For online success, master the ‘squeeze page’
“Squeeze page” is a term everyone who does any digital marketing should know and understand.
A squeeze page is most often a special kind of landing page; it’s a landing page designed to capture the visitor’s email address or other contact information, or make a sale. We can consider any page or pop-up a squeeze page, but the traditional squeeze page is longer and presents the visitor with more content and more opportunities to enter the email address or take the desired action.
You have probably seen some extreme examples of squeeze pages. Often individuals selling a specific nutritional supplement will have essentially a long one-page website and as you scroll down you read more about the benefits of the supplement and are presented with several testimonials. As you’re scrolling, new forms to enter your email address are featured on the page.
The technique or strategy can be used in a wide range of settings. There are three places on Timothy Sykes’ Millionaire Challenge squeeze page for visitors to give him their email address. And while you will may find this page a bit “over the top,” it teaches a good lesson:
Design and create content for your squeeze page to hit your target audience.
Sykes is appealing to people who want to become millionaires, and frankly, his target isn’t the “slow-and-steady” wins the race crowd. His squeeze page does a powerful job communicating a message that appeals to our emotions. There is movement, bright colors, a famous face, compelling testimonials, and more.
Your approach won’t look like his, but you should aspire to communicate to your target audience as well as Sykes communicates to his. Here are the crucial points to consider:
The offer. It’s obvious that what you are offering your prospects should match their interests, but the “weight” of the offer and commitment also need to be balanced. If you simply want an email address for future marketing campaigns, you don’t need to promise the moon. However, if you want someone to buy something today, the value must be there.
The language. Headlines and subheadings are crucial in a squeeze page. They need to get to the heart of your offer and also have an emotional element. You need to convince both the head and the heart to do what you want the prospect to do. Communicate benefits and the feelings prospects will have when those benefits are experienced.
Beyond headlines and subheadings, keep paragraphs short. You want to reveal additional powerful headlines as the visitor scrolls down the page.
Make the action easy. If you’re trying to capture an email address and your squeeze page is longer than an opt-in box, present visitors with more than one place to enter their contact information. If you want visitors to press a button to get to an ecommerce page, don’t limit yourself to one button at the bottom of the page.
Graphic design. The images you use along with the typography and colors selected will create the feeling of your squeeze page. Think about your target audience. What will turn them on? What will turn them off? A countdown timer graphic can help you motivate people to take immediate action.
Lastly, squeeze pages are the perfect candidate for optimizing via A/B testing. Compare various headline wordings, and if you aren’t getting enough visitors to your squeeze page to do much A/B testing, test different wording ideas in your social media to see which get the most engagement.