Ever wonder why we admire superheroes?
It comes down to two fundamental concepts:
A. We know they care about us.
B. We trust them to get the job done.
The expectations we have for superheroes are like those that we have for our landing pages. (Just work with me for a second.)
We expect that a page will:
A. Be trustworthy enough for a visitor to make a commitment.
B. Convey to the visitor that the service/product cares about their problem.
Most landing pages on the web don’t fulfill these two expectations, and this makes visitors arriving on the pages anxious. It’s the reason why so many landing pages make you cringe when you end up on them.
The problem with anxious visitors
The first emotion a visitor feels after arriving on a landing page tends to be anxiety. They probably don’t know who you are, and because they have no context, they don’t trust you.
So what does this have to do with superheroes? Well, Lois Lane isn’t exactly concerned about crashing into the ground when she falls off a building. And that’s because she knows what Superman is capable of. She trusts him.
Your landing page visitors don’t know your capabilities yet. You need to prove your credibility and capability by acknowledging your visitor’s context within your pages or your visitor will stay anxious, unsure if you’re going to catch them.
A landing page visitor gets anxious because they have the following questions on their mind.
Can I trust these people with my money?
Why does this company need so much of my information?
Are there other people out there that have been successful with this product/service?
Already anxious customers become even more nervous when a landing page’s questionable credibility keeps them from clicking on the CTA button. This psychological concern of your visitors costs you conversions.
So what can superheroes teach you about capability and credibility?
Empathy and building real credibility. A superhero is nothing without the people who trust them, and neither is your landing page.
We have analyzed the principles and strategies that go into making empathetic and credible landing pages, and these superhero strategies are exactly what we’ll be discussing today.
Show you care about your customers with your landing pages
Unless you’ve somehow managed to create a rift in the space-time continuum, you and other competitors in your niche share the same audience pool. You might think all you need to get conversions is have the best product that solves your target audience’s problem, but, you’d be wrong.
Solving your target audience’s problem is important, yes, but arguably more important than that is showing them that you care about their problem.
You just don’t want to acquire a customer you want to keep them.
Empathetic landing pages help you do that.
Yes, it’s true – empathy decreases churn. All your landing page elements need to work in harmony to show your customers you care about their problem and have the best solution to solve it.
The Conversion Lab page’s headline acknowledges the customer’s problem and then the supporting copy tells them how they can go about solving it. The image of the smiling guy helps add human appeal to the landing page which is always a good way to increase empathy.
The Obama campaign landing page makes use of emotive storytelling to influence the visitor to click on the CTA button.
Your landing pages don’t need to brag about your service, but they do need to brag about how quickly and effectively your service solves your customers’ problems.
Put trust symbols on your landing page to comfort your customers
Establishing credibility with your landing page is important.
For e-commerce business owners, trust seals become even more important. Let your customers know that when they shop with you, they do so in a secure and safe manner. You can do this by having a secured shopping cart, a solid return policy, and a privacy policy on your page.
Third party trust seals are beneficial, as well. A survey by Econsultancy showed that the effectiveness of trust seals depended on customer recognition of the symbols. The study tested 20 different trust logos and the results revealed the three most recognizable logos were that of Paypal, Verisign, and McAfee.
Blue Fountain Media performed an A/B test to see the impact of adding a VeriSign trust seal to their landing page form.
This was the control form.
This was the challenger.
The results revealed that just by adding a third party seal, conversions increased by 42%.
The landing page for Bills has three trust seals.
Besides trust seals, Econsultancy found that professional looking pages and the presence of popular customer badges also have an effect on online purchases.
Place customer badges on your landing pages
Showcasing customer badges of popular, well-known companies is a simple way to borrow some of their credibility. A visitor, who doesn’t know your service but recognizes one of your customers, is quicker to click on the CTA button.
When visitors find out someone influential in your field thinks your product/service is worth trying, they are more likely to trust you.
This is what Shopify does with their landing page.
Intercom does this, too.
Include a live chat option
According to an Econsultancy survey, 79% of visitors preferred live chat as a support option, because they perceived it as the quickest way to communicate and get their problems addressed.
Since Instapage added a live chat option, our customer support has never been better. Our customer service success team answers more than 100 live chat questions daily, and because we have an international team, there’s always a customer success guy making customers happy round the clock. (Marius, you’re the man!)
Show off customer testimonials
P.T. Barnum said, “Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd,” and I couldn’t agree more.
Social proof works on the principle that the actions of others is a way of reflecting correct behavior in a particular situation. Social proof increases your visitor’s trust in your service and guides them to the lead capture form.
Customer testimonials are a great way to reinforce social proof – they help answer the question, “Are there other people out there who have been successful with this product?”
Your testimonials need to be more than a line or two about how amazing your product or service is. They need to tell your potential customers how your existing customers were able to solve a particular problem using your service.
Additionally, a customer testimonial is more powerful if written by someone well known in your industry.
Henneke Duistermaat of enchanting marketing makes use of a powerful testimonial on her landing page.
Tip: She has a free 16-part snackable writing course which is definitely something every marketer should check out.
Your landing pages immediately transform into superheroes for your customers when you include empathy and credibility on them.
Try these landing page strategies, and tell us about the results below.