Landing Page Importance and UI/UX Design Thinking

Have you ever clicked on a link from an email sent by a company you are subscribed to? Notice how the link takes you exactly where you wanna go? Odds of you clicking a link and eventually turning into a conversion of that company are pretty high...only if the firm optimizes their landing pages and you consider your time a positive user experience. We will be discussing what landing pages are and why it is important for a digital marketer to know how to utilize them. Also the importance of UI/UX education in a?T-shaped marketer.

Landing Pages

The basic definition for a?landing page?is the place a visitor is directed to (or?lands?on) after clicking a link from a separate platform. This is used for providing the visitor information and opportunity to figure out exactly what they are looking for by clicking on the link. A good thing to keep in mind when designing a landing page is to keep a simple, clean, and capturing aesthetic. This holds the visitor engaged while making their actual desired search easy to turn into a conversion. In order to know what design of landing page is the most effective, it would be smart to?A/B Test?different looks and feels of the landing page to narrow down which is most effective. Speaking of effective landing pages, here are 5 steps to making yours look top notch:

1) Set a clear goal for your page

Whether it be a?conversion?goal of a sale, email sign up, or whatever you may have it, setting a conversion goal based off how your company defines the term is important for the success of a landing page. To be honest,?setting goals?is important for any aspect in life - but we won't get into that in this blog.

2) Have a clear call to action

A?call to action?is a marketing tool designed to have visitors take an immediate action that will hopefully turn into a conversion. This step should be closely tied to your goal and be supported by everything else on your landing page.

3) Keep the design of your page clean

As stated above, it is oober important for the look of your landing page to be clean, simple, and capturing. If the viewer is overwhelmed with your page, it is likely they will exit before they even read anything and your goal of a conversion will go out the window.

4) Have the fold of your webpage remain below your call to action??

This step isn't as essential for the success of your landing page, but it sure does help conversion rates. Having the call to action button below the?fold?will make the consumers have to work more (we don't want that). Ultimately, the most important information on a landing page should be before the fold.

5) Make sure your landing page matches the energy of the campaign

This seems to be common sense to a lot of people, but you'd all be surprised at the damaging effects your company could go through if the design of your landing page doesn't match the energy of the rest of the website or campaign.

Why a T-Shaped Marketer Should Understand UI/UX

Before diving into this topic, it is important to define each term so we're all on the same page.

T-Shaped Marketer: Having broad competence in many skill-sets with deep knowledge and understanding in one of those facets.

UI: Also known as User Interface, this is the point of interaction between a user and a digital device or product (think tangible buttons).

UX: Also known as User Experience design, this term encompasses all interactions between a customer - potential or active - and a company (think broadly, less digital and more general experiences).

It is important for a T-shaped marketer to be seasoned in both UI and UX to be able to understand the side of the consumer well enough to take into consideration how user-friendly an experience is for them. The goal for a T-shaped marketer is to make user experience as painless as possible and with that comes the ability to empathize and really put themself into the consumer's shoes. A solid plan for optimizing UI/UX is to implement?design thinking?to the teams working together for that reason.

In laments terms, design thinking is a methodology for creative problem solving. It goes deep into comprehending why and how something was done in order to be better as a company. Design thinking takes on the radical idea that?empathy?is at the forefront of achieving the goal of putting people at the core of the design of products and programs. It naturally makes sense to have those consuming a product be thought about during the process of making that product, if you want to go far as a company.

Through IBM's new learning platform,?P-Tech, you can learn all about how to implement this strategy to your next work meeting or program design. These concepts are intertwined and can be implemented to any business model. The construction of landing pages as well as the concept of UI/UX can be conquered through design thinking. Below is my completion badge for the Design Thinking course offered by P-Tech (slight flex).

Thank you for taking the time to read!