Best Practices In Strategic Email Marketing March 2006
	Strategy Perfect Landings By Randall Litchfield It's easy to make the last link of your email campaign the weakest, but landing pages are too important to neglect. The reason? Here's where you typically close the deal, whether a transaction, free trial or just encouragement to get more information. But how often have you encountered a nicely executed email message with a clear call to action landing you on a page that just doesn't follow through? Sometimes the email message and the landing Web page were created by different teams that didn't coordinate sufficiently. Or the team worked so hard in getting the message out in time that the landing page became an afterthought. Whatever the reason, here's five ways to pilot perfect landings: One person responsible for the entire campaign. Just because email messages and Web landing pages exist in different media doesn't mean they are separate. Far from it. When an email recipient clicks on a link they expect continuity. Most don't even realize that they just migrated from their email client to their Web browser. Avoid using home pages or multipurpose landing pages. The more dedicated the landing page, the more pleasing the results. Stay focused on the call to action. Don't forget why you brought this person to your page. You warmed them up in the email message and now you want them to complete. Keep the prospect focused on the desired action and don't distract with random opportunities or irrelevant information. Don't intimidate. Limit the number of fields your prospect must complete as much as possible without compromising lead quality. You can always ask for more information later. Test. You should test landing pages with the same discipline you do email messages - one element at a time. For example: Coupons, P.S. messages, Opening sentences, Calls to action.