next level, visit her site http://www.michelepw.com Copyright 2009 Michele Pariza Wacek.

Three Critical Strategies For Every Web Marketing Campaign

By Corte Swearingen

Every business owner with a website has some particular goal for visitors. It can be as simple as signing up for a newsletter or as complicated as completing a large purchase.

Whatever the conversion goal is for your website, there are three basic strategies you should follow.

Strategy #1: Find Out What Your Visitors Want
As a business owner, it can be easy to convince yourself you know what your customer wants. But that assumption can prove false many times over.

The only way to really find out your customers wants and needs is to simply ask them. If you already have an electronic newsletter, then send out a link to an external survey in your next issue. Ask questions that will help uncover the need for your product or service idea, and be sure to offer an incentive for your customers and prospects to complete the survey.

If you don't have the ability to create online surveys within your website, than try a 3rd party service like Survey Monkey.

Another great way to uncover potential demand for a product or service is to see how many people are searching for that particular topic. This involves investing in a good keyword research tool. Yes, there are free keyword tools out there, but if you own a business and are serious about utilizing Internet marketing, than you really must subscribe to a good keyword research tool. I recommend wither Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery or Wordze.

Researching keywords will allow you to identify high demand keywords with low competition, giving you the ability to rank high for these keywords in the major search engines. Without knowing the best keywords to target, you will have to rely on luck to carry the day. And you may have already heard, luck has a peculiar habit of favoring those who don't depend on it!

Strategy #2: Create a Compelling Landing Page
Your product can be a hard good, a service or a downloadable report. Whatever it is, you need to find a way to convey the benefits of this item in a direct and simple way. I recommend you create a focused landing page for each of your products or services.

An effective landing page:

- Concentrates on a single compelling message
- Has a clear call-to-action
- Captures contact information
- Avoids distractions
- Contains bonus offers
- Contains testimonials

Today, it is quite common to see landing pages existing by themselves with no real content-based website wrapped around them. This strategy forces you to rely heavily on pay-per-click to drive traffic to the landing page. I recommend you leverage your own free organic traffic and only use pay-per-click as a supplement, if at all

Strategy #3: Test Your Landing Page
How do you determine the best price for your product? How do you decide the best photos and images to use in order to increase conversion rates? What's the best headline to grab your visitor's attention?

The answer is - I have no idea. But there's one way to find out - test, test and test again!
The easiest way to test multiple parameters within your landing page is to use the Google Website Optimizer. This free service allows you to perform A/B split testing. An A/B split test allows you to test one page parameter against another in order to determine which yields a higher conversion rate.

For example, suppose you're unsure about how to price your product. One way to zero in on a price that yields the greatest profits is to test. To test three different pricing levels, you would simply upload three versions of your landing page. Each page would contain a price you wish to test. The Google Website Optimizer would then randomly serve up one of the three landing pages to each unique visitor on your site. These pages would be served evenly and conversion measurements calculated for each one. At the end of the testing session, you would get a summary of conversion results to determine which pricing structure brought in the highest profits.

The Google Website Optimizer is free and one of the most powerful tools you can have in your marketing arsenal. Use it to test headlines, pictures, captions, bonus offers and anything else that affects conversions.

Taken together, these three tips will help maximize your website landing page conversion rates.
Corte Swearingen is the creator of the Integral Marketing System and CEO of SmallBiz Marketing Tips. For additional information on landing page strategies, visit Website Marketing Campaign Tips.