Author: Franz Malten Buemann

The goal of a landing page is to get visitors to take an action, whether that’s to buy a product, sign up for an email list, start a free trial, or something else. 
But like any goal, you shouldn’t just “hope” that it’ll be achieved. You need a strategy that guides visitors toward completing the desired action. 
One way to get visitors to take action is to use mental triggers — subtle cues that nudge readers in the right direction. In this post, we’re sharing effective mental triggers you can use to optimize every element of your landing page. 
Optimizing your offer
Your offer is the most important part of your landing page. Because no matter how many optimization techniques you employ, if your target market doesn’t want your offer, your landing page will not convert. 
A quick way to test whether your offer will convert is to see if it fulfills one of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who theorized that there were distinct levels of basic human needs. Certain levels (like the need for food and water) had to be met first before a person would care about more sophisticated needs (like creativity). 
Maslow envisioned this hierarchy like a pyramid: 

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If you can match your offer to one of these basic human needs, you can be relatively sure it will be desired. 
For example, computer security software would fall into the “safety needs” category, like this offer from McAfee Total Protection:

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On the other hand, a university landing page inviting visitors to enroll would fall into the “esteem” or “self-actualization” category, like this offer from Capella University:

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Optimizing your copy
Your copy – the words on your landing page – is what will ultimately persuade someone to take the desired action. So, it’s very important. 
Don’t rely on sales techniques, such as using hyperbolic words like “best” or “only.” Today, most people are too familiar with marketing tactics to fall for these techniques — and may even resist them. For example, a 2013 study found that people react negatively when they sense someone is trying to persuade them in marketing. 
Instead, emphasize the free will of the reader, so they feel empowered to make their own decision and will be more likely to trust your offer. Use phrases such as “you are free to choose” to ensure readers don’t feel they are being “sold to.”
Another non-salesy (but very effective) strategy is to use storytelling in your copy. Studies have found that traditional urgency techniques (e.g. “limited time offer”) are not as effective, especially in the long-term, as showing the value of your offer through storytelling. 
To make storytelling easier, try following the simple framework created by the founder of Storybrand, Donald Miller. It consists of elements found in the hero’s journey: 
 

Character

Has a Problem

Meets a Guide

Who Gives Them a Plan

And Helps Them Avoid Failure

To End in Success

For example, this accounting firm’s landing page uses the story of the Problem their market is facing to make their message persuasive, but not salesy:

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Optimizing your headlines
To capture visitors’ attention immediately and keep them engaged on your page long enough to evaluate your offer, you need a compelling headline. Speak directly to the benefits of your product or service and how it fulfills an essential need for your prospect.
One technique to use is the focusing effect.
The focusing effect is the tendency of people to place too much emphasis on one thing at the expense of others. When it comes to your landing page headline, though, you can use this to your advantage.
Your product or service likely has many benefits, but highlighting your unique value proposition (UVP) in your headline helps prospects focus strongly on that one feature. 
JumpCrew lists several of its benefits in the copy, but highlights its UVP (more customers for less money) in the headline to grab visitors’ attention and make them hungry for more information:

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Optimizing your images
Your images are also very important when it comes to how visitors will feel when they view your landing page. 
One proven strategy is to choose images of people (instead of inanimate objects). 
The theory goes that it’s easier for people to relate to other people than to objects. But you can also take this a step further and take advantage of research that found that when the people in the images are looking at the CTA button, viewers also instinctively look at the button and become click it more often. 
For other best principles, you might find it helpful to follow an image checklist created by the 60-Second Marketer. The images must…

Look trustworthy
Demonstrate the advantages of the offer
Contrast with page design (stand out)
Express desired emotions
Make it easy to see the CTA button

For example, on the following landing page, there’s a photo of a person, who’s looking at the CTA button, and who conveys the desired emotions of the target audience: 

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Optimizing your CTA buttons
Finally, apply strategy to create CTA buttons that drive more conversions. One of the most effective strategies is to make your buttons stand out from the rest of the page as much as possible. 
According to marketing and psychology researcher, Nick Kolenda, this strategy works because of something called processing fluency. Processing fluency refers to the phenomenon that the ease with which readers understand what to do is closely related to whether they perceive the action as easy and pleasant. 
In other words, if a button is easy to spot and click, it feels easier and more pleasant to actually click. In turn, this will increase conversions.
Take a look at the following example landing page. The CTA button is orange when nothing else on the page is orange. This makes the CTA stand out more. 

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Wrap Up
Simply creating a landing page and generating traffic to it is not sufficient to increase your conversions. You must design the page with the right elements while implementing some mental triggers. Only then will your visitors be persuaded to take action and your marketing funnel start to collect more and more leads.
The post Design An Optimized Landing Page Using Mental Triggers appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

Big Idea or Enduring Question: How do you allow Sales reps an easy to transfer their opportunities to another user? In today’s world, Sales reps switch their job frequently. Transferring their existing or closed deals or leads to another user is … Continue reading →
The post Getting Started with Salesforce Flow – Part 63 (Allow Users to Mass Transfer Records They Own) appeared first on Automation Champion.

My email inboxes can be a bit of a mess at times — both my personal and professional accounts. I tend to check my emails when I first log on in the morning, at lunchtime, and when my afternoon meetings taper off, but if you wanted me to verify the exact times of day I’m most inclined to review, I couldn’t do it. And when I’m short on time, I typically gravitate toward the more interesting messages sitting at the top of my inbox, instead of the critical business notices that require me to take an action.
When it comes to identifying engagement patterns like these, humans are pretty unreliable. But as it turns out, computers are very good at it.
As a marketer, don’t you want your email to be at the top of your subscriber’s inbox at the precise moment they’re ready to read it?
That’s where Einstein comes in.

What is Pardot ESTO?

Einstein Send Time Optimization (ESTO), one of the most popular features in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, is now available for Pardot customers. ESTO uses artificial intelligence to evaluate the open and click data for your messages, then picks a send time that’s best for each prospect.
When you conduct a list email send with ESTO, it means that your message will show up at the top of your prospect’s inbox at the exact time they’re most likely to interact with it — whether that time is between their first and second cup of coffee, during the lunch time lull, or between back-to-back afternoon meetings when they’re looking for an energy boost.
In Pardot, this level of personalization is now as easy as scheduling a send.
How Pardot ESTO works
Simply pick a start time for your send and a time window over which to send it. The length of time can range from three hours to one week. When the scheduled start time arrives, Einstein will pick the best send time for each prospect and deliver accordingly.
Over the course of the send’s time window, you can monitor your open rate to see which prospects are still in the queue and the individual send time for each prospect, so you can keep a close eye on what’s happening with the send.
I may not be as wise as a computer when it comes to analyzing my daily email habits, but I do know that the best time to get started with ESTO is now.
Ready to try it? ESTO is only available in the New Pardot Email Experience. Still need to activate it? Get started with our Set Up Email in Pardot knowledge article.

In the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, two children drop breadcrumbs in the woods to find their way home. Nowadays, you probably don’t experience too many lost-in-the-wood experiences, but I’m willing to bet you’ve felt disoriented on a poorly designed website.
In web design, breadcrumb navigation is a way to show your users their location and how they got there. Like Hansel’s breadcrumbs, it helps users retrace their path and see where they are in the greater scheme of your site.

While you can style breadcrumbs however you’d like, they tend to look the same across websites that use them. Here’s a simple example of breadcrumbs from the HubSpot Knowledge Base:

Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of the acclaimed Nielsen Norman Group, has been recommending breadcrumb navigation since 1995, and makes a strong point for their usefulness and efficiency: “All that breadcrumbs do is make it easier for users to move around the site, assuming its content and overall structure make sense. That’s sufficient contribution for something that takes up only one line in the design.”
If your business’s website is multi-layered, you might consider implementing breadcrumb navigation to make your site easier to navigate. However, like any design element, there’s a right and wrong way of doing it. Here, we’ll explore nine tips and examples to ensure you’re creating the most effective breadcrumb navigation for your users.
Breadcrumb Navigation Tips and Examples
1. Only use breadcrumb navigation if it makes sense for your site’s structure.
Breadcrumb navigation has a linear structure, so you only want to use it if it makes sense with your website’s hierarchy. If you have lower-level pages that are accessible from different landing pages, using breadcrumb navigation will only confuse readers who keep accessing the same pages from different starting points. Additionally, if your site is relatively simple, with only a few pages, you probably don’t need breadcrumb navigation.
2. Don’t make your breadcrumb navigation too large.
Your breadcrumb navigation is a secondary tool to your primary navigation bar, so it shouldn’t be too large or prominent on the page. For instance, on DHL’s website, their primary navigation bar is large and recognizable, with columns like “Express” “Parcel & eCommerce” “Logistics”, etc. Their breadcrumb navigation is the smaller section below that reads, “DHL Global | > Logistics | > Freight Transportation”. You don’t want your users to mistake your breadcrumb navigation as the primary navigation bar.

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3. Include the full navigational path in your breadcrumb navigation.
I Googled “Elon University Non-Degree Students” to reach this landing page, but Elon is smart to include the full navigational path, including “Home” and “Admissions”. If you leave out certain levels, you’ll confuse users and the breadcrumb path won’t feel as helpful. Even if users didn’t begin on the homepage, you want to give them an easy way to explore your site from the beginning.

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4. Progress from highest level to lowest.
It’s important your breadcrumb navigation reads left to right, with the closest link to the left being your homepage, and the closest link to the right being the user’s current page. A study by Nielsen Norman Group found users spend 80% of their time viewing the left half of a page and 20% viewing the right half, making a strong case for left-to-right design. Plus, the link closest to the left will appear as the beginning of the chain, so you want it to be your highest-level page.
5. Keep your breadcrumb titles consistent with your page titles.
To avoid confusion, you’ll want to remain consistent with your page and breadcrumb titles, particularly if you’re targeting certain keywords in those titles. You also want to clearly link your breadcrumb titles to the page. If the breadcrumb title doesn’t have a link, make it clear. Nestle effectively labels its breadcrumb titles to match the page titles. “Areas of impact & commitment”, for instance, reads the same in the breadcrumb navigation as it does on the page.
Nestle also does a good job differentiating links from non-links with different colors — the links are blue, while the non-links remain gray.

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6. Get creative with design.
The traditional breadcrumb navigation looks like this: Home > About Us > Careers. However, you don’t need to follow the traditional path if you feel a different design could appeal more to your audience, or look better on your site.
For instance, Target uses breadcrumb navigation in their product pages (because who wouldn’t get lost in the virtual shoe section?), but uses “/” symbols and simple black and grey text. In this case, the subtle design variation makes sense for their site’s aesthetic.

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7. Keep it clean and uncluttered.
Your breadcrumb navigation is simply an aid for the user, and ideally shouldn’t be noticed unless the user is looking for it. For this reason, you don’t want to clutter your breadcrumb navigation with unnecessary text.
Eionet, for instance, could do without their “You are here” text. While meant to be helpful, the text clutters the page. With the right design, a breadcrumb navigation should be noticeable enough without an introduction.

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8. Consider which type of breadcrumb navigation makes the most sense for your site.
There are a few different types of breadcrumbs you might use — location-based, attribute-based, and history-based. Location-based breadcrumbs show the user where they are in the site’s hierarchy. Attribute-based breadcrumbs show users which category their page falls into. Finally, history-based breadcrumbs show users the specific path they took to arrive at the current page.
Bed Bath & Beyond uses attribute-based breadcrumb navigation to show users which category their product page falls under, so users can click back to “Kitchen” or “Small Appliances” to peruse similar items. This type of breadcrumb navigation is most effective for Bed Bath & Beyond customers. When you’re creating a breadcrumb navigation, consider what’s most useful for your site’s visitors.

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9. Know your audience.
Best practices in breadcrumb navigation urge web designers to place the navigation at the top of the page — but Apple, one of the most valuable companies of all time, defies this logic by putting their breadcrumb navigation at the bottom of their site. Ultimately, it’s critical you know your audience. Apple’s customers are typically tech-savvy, and would likely find the navigation if they needed it. Consider your customers’ needs, and implement A/B testing if you’re unsure.

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Breadcrumb Navigation in HTML and CSS
Not only are breadcrumbs useful — they’re also easy to add to your website with a bit of HTML and CSS code.
Let’s start with the HTML, which we’ll use to make the links themselves. The easiest way to do this is to organize your links in an unordered list (<ul>) element, with each list item (<li>) comprising a link in the breadcrumb series until the final item, which denotes the current page.
Here’s an HTML template for breadcrumbs that you can use:

Notice how I’ve also enclosed the unordered list in an HTML <nav> (navigation) element, and added a class and an ARIA label to its opening tag. This is optional, but helps make your page more accessible to screen readers and search engines.
Of course, this HTML alone isn’t enough — right now, we just have a bulleted list of links. By adding CSS, we can achieve the breadcrumb look that we’re looking for. Apply the following CSS to the HTML above:

Together, this code generates a basic breadcrumb navigation area that can be used on any site — see the final result below. I’ve also added some additional styling for a cleaner look. To see how the breadcrumbs look without this styling, comment out the code at the bottom of the CSS tab.
See the Pen Breadcrumbs in HTML and CSS by Christina Perricone (@hubspot) on CodePen.
 
Breadcrumb Navigation in Bootstrap CSS
Bootstrap CSS also offers a way to create breadcrumbs without needing to add custom CSS. To do this, use the Breadcrumb component like so. Here’s an example from the Bootstrap 5 documentation:
See the Pen Breadcrumbs in Bootstrap CSS by Christina Perricone (@hubspot) on CodePen.
This is just the basics of breadcrumb navigation in Bootstrap — see the Bootstrap breadcrumb documentation to learn all the details.
Design to Help Users Navigate Your Site
Ultimately, breadcrumb navigation is an effective tool to make your site easier to navigate, but you want to follow design best practices to ensure you’re leveraging the tool’s helpfulness. For additional UX advice, check out our Ultimate Guide to UX Design.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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