Landing pages are fundamental for online marketers who want to drive ‘qualified’ traffic and leads to their businesses.
Without one, you’ll struggle to convince potential customers that you’re the go-to expert or business in your industry.
Although landing pages are important for both B2B and B2C marketers, since they both want to convert leads into customers, the approach differs.
In fact, a B2B landing page may not even be relevant to individual consumers. Why? Because B2B companies aren’t marketing to individuals but to groups of people, organizations, and other companies.
On the other hand, a B2C marketer is primarily selling directly to individual buyers who make buying decisions without resorting to top-level executives and CMO.
Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Marketing said there are significant differences on how you build B2B vs. B2C landing pages.
That’s what we’ll focus on in this post. You’ll learn the strategies, best practices, and some examples in each category.
Contents
B2B Landing Pages
B2B or business to business involves the selling of services or products to businesses and corporate organizations.
Payroll services, Sales software, Copier paper, Cloud storage, etc. are some of the types of services or products offered.
source: Intuit
So, B2B landing pages are designed to help a business capture interest in other businesses they’re marketing to based on their interests.
Leads captured by B2B landing pages are initiated from marketing tactics such as social media advertising, email marketing, pay per click ads, search engine optimization (SE)), and so on.
These are all part of the ever-evolving list of systems to attract the attention of industry influencers.
Designing B2B Landing Pages
Creating amazing landing pages for your B2B campaigns has a lot of similarities to their B2C counterpart. However, there are some major differences. Reaching out to consumers relies a lot more on emotional desires and decisions than a current need to purchase an offer.
Business minds, on the other hand, are much more calculated in their purchasing decisions. Processes are involved before a conclusion is reached.
This does not mean though that emotion isn’t a part of B2B purchases. You just need to find the delicate balance between inspiring a business mind emotionally, while appealing to their logical side at the same time.
With that in mind, let’s look at some of the best B2B practices to boost your conversions:
B2B Landing Page Best Practices & Strategies
1. Develop a Landing Page for all Campaign Messages
A recent study shows that 52% of all B2B pay per click ads direct traffic to a homepage, and not to a landing page.
That has got to the most terrible mistake in any advertising campaign and also in your landing page design.
Your ad campaigns need to target users at different steps of the purchasing process.
Alongside focused messages that compel users to convert depending on their current needs.
Also, every ad campaign with a specific message requires an equally specific landing page to seal off the process.
2. Convey Your Message Instantly
You must already be aware that your specific messages have to be passed across on every landing page.
This is because your ad campaigns are created around such messages. So, you need to convey your point instantly — especially for business customers who need you to cut to the chase.
It is simply asking yourself, what does my site’s visitor want and how am I going to offer it? That’s a nail on the head question.
In communicating your message, The Military Leaders shares these thoughts on how to communicate to influence others:
“Chances are…you’ve written your message in a way that’s easiest for YOU to understand, which may not be the easiest for everyone else to understand. (“Big thinkers” often succumb to this tendency when translating their grandiose vision.) Audiences don’t live inside your head and won’t have a perspective on the process you endured to arrive at the message you’re bringing.
Make your message simple, clear, and digestible. Include a story, metaphor, or example to relate your message to real life. If you are casting a vision for the organization, be sure to include details that will resonate with the different groups who will be a part of it.
Next, make the message actionable, especially if you are giving guidance or shaping the road ahead. Make a list, identify milestones, and describe changes that will occur, which will translate your perspective into tangible outcomes.”
When writing your landing page copy, let your message be crystal clear from the instant they set eyes on your landing page. Make use of relevant subheadings, irresistible calls to action, and captivating headlines.
Trim all the content fat down so you get your message across fast. Remember these are business customers; they’d have shorter patience than regular customers due to the limited time at their disposal.
In all, Capture their attention — show them exactly what they stand to gain by taking action right now.
Arouse their curiosity by pinpointing what they’re going through right now. They will stand in awe, and develop an interest in your product. They’ll also feel confident, knowing that you have the capability and will to meet their needs.
3. Visually Striking ‘Hero’ B2B Sections
Visually striking hero sections are not kept just for B2C pages. Even a bland or dull business service or product must use a landing page with powerful visuals, which usually begins from hero sections.
Backgrounds with full-screen images have been in vogue for some time now and can be used in B2B landing pages.
You just need to ensure that they are optimized for speed and are responsive.
This also applies to backgrounds with full-screen videos, which have become popular recently. Pay attention to your page load time.
Also, be sure that the video footage isn’t distracting your user’s attention from the message you’re trying to pass across.
Source: PimonCloud
Plain backgrounds are a popular choice like the screenshot example above but the best practices for B2B inform us that people beat products or services any day.
See how Uber’s B2B landing page plays on the consumers’ desire for a glamorous and enjoyable ride.
Chartmogul states that 44% of all software services landing page photos feature people. It does not mean that you must follow the bandwagon and choose pictures with people.
However, you should test both options and see which one gives you the best results. If however, you choose to go with people images. Be careful to ensure they do not appear as poorly implemented stock images.
The landing page above shows you don’t always have to use images to give a powerful visual effect. A strong color choice, with contrasting text, could be powerful to create an impression.
Whatever approach you decide on, get the most out of your hero section — and ensure people convert instantly before scrolling down and possibly losing interest.
The objective of your landing page is quite clear and you wouldn’t want customers wandering to unimportant sections of your website.
So, get rid of the header navigation from all your landing pages. ResourceGuru does a great job with their landing page, there’s no header navigation.
This will keep users very focused on the reason they came. A visitor will get their navigation soon enough as they click to another page.
You can also place secondary call-to-action buttons in your footer as well.
At first glance of your landing page, header navigations simply distract the attention of your visitor and aids in causing a choice dilemma or indecision.
5. The Benefits of your Products
What do you care about when you’re looking forward to buying an iPhone? For most people, what they’re most concerned about is how the phone can help them keep up with modern times.
Sure, the features matter but the benefits mean a lot more to the end user.
One of the basic rules of marketing involves selling the benefits of a product rather than its features.
However, a major difficulty with B2B brands is the lure to add features rather than benefits. The same rule applies when you’re marketing a product online via your store or paid ad.
Roger Edwards explains it better in this Podcast episode.
You may not even be able to tell them apart at times. After all, free 500 GB storage of cloud computing has to be of immense benefits to every customer. But that’s a feature!
That’s a huge no-no. In such a case as listed above, the benefit could be similar to:
“Have constant access to your files, anytime and anywhere.”
A feature details what your products can do. Benefits describe an improved version of your customer’s life with your product.
So, you have to be aware of the aspirations of your target audience, the restrictions of such aspirations and then how your offers can break down those restrictions.
Regarding product features, they are meant to be on product pages not on your landing pages.
These B2B landing page strategies and best practices will surely protect you from losing valuable customers either through your paid ads or content marketing efforts (such as blogging, video marketing, infographics distribution, email marketing).
B2C Landing Pages
B2C or business to consumers involves a company or brand offering its services or products to individual buyers. Hence, B2C landing pages refer to web pages used to capture leads of these individual consumers.
B2C marketing promotes services and products to customers who can, in turn, use the offer to improve their lives.
There are several differences when you’re looking at B2B and B2C marketing.
You’ll likely see the core differences in the sales and purchasing process, cost of purchases, and decision-makers involved.
For example, a business will most likely carry out exhaustive research before they invest in a new office space, software or a merger with another company, but B2C transactions are more instantaneous and impulsive.
Source: Business Chief
Most times, prior decisions were not made for purchasing an offer in B2C marketing.
Consumers typically search for services and goods based on current needs and complete transactions quicker with minimal or no research.
This offers you as a B2C marketer a tiny window to manipulate consumer behavior.
With these thoughts in mind, you need to have a successful B2C campaign you’d need to trigger emotional responses or reactions.
While B2C campaigns are aimed at providing value to buyers, knowing these differences and applying them to your landing page design can make a world of difference.
As a B2C Marketer, What Should You Focus on?
When your business focuses on a B2C marketing strategy, you must watch trends carefully. Research your customers buying habits as well as monitor your competitor’s tactics and marketing channels.
Understand what you want to handle and deal with it appropriately with the right strategy. Focus on your top priorities when creating landing pages for your B2C offers.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, here are the top priorities of B2C marketers:
Best Practices & Strategies of B2C Landing Pages
The landing page of a B2C campaign is a vital aspect of the journey of your customer — however, it gets minimal attention most times.
The aim of any landing page is to compel customers who haven’t yet made up their minds to buy your product.
You want to show them how your brand offers value in the area they just demonstrated an interest in.
When a prospective customer lands on your landing page, say from paid ads or promotional emails, for example, they have shown a level of interest on the ad. Hence, they clicked on it and landed on your page.
By creating high-value content to cater to your target audience based on their interests, you can nurture the intent and compel the customer to make a purchase.
Nevertheless, having a functional landing page is good but it may not get you the sale. There are certain strategies to create visibility, focus, and content that deeply enhances the user’s journey.
So, let’s see some of the B2C best practices for landing pages. Using these tips, you can engage your prospects based on their interests, attract more visitors, and persuade them to become customers.
1. Optimize Your Landing Pages with Keywords
Do you want your landing page to rank higher than your competition in Google? If yes, then you need to target easy-to-rank keywords in your page elements (title tag, meta description, images, body).
The keywords and language on your landing page must reflect exactly what your target audience is interested in.
Designing a landing page that’s optimized with relevant keywords increases its visibility and searchability in the search results for the specific query.
If you’re a clothing retailer, for example, within your catalog of products you have “black jackets.” But your homepage promotes “suits and jackets.” This is the broad aspect of your products.
If a visitor searched for “black jackets” in Google, they might not see the page with black jackets, as what you have as content on such pages wouldn’t be closely related to the search.
Furthermore, although the page includes the key terms “black” and “leather,” it still doesn’t make sense.
Your SEO value for that particular keyword would be considerably lower than other retailers with dedicated pages for black jackets.
To raise your landing page visibility in the organic listings, make sure it’s properly optimized for the right keyword(s).
Look at the example below. It’s a landing page screenshot for leather jackets. See how deep the jacket’s description is.
If you’re an eCommerce marketer, make sure you describe your product in detail and remember to include some of the product’s defining features.
The keywords and description of a landing page must include informative attributes of every content offered in order to maximize the SEO values. You must build a dedicated, separate landing page for all your running promotions. This is important — whether you’re a B2B or B2C company.
2. Message Matching
Message matching is all about matching your landing page elements to your ad copy. In other words, if your landing page headline is “Quick and Easy Email Software,” then your ad copy must contain all or part of that headline as well.
Simply put, the content or ad that your customer clicked on must be closely related to those on the landing page.
In order to avoid bad user experience, message matching is very important. Here’s a good example — you find the ad copy, lead magnet (i.e., eBook), and the landing page headline matched.
Most enterprises utilizing the B2C system provide a broad content variety to their users.
For example, a media organization hosts a variety of stories. Banks offer varying content as well, Because of this, when a B2C brand drives traffic to its product page or homepage, they are most likely marketing content with terrible message match.
For instance, if a customer got a mail saying tickets were available for a football game, the potential buyer clicks the ad to get the ticket. But he’s directed to your homepage offering basketball tickets instead.
Even if you still offered football tickets, the potential client could be confused. And this will lead to a lost conversion.
In order to prevent this, all promotions you run must send traffic to a dedicated landing page with content and headline matching the ad copy. The moment the visitor lands on your page, they would see content that matches their intent.
In this way, you amplify your interest that drove the user your page initially.
3. Reduce Consumer Distractions
You want your landing page to generate traffic and leads, right?
Then if that’s the case, reduce or utterly eliminate all distractions on your page. The whole essence of having a landing page is to capture the prospects’ interests so that they can dive into your products and services.
With that in mind, your aim is to develop a B2C landing page that offers users a clear path to a relevant eBook, article, product, or white paper without unnecessary distractions.
An example is Media Valet’s landing page. It has no navigation bar at the top, which is recommended for B2B landing pages.
Above is an example of one B2C landing page that offers a clear path to a specific product. The page has some decent and high-quality content that further reiterates the product’s benefits.
If you choose to use a landing page with a navigation bar, then you must be ready to lose customers.
As a rule, get rid of the navigation bar, move it to your main website or blog — there’s no need sending people out of your landing page after spending money on Google Ads, Facebook ads, Sponsored posts, or/and other promotional opportunities.
It’s necessary to create the right content/copy on your landing page. When you develop specific and focused content, you make potential buyers see what’s the most relevant to what they clicked on.
Final thoughts
There you’ve it. Now you know the differences between a B2B and B2C landing page and how to create them.
When it comes to B2B and B2C marketing, yes, you can use the same marketing channels such as Facebook ads, Google ads, blogging, social media marketing, influencer marketing, email outreach, guest blogging, and so on.
It’s not about the marketing channels. It’s how you approach them.
The idea that individual buyers don’t need anyone to inform their buying decisions isn’t entirely true. After all, they rely on friends and family members for guidance. They also read customer reviews first before buying any product online.
The issue in B2B marketing is finding that balance between appealing emotionally to businesses and providing an easy path that enables a top-level executive or CMO make decisions on time.
With B2B marketing, balancing logic and emotion is more delicate because you’re dealing with executives who don’t jump into resolutions without meeting with the various departments to analyze the idea first.
So, do you see any difference between a B2B landing page and B2C landing page? What challenges do you have with building high-converting landing pages? Share your questions/answers in the comment.