Your website home page for your architecture firm is a busy place, offering people information about your firm, your projects and your specialties. When someone arrives at your front door, they can check out your beautiful project images, perhaps drop by your Contact Us page, maybe look at an article or a blog post.
Then what happens? If they’re not highly motivated, needing to talk with an architect right NOW, then they’ll go on to somewhere else, and you’ll never know they dropped by.
This is a wasted opportunity. It was fortunate that they found your site, and now they’re gone. When they’re ready to talk with an architect (tomorrow, or next month or whenever … ) they may not remember your firm, or your website. Even more frustrating, they may remember seeing something they liked on your site, but can’t find it again.
Which brings us to the topic of this article: the “landing page,” one or more dedicated pages on your website (that people can “land on”) offering something valuable to a visitor in exchange for an opt-in. They give you an email address, you give them a free report or another useful resource. You’ve caught them on your hook, and now the game is on.
You can point people to your landing page(s) from a variety of places: an ad online or in print, your newsletter, your email signature or a job site sign, etc. Offer your special resource — what we call a “Monkey’s Fist” — something easy for you to throw over to them, useful, tempting, even enticing.
Perhaps you say in the ad that your firm has created a 10-step action plan and checklist to get custom homes approved more quickly with the coastal commission, and that it’s available without charge on the landing page. Or it’s a guide on how to avoid the five most common mistakes made during the renovation of an older home. Or a flow chart that helps plan a tenant improvement build-out in the shortest amount of time.
Whatever you’re offering, make the benefits of the information clear in the headline of the landing page. It’s got to instantly communicate WHY someone would want to have this resource or tool.
A landing page should be very focused. In fact, it’s often a good idea to remove the prominent “navigation” that leads people to other parts of your website. You want your visitor to see what you’ve got, without getting distracted, and to be motivated to take the next step.
The next step could be filling in an online form with their name and email address, or to call or email your office to get the resource sent to them. Whether you go high tech or low tech, make it very obvious how they should proceed. Spell it out; for example:
“Simply fill in this form with your name and email and we’ll send you our report on ‘How to Avoid the 5 Most Common Mistakes People Make When Renovating Their Home.’ Our automated system will send it to you within a few minutes of your submission. There’s no cost or obligation; this is available as a public service to homeowners in our area. If you have any questions about how to apply these tips to your upcoming renovation, we’ll be happy to give you our professional opinion, or discuss your project with you.”
When someone does opt-in or calls you, make sure you send out the PDF (or physical report in the mail, which can be even better) promptly. Follow up with them within a short time (the next day, if you emailed them a digital version) to confirm that they received it, and to see if they have any questions.
Continue to follow up, providing useful information (perhaps pointing to a video on your site or an article that you’ve recently read, or written) and, over time, you’ll become familiar and remain top-of-the-mind when they’re ready to move forward on their project.
Be sure to ask them where they found your landing page; that way you can know which method of advertising or promotion worked to bring in this prospective client. And once you get something that works, keep going – there are more fish to catch!