Consumers across all demographics are becoming increasingly savvy in their search for a community bank or credit union that can meet their specific banking, borrowing, and financial wellness needs. They don’t want to spend lots of time sifting through all the products and services you offer. They want to know – fast – if you have what they need and how to get started.
Landing pages can effectively engage prospects at the right point in the buyer’s journey and can bridge the gaps between your comprehensive web content and your targeted digital advertising and social media strategies. By optimizing your landing pages for user experience, you can further differentiate your brand, drive more conversions, and keep more current account holders inside the loyalty loop.
In this article, we’ll share some actionable tips for creating landing pages that are clear, credible, and compelling.
8 STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING BETTER LANDING PAGES
Every landing page should support a well-defined sales or educational objective. Create an opportunity to convince a prospect to learn more about the services you offer and then take action. Consider the tips below when you’re building your next landing page to ensure that it gives visitors the answers they’re looking for, is user-friendly, and drives traffic in the right direction.
- Dedicate Each Page to a Specific Service and Goal: Promoting your first-time homebuyer program? Trying to drive new sign-ups for your mobile banking platform? Announcing a limited-time-only rate discount? Focusing each landing page on a particular campaign will help you reach the right audience and monitor campaign effectiveness. Direct visitors to complete a single goal, like completing an online application, making an appointment at a local branch, or submitting their contact info to download a free tailored guide.
- Lead With Your Value Propositions: If you don’t grab a reader’s attention right away, there’s a good chance they’ll look elsewhere. Communicate the value you’re offering with a crisp, punchy headline. Use your subhead or a brief introductory paragraph to explain what you are offering, who it’s for, and why it’s unique, useful or addresses page visitors’ needs or pain points. Follow up with bullets (or eye-catching icons) and the most important benefits of your product or service.
- Clearly Communicate How You Can Improve Your Audience’s Lives: Consumers want to know how what you’re offering will improve their current financial situation or help them reach their goals. Convert product features into benefits that apply to people’s everyday lives. Think “Tap into the home equity you’ve worked hard to build” or “Deposit checks with a snap – no trip to a branch required.”
- Include Simple, Compelling Copy and Calls-to-Action: Keep sentences short and to the point. Avoid finance jargon. Write in a conversational style, in the way you would talk to an account holder if you were meeting face to face. Be straightforward and informative. And make your calls-to-action clear – “Apply now,” “Contact us,” or “Learn more,” highlighted as clearly defined buttons or with striking colors.
- Tell Your Story With Visuals: Use images that meet your brand standards and reflect the audience you’re trying to capture – students just getting started with banking, young families looking to buy their first home, or pre-retirees hoping to maximize their savings. Select images that tell a story or “illustrate the dream.” Add standout figures or stats in visually interesting formats, along with handy interactive elements like choosers and calculators.
- Enlist Current Account Holders to Sell Your Service: Social proof is key. Endorsements and testimonials from people who have benefited from your product or service can mean the most to consumers trying to choose where to entrust their money and time. Include video testimonials, quotes and photos, spotlight stories, and surveys to boost prospects’ confidence in your offerings.
- Stick To a Streamlined Design That’s Also Mobile-Friendly: Stick to your core brand identifiers and use clean and simple design elements with plenty of white space. Make sure that modules like calculators and comparison charts are easily legible and interactable on small screens. Use a contrasting color or shape for your CTA so it grabs the reader’s attention.
- Test, Test, Test: Whenever possible, before you officially launch, A/B test your headlines, content, layout, visuals, and CTAs to see which elements draw the most interest and encourage conversions. Make sure your landing page is also easy to navigate on different browsers and mobile devices.