3 Ways to Avoid Landing Page Letdown
Posted by Drew Miller on August 5th, 2009
While scanning through my daily emails a few weeks ago, I came across an enticing offer from Hotwire.com: “For you: $15.95 car rental in Chicago found by Hotwire”. Being a frequent business traveler to the Windy City, this deal seemed like a no-brainer, but in the back of my mind I was thinking: “Too good to be true.”
Upon opening the email, I saw the offer visible in my preview pane:
Naturally, I clicked on the “Show me” link to learn more about this great offer and possibly make a purchase. Instead, I was redirected to this page that asked for my travel dates:
Although I was a tad disappointed that I wasn’t able to learn the details behind the Hotwire offer, I still believed my $15.95 rental car was just a click away. Unfortunately, after clicking “Search for cars”, I found the least expensive rental car for my travel dates was $66.95 – $51.00 more than their email offer.
At this point I was finished with Hotwire and their false promises. Out of sheer curiosity I searched multiple dates and finally found my $15.95 rental car, but the price was a weekend rate – not what I was looking for.
How can Email Marketers avoid landing page letdown? Here are three easy ways:
1. Make the specifics of your email offer highly visible and easy to understand. Had Hotwire made a visible effort in their email (not buried in small, light gray text in the footer) to explain the specifics of the offer, it would have created a far better user experience.
2. Ensure that your landing page is consistent with your offer. If you are promoting $15.95/day rental car’s in Chicago, then your landing page needs to use the same style, design, verbiage, etc. Not doing so might give Customers the impression that they clicked incorrectly, or that the link simply isn’t working.
3. Make the process of accessing your offer easy. Customers click because they are interested. Don’t bog down the process with additional steps – make it easy for them to get what they want. If you must use additional steps (like Hotwire did with choosing travel dates), it helps to inform Customers the purpose behind it.
Looking for more on Landing Pages? Check out our video blog: Successful Landing Pages
