Does Your Landing Page Pass the Emotional Test?

Over the past 8 years, we have created over 534 landing pages for our company and based on our experience we have designed the emotional test. Thus, every new landing page that is developed must past this test in order to be put to use.

Unfortunately, many of us believe that the decisions we make are based on a rational analysis of the options available to us, however, Dr.  Peter Noel Murray show us how it is our emotions that influence our consumer decisions and they often even determine them.

We don't have to go far to see this is true. When was the last time you heard: “I did that because it made me happy,” “I reacted in that way because I was angry!” or “I made that decision based on my fears.”? As this Oxford University study shows, your behavior is directly related to your emotions.

In most cases, your actions will be conditioned by what you are feeling emotionally at that moment.

The emotions that influence your decision-making were those that led us to design a test made of 3 simple steps to determine whether a new landing page will be successful or not.

1) The First Emotion: The Necessity of Feeling Assured

The first emotion to satisfy when a new client comes to your landing page is the feelings of insecurity and doubt. Today, it is certain that no one will interact with your platform if they are unassured about your company or product.

Starting with this point in mind, there are many possible solutions. The most important thing is to use testimonials of your past and current clients (real and verifiable). We will analyze a few examples to bring this point to life.

An excellent example is BetterHelp, which offers the service of online therapeutic care. Yes! What is more difficult than gaining confidence and trust for a service that historically is done in person (face to face) and in a very delicate context?

Another strategy that is well known and highly effective is displaying the logos of well-regarded news companies which have published something about your business (such as The New York Times, WSF, FOX5, etc.).

Furthermore, you can generate transparency and trust by offering a free trial period to your new clients, such as a period of 7 days as this company does. This ends up tearing down walls of separation which divides you from your client.

Another way of showing transparency is by explaining to the client the step by step processes for using your service. A simple 3-step guide is ideal, as can be seen below:

Adding together testimonies, news media articles, steps for using the tool, and a free trial will exponentially increase the level of assurance your users feel about your product.

The goal here is for your clients to understand that any problems that may arise with your company will be resolved, that this is something guaranteed, that they can trust you. Consequently, if they choose you, they are making the right decision!

2) The Second Emotion: The Need for Now

The second emotion to satisfy is that your users understand exactly what your company does and especially what benefit it brings to their life.

As a point of reference, 40% of users abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

This means that if you are not concise, clear and able to explain the concepts simply, you will lose a great number of potential clients.

The sensation of “now” that we all live by in today’s society (we want everything right away) makes it so that the focus of your landing page should not be in your services or you qualities, but in the precise benefit that you are supplying for the users.

For example, instead of “Professional online translations,” why not try something more geared toward the user such as: “Reach maximum efficiency, we can translate your projects with certified professionals right now.”

On the other hand, if we focus on the needs of the clients, which is what PivotDesk does in stating “Welcome to your new office. Find flexible, shared office space for your growing business.” They explain the problem they are going to solve for their clients in just a few words.

The famous phrase: “Don't show the features of your products, show the benefits to the client” is key when it comes to solving this sensation of “now” that we all feel. If the client does not understand what we do in 5 seconds or less, and more importantly, what advantages our product will give them, without a doubt they will go to our competition!

In finishing up this point, as we learned 2 years ago in our company, you should always connect your landing page to an onboarding process, because your landing page seeks to convince the client that you have the ideal solution to their problems.

Then, in the onboarding process, you should teach them how to begin using your service in order to effectively reach this goal.

3) The Third Emotion: Remembering Pain.

Lastly, an effective strategy which I recommend trying in distinct variations of your landing pages is reminding the client of their pain. That is, the pain that they deal with on a daily basis and for which they are trying to find a solution to.

Even though this is the third point of the emotional test, in reality it should be the one from which you develop your strategy. Always start off by mentioning the problem, reminding the users of their pain, and only after that present the solution.

If you want to learn more about this mechanism, I recommend that you read an excellent book by Sean D'Souza called “The Brain Audit:  Why Customers Buy (and Why They Don't).”

To see a real-life example of this, take Freckle for example:

The better you can share the client’s pain on your landing page, the better your conversion will be because the client will reflect themselves onto your proposed solution.

Conclusion

All of these emotions can be transmitted textually but we suggest it is better to include images and/or videos because we humans have a tendency to imitate what we see.

For example, in this video the company Beepi shows the true pain of the clients in the process of buying and selling a used car, as well as transmitting the “now” in showing the available online autos and lastly, the assurance that you are not dealing with a stranger or bothering salesmen, but a company with a good track record.

If your landing page takes care of the emotions of security, the “now,” and can show that the client’s pain will be resolved, you are on the right track!