Copy or design: What’s more important to your landing page success?

What's involved in creating a landing page that converts? Well, two things that must be in place in order for your online marketing campaigns to convert at a high rate are effective design and compelling, persuasive copywriting.

But before we go any further, let's define some terms:

What is design as it relates to a landing page? 

Design involves the way all of the visual elements of your page are arranged and displayed. These elements include navigation structure/organization, graphics such as logos and photographs, background colors and font size and style.

What is copywriting? 

In its most basic definition, copywriting is selling through the written word. It is the art and science of using words and phrases to persuade readers to take the specific action you want them to take, whether that is to sign up for your e-newsletter, buy one or more products from your online store, take the next step in the sales process (such as downloading and reading your latest Case Study or White Paper) or picking up the phone to call you to schedule a consultation.

What is conversion? 

Conversion is getting the visitor to your website or landing page or the reader of your email to take the specific action you want them to take, whether it's buying from your online store now, making a reservation for your new restaurant or signing up for your webinar.

So… just how important is design? Does it impact your conversion rate enough to warrant all that extra work? And how does design stack up against other key factors like copy?

Let’s take a look at the data from Unbounce

• In their design analysis, Unbounce looked at 36,928 English language page variants active between March 2019 and March 2020. They took snapshots of these landing pages and trained various image-based learning models to predict their conversion rates. 
  
  
• To evaluate copy, they extracted the written content of each landing page, then trained a machine-learning model to predict conversion rates from the copy of each page.
  
  
• To compare the relative importance of copy versus design on landing page conversion rates, Unbounce created a new predictive model by combining the results of the best performing image- and copy-based models. They did this across all 36,928 pages in their dataset and averaged the contributions to give them the “relative importance of design” and “relative importance of copy.” 

Pretty impressive - we know! And as it turns out, design may not be as impactful—or as worthy of stressing about—as you may think. Unbounce’s results showed copy has twice the relative importance compared to design.

Remember: Design matters, but copy is key

The numbers are in and the analysis clearly shows design isn’t the main driver for page performance. Of course, a great lookin’ landing page will still improve your conversion rate, but just probably not as much as you thought. This doesn’t mean we’re saying design doesn’t matter though. In effective, highly-converting online marketing, design and copywriting both matter. 

So what makes for effective copywriting? 

When thinking about your content strategy, remember that fundamentally, copywriting is selling through the written word. 

• You need to build rapport with the prospect.
  
  
• You need to gain their trust.

• You need to answer the question they’re asking themselves (maybe subconsciously) about the idea of investing in your product: “What's in it for me?” 

It's human nature to want to try to win attention and impress readers by talking about us, about our wonderful company and our wonderful product. But if you want to gain browser’s attention in the insanely crowded and noisy online marketplace, focus your message mainly on them! 

What are some of the hallmarks of effective landing page design?

• Simplicity is near the very top of this list. It will help your reader stay focused on your message and on the action you want them to take.
  
  
• Use images and photography that are relevant to your message. Avoid bland, boring, generic stock photography like the plague! A side note, but very important – have compelling, persuasive captions for your photographs. These are an important but often overlooked part of the online copywriting mix.
  
  
• When it comes to copywriting and design that convert, and using them together powerfully, nothing is more critical than your call to action. Use design elements that draw your reader's eyes towards the call to action part of the page. 

It’s time to convert your prospects into customers with a landing page that has it all!

Here at Prism, crafting strategies and implementation tactics tailored to your specific audience and goals is what we’re all about. Every piece of copy we produce stays true to your buyer persona, providing your audience with the information we know they are searching for.

We are ready to talk about your unique goals and formulate a plan to propel your business forward. Speak with one of our consultants today.