Episode 74: Landing Pages That Convert

Kendra Corman: 

Welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing. I'm your host, Kendra Corman, and today we have Lorraine. 

She is a successful entrepreneur, professional speaker, author, and a host of a weekly marketing podcast, More Than A Few Words. She brings creative ideas, practical tips, and decades of real world experience to every conversation.

So I cannot wait for my conversation with her all about leveraging the internet for more conversions. 

Lorraine Ball: 

Kendra, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Kendra Corman: 

So, let's go ahead and just jump in. So we were talking before I started recording all about landing pages and websites and homepages and things like that.

So, let's start talking about landing pages. I find that a lot of my clients struggle with what is a landing page, and they just think it's a regular webpage. 

Lorraine Ball: 

The difference between a landing page and anything else on your website is the landing page is kind of the final destination. Unlike the rest of your website that I think you need to treat it like a late night infomercial.

Somebody gets to the bottom of the page and it's, and wait, there's more! If you want the Ginsu knives or the, the, the double cloth, whatever you have to click here. The landing page has no next step. You come to the landing page because You came from a different page. You came from an ad. You came from something on social media.

You specifically came because there was something that you wanted, and I have promised you that if you come to this page, you're going to get it. And so, a landing page should have information, and it should have a form or an action that someone can take. And the goal of a landing page is an exchange. I will give you my email address and you give me information.

Kendra Corman: 

It helps people that have shiny object syndrome because if there's only one action for them to take on the page, they can't get distracted by anything else and then not find their way back. Because that's a lost opportunity. 

Lorraine Ball: 

Oh, it absolutely is. And you know, there's some interesting research that was actually done more about email, but it applies the same way to landing pages.

A lot of business owners get hung up on this idea that, "oh my God, I have to tell people everything and I have to give them lots of choices. And if I give them lots of choices, they'll pick something and I'm going to win!" 

No, they did this study with, it was flowers. It was bouquets of flowers from a florist.

And one email had like, here are all the different choices you have for Mother's Day. And the other email was one bouquet that said, these are the flowers mom wants for Mother's Day. 

Hands down the email that only offered one actually sold more. Because it was what people wanted and they didn't have to go, well, maybe she'll like this, or maybe she'll like that, and maybe I'll just come back to it and I'll call my brother and I'll think about it and they never got back to it.

Give them one choice and you're good. 

Kendra Corman: 

And I'll make sure to add a link in the show notes to the TED talk called The Paradox of Choice. We get overwhelmed with options. I always tell my, my clients, one of them actually recently sent me a an email from somebody else and they said, "Look, I can do more than three articles in my email newsletter cause these people did!" 

And I said, yes, but unfortunately those people don't work with me, and you are limited to limited three articles in your email newsletter. I'm like, you can't give people more choices because then they get lost. 

And actually, it was funny. So when we pulled it up and we actually looked at the newsletter that they had sent out, there were three main categories of things they actually didn't have more than three. It just looked longer. 

So it you felt like there were more options, but it was funny. So, no.

Lorraine Ball: 

I totally agree with you because if you've got that much to say, break it into two emails because as much as you wanna believe that people have an unlimited amount of time to spend on you, they don't.

And so, break it into manageable bites. Give them small pieces and they will come back. 

Kendra Corman: 

And you want them to take action. I think, and I can't remember the study, but it was every choice you add or every button you add and think in an email, your conversion rate and the number of people clicking goes down. So from one to two it goes down, and then when you go from two to three, it goes down a little bit more.

And when you go from three to four, it like drops off a cliff. Cause it's way too many things for people to deal with.

Lorraine Ball: 

Absolutely.

And that really ties back in, and I'm gonna kind of close the loop back to, in terms of, as you're constructing your landing page, you've gotta think about what do you really need?

What information do you, as the service provider absolutely have to have? 

And you know, you get on these pages and there's, they want your name and your address, and your phone number, and your email, and the date of birth of your first born. and you gotta step back because again, that same research says every question you ask, fewer people will respond.

And my rule of thumb is if you're not going to use the information right away, don't ask for it. If all you need is an email to start the conversation, send the email, send them more information, add value. And then invite them to give you more. 

Earn the right to slowly collect that data.

Kendra Corman: 

I love what you said.

Earn the right. My information is mine. It is valuable to me. That's why you're creating landing pages and the value that's behind them. To get my information. 

I'm paying for it with my name and email address. Now, I usually encourage people to do first name and email address, but if you can get away with just email address, do it.

You know, because the less you ask, the better, unless it's something ridiculously, ridiculously valuable that somebody wants. Right. 

I think that, I think that that's the, the trick, the more information that you're requiring from me, the more value you have to provide for it. 

Lorraine Ball: 

Absolutely. I give this example kind of two side by side.

On the one hand, I've got a service provider who's giving me a guide, a sort of a self-paced guide, 10 tips to do X, whatever X is. And all that service provider can really ask for is my first name in my email. 

The second service provider is offering a 15-minute audit where they will go in and do some real work. They'll review your documentation. Now they want your name, your phone number, and even a little bit of information about your business because they're giving you 15 minutes of their billable time. 

Does it discourage people? Absolutely. Do they want people who are not serious? No. 

So, when you have too many people responding, just like in business, if you have too many customers, you raise your price. You create barriers to entry. You can do that same philosophy on your landing pages. 

Kendra Corman: 

I really, I like that philosophy on it, but again, it's, yeah, they're giving you more value, therefore they can ask for more. And I think it does, it whittles them down to the people that are serious, which is again, another valuable piece of information for them. 

Cuz they don't want people that aren't serious. You're a hundred percent correct on that. I love that. 

So, let's go ahead and let's go back to a landing page. You're talking about in the conversion form, take as little information as you possibly can. But let's talk about outside of that form.

What do you recommend on a strong landing page? 

Lorraine Ball: 

So I think that you need to think about the different audiences that are coming to your landing page. There are human beings and there are search engines. 

Human beings want a little bit of information. You're bringing them to the page. Give me that conversion form right up front. Tell me why I wanna do it. 

But then there's the rest of the page. Maybe I, maybe you have a video in a conversion form, or two or three bullet points and the form. But then as I come down the page, now I really want you to think about that late night television commercial. 

So I didn't convince you, here's a testimonial, here's other reasons you want this information. Are you ready now? Gimme another shot at the conversion form. 

And you can go as long as you want on that page. Sometimes it feels like if you really are scrolling all the way down, you're like, wow, this is a lot. I mean, who would put up with this? 

Well, some people do. Most people stop at the first form, and they never see it.

But the other advantage to having all that extra meat, all those other reasons people want this document, is for Google. Because you see, Google loves pages that have a thousand, 1500, 2000 words. No human being wants to read that! 

And so, you visually can break the page. The top part of the page is for the serious people, the middle, or for people that maybe need a little bit more convincing, and the bottom of the page is for Google.

Kendra Corman: 

And my engineer of a husband. 

Lorraine Ball: 

And your engineer. Oh, you have one of those too? 

Kendra Corman: 

I have one of those, yeah. 

Lorraine Ball: 

I, my husband is not an engineer, but he plays one on tv, I always like to say. Because he was, he was in construction management for a long time, so he was always working with engineers and architects and so he definitely has that read all the fine print and, and all the, and, and that's fine.

If you've got customers like that, this page will be fabulous for them too. The other nice thing is that you can keep adding to that page as long as you every so many lines ready to buy now. Ready to buy now, and you're not even really selling. 

You're just downloading the guide. Download the guide. But the trick is, It's the same guide. I don't scroll halfway down the page and now you're offering me something new. That's not the point of a landing page. 

Kendra Corman: 

Yep. A landing page is a single thing. 

Lorraine Ball: 

It is a single thing. I have some friends who argue that when I come to a landing page, there shouldn't even be any navigation like it should be just, you are there.

I find that a little disorienting. I like to have just a little bit of the main nav up there. But the other thing that people, and it's a silly little thing. The other thing that I think people really miss when they're building their landing pages and constructing their buttons, the word that you choose on your button is so important. The default for every form maker is submit. 

Nobody wants to submit. 

And not only do we as strong individualists resent being asked to submit, the research shows that your conversion drops if you use the word submit. "Go to," "download," "get the," you know, "get started." Any of those phrases or words outperform, submit dramatically.

Kendra Corman: 

I've always changed the word on my buttons, but that's good to know because I just didn't like the word submit myself. 

Lorraine Ball: 

Absolutely. People don't like the word submit.

So, words that either command or tell people what's next. Either get started, download this, get the guide, start your journey, whatever. Those work really well. 

And the other thing, and, and it's it took me a long time to get used to sort of really embrace this because I am kind of the EE Cummings of the internet. I love lowercase. But not in my buttons. 

All caps. 

And you know, people are like, but you're shouting. Yes, yes, I am. I just spent x amount of resources on social media, on advertising in my email to get you to this page.

It's okay to shout a little bit to make sure you don't leave before you do what you came for. 

Kendra Corman: 

That's good. I like that thought because yeah, the button should be shouting. That's their call to action. That's what you want. 

Lorraine Ball: 

Subtle is everywhere else. Bright colors, and it doesn't have to be cheesy, neon, flashy.

But all caps a little bit larger than everything else around it. And if you have five colors in your palette, pick the strongest, boldest in your palette and use that for the button. 

Kendra Corman: 

Oh, that's a nice point too. I like that because the button should stand out, it shouldn't blend in. 

Lorraine Ball: 

No, no, we're not looking for gray or teal, you know, soft teal or you know, baby blue.

No, that elsewhere. 

Kendra Corman: 

Yeah. Oh no, I like that a lot. 

So one of the things that you did say is that there is, there are two schools of thought on landing pages. I am the anti-navigation lady over here. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think, you know, you'll find what you're comfortable with and what you wanna do.

There's nothing wrong with navigation or no navigation. Just depends on what you're trying to do. 

Lorraine Ball: 

Absolutely. And I think where I have always gravitated, at least to the logo that takes you back to the homepages. I want for most of, for most of the clients that I always worked with, the landing page is still part of a bigger story, and so I want that connection.

But you do run the risk and, and that's probably why you default the other way that if I give you an out. 

Kendra Corman: 

You're gonna take it. 

Lorraine Ball: 

It's completely compelling that you're gonna take it. I, you know what though? I think these days it is so easy to spin up a landing page with most web software that I would do multiple versions and I would test them.

And I think that's the other thing is that it's not a set it and forget it. It's really, you gotta get in, you gotta test it, you gotta see. 

Well, that form showed up X number of times and we got five people to fill it out, but this one, we got 10 people. 

What's different? Why is this one working better than that?

And how do we adapt that to future pages?

Kendra Corman: 

I've worked with a digital agency several years ago and they were helping me with a client with some Google ads and yeah, I mean, they would, they kept moving the buttons around. They would change the colors. They would, they were constantly testing and optimizing.

And I think the people that do marketing well, agencies that do digital marketing, they test. Because marketing is not a perfect science. That's why this is called imperfect marketing. 

Lorraine Ball: 

Absolutely. It's, I loved, by the way, the title of the podcast because it is so true that this is an art, but it is an art to which you can apply the scientific method.

You can have a hypothesis, you can test, you can try different experiments until you figure out this is really good. 

Kendra Corman: 

I think Neil Patel has, I was listening to one of his podcasts at one point. And I think he was saying that like he has at least 10 tests and experiments going on at any one time.

I think testing and experiment and experiments cannot be understated. I think that that's a really big takeaway as you're building your landing page. Duplicate the page and change something. 

Lorraine Ball:

 Absolutely. 

And you know, the thing. Like Neil Patel, I mean, I think of him as someone who's at the top of his game. He's been doing this a really long time. He's very knowledgeable and he's still testing. 

And so if you have somebody like that who has written, literally written the book on so much of this and he's still testing. And I think it's, it's twofold. I think we can always get better. 

But I also think the other side of it, particularly in the digital world. The rules change. Google changes their algorithm. Facebook adjusts how they're doing things. 

And I have seen over the years, literally overnight, traffic to a page go from hundreds to 10. And it's not like we did anything different. 

Kendra Corman: 

When Google rolled out its helpful page content or helpful content update in 2022, one of the things that happened to one of my clients is they, their leads went down. 

I was like, well, yeah, it's gonna take a little bit for this to adjust back, and we did nothing. Literally, the next week, our visibility went back up and the leads went back to where they were. 

And then three weeks later, their leads went down again, we did nothing. Now they're back to normal again. 

Yeah. It's like, it's almost like it's finding its footing. Google is a lot smarter than we think. So, also don't panic. I mean, you can take a look at it and experiment, but don't panic either. 

Lorraine Ball: 

No, but I, but I think having those multiple experiments where you can begin to see, okay, this just changed and now this is doing better than this.

Staying aware of what's going on there. And, you know, without getting, I don't necessarily wanna get too geeky on this, but you know, this does change and you have to be a little bit geeky. 

Kendra Corman: 

Yep. You do. You do. 

And I am, so, I took a long time ago, well, actually, I dunno how long, well, yeah, it's a long time ago now. But a long time ago I took the Clifton strengths finders thing, and my third greatest strength is learner.

And I, so I love to learn and I love to geek out on this stuff, and I think that that does make a difference. If you have a passion for learning, hopefully you do because you're listening to this podcast. Hopefully I'm teaching you stuff. 

But if you have a passion for learning and getting better, I think it makes all of your marketing better.

Lorraine Ball: 

Absolutely. And if that's not your thing, that's okay. 

You better find somebody who you can get in your circle, whether it's an agency, whether it's an employee who does love it. Because you know, there are different types, like you said, the strengths finders. 

There are successful entrepreneurs who fall into all those different types, but if you are, if you know this about yourself that you don't wanna get into the weeds, then find someone who does and align with them in whatever way makes sense for your business.

Kendra Corman: 

Yeah, I think that that's a great tip because you don't have to do it yourself. I think it was, so Dan Sullivan, I read his book recently, the, the Gap in the Gain, and they've got another book that I haven't read other than the title, but it's Who Not How. So, just another way to think about it.

Right. So I'm guessing I know what the book is about, but, yeah. So I definitely need to read that one too. But yeah, it's, you don't always have to think about how you're gonna do it, especially if you don't like it. Find somebody to help. Supplement your weaknesses with other people's strengths.

Lorraine Ball: 

Yeah, I always use the example of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison or Tesla, depending on who you believe really invented the light bulb. 

But you have Benjamin Franklin outside, Kite, key, gets hit by lightning. Big picture idea guide, but it takes a hundred plus years and somebody who has the tenacity to try and fail and try and fail and try and fail in order to get a light bulb moment.

I am Benjamin Franklin. I'm out there trying all sorts of crazy stuff, but then I know that I want to hand that over to someone who's going to refine it. To take that idea and take it to the next level. And understanding that about myself meant that throughout my entire career I've always had a Thomas Edison around me.

And fortunately my husband is also a Thomas Edison. Cause the thing about people who think and view the world like I do, we start a bunch of stuff. And in our mind, once we have the idea, it's done. 

Kendra Corman: 

Oh yeah, it's done. It's sailed. We're we've moved on. 

Lorraine Ball: 

Yeah. But running a business, you gotta have that balance.

So, yeah.

Kendra Corman: 

Yeah, I'm with you a hundred percent on that. So we talked a little bit about Google and search engines and the changing algorithms. 

Why do people and search engines hate your website? 

Lorraine Ball: 

Oh gosh, there are so many reasons. You know, the first is, and when I first started talking about this, I really was treating search engines and people separately, but these days they really kind of overlap a lot.

And I think the biggest reason that whoever or whatever is coming to your website is that they get there and they don't know what you do. That they come to your website and they gotta dig around to figure out what your business is about. 

Am I even in the right place? Do I belong here? 

And so, the first thing I think, and not on a landing page, but on your homepage, when people come to your website, there needs to be a pretty clear, are you looking for this? Here you go. 

Is this who you are? This is for you. 

And in whatever your product or service. You know when you get to these pages where there's this like paragraph bragging about who we are, and we've been in business 20 years and we do all this stuff. 

I don't care. I got a problem. Can you help me?

And so, both search engines, and search engines penalize us because the pages are confusing. It doesn't contain the key words or the key phrases that they're looking for to identify what is this website about. 

So first and foremost, I think confused, just not answering the single biggest question that a prospective customer has, right? It is probably the biggest mistake. 

I think that people have gotten enamored with the capabilities of websites. You can, and I don't wanna use flash cuz flash is gone, but you can swirl, you can scroll, you can move this way, you can move that way. 

And all of those special effects are fabulous while you are sitting at your desk studying the website that you're building. The reality, however, is that all of that slows down the ability for someone to access again, that information that they came to.

So, I think we're seeing a trend back towards simpler websites. Elegant, not boring, not, you know, we're not going back to 2002 clunky design. But I think the better designers are learning to be elegantly interesting and do things very subtly that move, engage, create some interest on the page without crashing it down in terms of being cumbersome. 

And I think, you know, the, the other thing that really turns human beings off is when your copy is you centered versus they centered. And I would challenge anybody listening, go ahead and print out two or three pages of your website and then get yourself a red and a blue pen.

and every time you use first person language, us, we, our, me, my, even the phrase my customers or our customers, I want you to circle it in red. 

And every time you use a second person language, you, business owners like you, customers like you, your problem, your whatever, circle it in blue. 

And if the relationship between red and blue is not two blue to one red, you got copywriting changes you need to make.

Kendra Corman: 

Oh, I love that tip. That's fantastic. 

The other thing I really liked that you said was simple is not boring. You can do simple and it not be boring. And you might get bored of it, and that's okay cuz you see it more often than anybody else. 

And I think that that's really important to remember too. So as you're sitting there staring at your website, remembering that you're the only one sitting there staring at your website, you need to take a look at it and ask yourself some simple questions. 

And I think that, you know, is it easy to do work with me? I went on my website just in December and was like, is it easy to do work with me?

And the answer was no. And I was like, dang it. So I went and redid it and I'm in the process of redoing. So it should be, by the time this podcast goes out, it'll be done. 

I went in and redid it, like I had a courses page. Well, on my website I changed that. It now says work with Kendra. 

Guess what? You wanna work with me? Go to the work with Kendra page rather. 

Because otherwise it's like, well, where do I go? What do I do? How do I work with you?

And those questions are not ones, people aren't gonna work for the answer. You are not in that important to them. And there's a lot of other options out there for them. So if you don't make it easy, they're gonna go someplace else.

Lorraine Ball: 

Absolutely. And you know, one of the things that has really changed over the last 20 plus years that I've been doing this, is the sophistication of the web visitor. Today we don't really rely on that top navigation for the most part. When we go to a website, we hop over to the search bar to find what we're looking for.

And this is, I think, really, really important that as you are trying to simplify your website, you can have, I mean, my agency, we had literally thousands of pages indexed by Google. But from our navigation, you only saw five or six. 

But if you searched for marketing tip, business tip, whatever you would find if you searched that those pages would appear, they would come up in search. And that's really the absolute key there is making your website searchable and accessible. 

Kendra Corman: 

Okay, so let me ask you this question, and it's one of my favorite questions in the whole world because I am a huge fan about narrowing your target audience to grow your business.

Mostly because I suffered from this issue back when I started, and I think most small business owners. Suffer with this in the beginning, even mid-size business owners, and some large companies even suffer from this. 

That they don't narrow down their target audience because they don't wanna turn away business. And they feel that if they narrow their audience that they're turning away business and that they're not gonna get opportunities. 

Now I find it to be the opposite, that I actually get more opportunities, the more narrow I am. What has your experience been? 

Lorraine Ball: 

My experience has absolutely been narrowing to succeed, but I think you have to start by destroying the myth that who you market to defines who you sell to.

And the example that I will always give people, I have two. The first is I have not had a real Coke, a real Coke since 1979. 

Why? Because in a world full of chocolate, why would I spend 150 calories on soda? And so no amount of advertising, no amount of marketing is going to make me buy a real Coke.

I am not in Coke's demographics. They know that. They don't advertise in L Magazine or we, they just, they ignore me. 

However, if I walk into a 7-Eleven and I say, "hi, I'd like a Coke, please." 

The guy behind the counter is not going to say, "I'm sorry, ma'am, you're not in Coke's demographic. You can't have one." 

He's gonna say, "$1.25, have a nice day."

So, there is a difference between where you spend your marketing dollars. If somebody completely left field shows up, they're not in your target. But if what they want you to do is within your skillset, there is nothing that says you can't work with them. 

You just don't spend any time or money chasing them.

Kendra Corman: 

I like that. I like that a lot. Don't spend time or money chasing them. 

But it also, when you're speaking about people, or to people about a narrow audience, then they start to go to you, "Hey, I know you do this. Do you know anybody that does that?" 

And again, if it's in your skillset, you can accept it.

Lorraine Ball: 

Absolutely. I, when I started. When I left my corporate gig, what I wanted to do was teach other managers how to build high performance teams. Because although I had senior marketing roles, blah, blah, blah. 

What I was really good at was going into dysfunctional teams, fixing them and, and making them high performance teams. And it, it was the most obvious thing in the world to me. And I thought, well, I can teach other people. 

Well, while I was trying to build that business, which by the way was like hitting my head against the wall, people kept coming to me and saying, "Hey, Lorraine, I know you do marketing. I know you did marketing. Can you help?" 

And so, I started getting it to this place where people would be like, well, what do you do? Well, I do this and I do this, and they would glaze over. And so there was that moment where I woke up one day and I realized that I had a marketing business, that that's where all my revenue was coming from.

And I called a friend of mine and I said, "Hey, I know you do corporate team building." 

She said, "yep." 

I said, "I'm gonna send you my database. I'm gonna send you every lead, every prospect, every connection I have made for that business."

And it was kind of like sailing to an island and setting fire to the boat. There was no turning back.

Once I did that, I couldn't change my mind and go back to that. Because I had no, I had nothing. And it was okay because as soon as I cut that off and I could focus a hundred percent of my attention on what my business was really. 

I was much more productive. It was, it was much easier to clarify in everybody's heads what it was I did.

Kendra Corman: 

That is, I think, really, really important. And I know in Sandler sales training that I took when I started my business, they talk about that as a trap exercise. So you trap yourself into being successful on whatever it is that you do. 

So sailing, you know, was who was it that sailed here and burnt all the ships so that the people couldn't wanna go back, and that's how they stayed and did what they needed to.

I think that that, I think that trap exercises like that are really important. But again, I think narrowing your target audience. Speaking to those people. 

Again, back to what you were saying about landing pages and the copy and when you go to your website, do I know who you serve and is it for me? That's all I wanna know. 

One of my podcast guests earlier this year, they said, "your, customers all listen to the same radio station called What's In It for Me?" 

I was like, oh, I love that. I use what's in it for me all the time, but I love saying that they're all listening to the same radio station.

Yes. They are. It's just a very unique way of putting it. But it's so important and I think narrowing your target audience allows that what's in it for me to come through so much clearer. 

Lorraine Ball: 

Absolutely. And I think, you know, one of the things is as you're narrowing your target. For example, I, and I think I mentioned this before we started recording, my expertise was in service industries, home service, professional services.

And while there was a lot of similarity in terms of the things those businesses needed to do, how they saw themselves was very different. And so I created very different social media shares. I took the same workshop and rebranded it so all the examples were digital marketing for lawyers versus digital marketing for plumbers.

And then I created sub landing pages that were very similar, but the example and the message. The lead message was just different enough that it was relevant to those subsets, but I was able to do that because there was a common ground. 

All of those customers, all of those businesses were selling an intangible. They were selling the service. And so that's what I was connecting with them about. 

Kendra Corman: 

I love working with service providers because I just think that there's so much room for improvement and impact that that's probably my favorite group to work with. So, I love that. 

This has been an amazing conversation.

I am loving all of the stuff that we talked about from landing pages and how to optimize that to what your form should have on it. To my, one of my favorite topics, which is narrowing your target audience and being specific. 

I just had a conversation this morning with a client about narrowing their target audience and conversation might be a nice word for argument. But again, you know, it all comes together and I think that that's so, so, so important. 

And I love all of the thoughts and tips that you shared with us today. Before I let you go though, I do ask everybody one question because this show is called Imperfect Marketing.

We've already established that marketing is definitely not perfect, it's part art and part science.

What's been your biggest marketing lesson learned?

Lorraine Ball: 

Wow. I would love to tell you that everything I've done has worked out so well that there was no room for lessons, but we know that's not true. I think one of the funniest lessons that I learned was way back in my corporate days, and this was in the early days of web marketing and we did a contest to collect data on prospective customers.

And it was a fabulously, without going into all the details, fabulously successful contest. The people we worked with who built it had said they'd never seen that many responses. The problem was we didn't get a single piece of business. 

As we dove into it, the question was, why not? Well, our average customer was a 55 year old woman, and at that point in time, the average person playing internet games was a 25 year old man.

And so we had all these contacts and I was like, okay. Well if I wait 25 years, I can contact them about their wives, you know. And the lesson that I learned was the best idea in the world is only the best idea if it matches your customer. The contest was brilliant. It was hugely successful. Yeah, but not. Because it did not match our customer. 

Kendra Corman: 

I love that. And the thing that I like about that is that it's not just matching your customer, it's when you're measuring the impact of your marketing efforts, it should have business results. Every time I start with a client, every time I start a VIP Day or a coaching engagement, I'm like, so what are your goals?

And they're like, my marketing goals? 

And I'm. No, what are your business goals? 

Because if marketing doesn't support those business goals and get you results towards those, what's the point? 

No. And that's, yeah, that's a hugely fantastic lesson to learn along the way because Yeah, and I'll betcha like management and things like that, we're like, oh, wow, we've got such a great result and blah, blah, blah.

And then it's like, yeah, it didn't go so good. But they love to ask about those surface metrics a lot and that's not really what matters. And knowing from the get go what matters, matching that stuff up is just so, so, so important. 

Oh, I love that one. So thank you so much for being vulnerable and sharing that one too, cuz I can probably go on for like an hour just on those that, that I've done that were "successful." 

I'm using air quotes but really not. 

So, I think we all have a bunch of those. 

This was fantastic. Again, I can't thank you enough for your time and all the tips and information that you shared. I do want everybody listening to take a minute and go to your website or ask a friend to go to your website and see how easy it is for them to do business with you. If they understand what it is that you do and who it's for.

That is just a huge takeaway. 

And then also think of everything as a landing page. In the show notes, we'll have a link to digitaltoolbox.club and their digital marketing tools. But take a look at the homepage that Lorraine has also, because I think you've made that into a bit of a landing page and are leveraging your homepage for lead generation too. 

So, take some notes, study other people's sites. If you have time, go to my website and let me know if you think that it's easy to work with me too, because I would love your feedback. Cuz if you think it's not and you think it's not for you, I wanna know cuz maybe it's not.

But you know, maybe it is and I'm missing the mark, so all of us can always use some additional input and insight. 

And again, thank you so, so much for all your time, Lorraine. I cannot thank you enough for all of these tips. 

And thank you all for listening to another episode of Imperfect Marketing. We will see you next time, at the same time, same place.

Have a great day!