Commander Obvious says: different pages for different people

In a brilliant post over the weekend, Seth Godin gives some great online marketing advice in “Commander Obvious chimes in with Tip #3 for effective web marketing…”:

Different pages for different people. It’s not difficult, and it represents an understanding of how the web works and how valuable your customer’s time is.

Thank you Seth.

Can I get an “amen” everyone? Seth’s commentary was directed at an online experience that treated him like any old generic web visitor rather than the 27+ year customer he was. He clicked an “upgrade” alert within a piece software, and the link took him to the company’s homepage (gasp).

As users, we know this happens all the time. We click a link, expecting to go to a relevant experience. And we land somewhere generic, like a home page, or an out of date product or campaign page.

As marketers, we all know better. The web gives us an incredible opportunity to personalize every touchpoint. To make every interaction specific, relevant, and engaging for the visitor. To be smart about our interactions—whether we just know a little about the visitor (like what they clicked to arrive at our page), or a lot about them (like purchasing history and what they downloaded last time they visited).

Commander Obvious is right. Different pages for different people. You can do this today with your landing pages by ensuring that every time someone clicks one of your campaign links (a display ad, an email, a PPC ad, a social link) it leads to a relevant experience. What does relevancy mean? It doesn’t have to be complicated. To start:

1. The copy on the page matches the copy from the ad

2. The visitor can quickly take action—whatever promise you made in the ad (click here, get this) is easy for the visitor to act upon

Just these two little steps can go a long way towards improving your visitor’s experience, and your odds of converting that visitor into a lead or a customer. Try it and let me know how it goes! And give thanks to Seth Godin (Captain Obvious), for he rocks.