Squeeze Page: What Is It And Why It Is A Must For Your Online Marketing Strategy
A squeeze page is a an online marketing tool which allows you to grow a list of potential customers who are giving you open permission to keep them informed. If you do any kind of online business or you are a professional online publisher who wants to more significantly monetize your content assets, you must take due time to study and learn everything you can about list-building and squeeze pages.
Photo credit: Marc Dietrich
While the web 2.0 "conversation" has been emerging mostly on blog comments and through social media destinations like Facebook, Myspace and new social messaging tools like Twitter, the true direct, in-depth, engaging conversation has really no other better place to exist than inside email.
Since the advent of RSS, many have hinted at the demise of email, only to find email more present and re-invigorated on the desktop of each and every computer. Each new communication technology appears to the superficial pioneers as a possible replacement for the old, spam-ridden email, but facts have shown over and over again that email is definitely here to stay.
Why? Here a few reasons:
If you're involved in internet business of ANY KIND, you need to be building and messaging your email list. But not with email newsletters that are just a condensed email version of your web site latest published articles but rather with your personal voice and your ability to communicate directly to them.
Instead of getting hyped by the lure of immense social media benefits, which require for now tons of extra time and vision, I humbly suggest to invest serious time in cultivating and having true, direct and deep conversations with your readers and supporters via old, traditional email.
It's a MUST. It's as simple as that.
Nothing beats email directedness, intimacy, the semi-total attention it requires alongside its immediate one-click opportunity to be replied to. Email is a powerful communication medium. And it is one of the oldest and most effective forms of online marketing.
Ground yourself back from the excessive hype surrounding this initial explosive phase of social media and just realize how important and effective email really still is in handling personal, valuable direct communications. If you are to market one-to-one in this new era of personalization and user-centerdness you need to use a chanel that has established credentials and that your customers can also use to talk back to you.
"Savvy internet marketers have discovered that convincing a visitor to sign up for an email list provides an opportunity to present that visitor with multiple sales messages over time, develop a relationship, and even cross-sell other related products."
What Is A Squeeze Page - Overview
If you have never heard about squeeze pages here is a simple explanation. A squeeze page is a web page where the reader can do nothing else but leave his name and email address to get access to something of value.
In other words: the reader is metaphorically "squeezed" to obtain his email and his open permission to further communicate with him.
In reality, there is no actual pressing or threatening that takes place but the reverse is actually true. The reader has arrived to this page so eager and pre-sold on getting some extra information that he/she is more than willing to provide his email address in order to receive more information about it.
One thing is giving out your email to a corporation that will resell it several times and use it to send you and pop-up on your screen all kinds of irrelevant messages, one other is if you are seriously interested in something and decide to provide your own email to be able to learn more about such topic.
Wikipedia says about Squeeze Page: "The goal of the page is to obtain the visitor's email address; additional information could distract the user or cause them to "Click-Away" to a different website.
Navigation and hyperlinks are almost always absent from typical squeeze pages. The absence of links is used to focus visitors' attention on one choice: register for the email list or leave the site."
List building, of which I have recently explained the critical importance, is the actual process that takes advantage of squeeze pages.
When you're trying to build a list, you need a destination web page where your visitors will arrive and find a fill-in form to sign-up to it, right?
But this sign-up box can either be placed just about anywhere on your site, say on all of your side columns, or you can create a very special, dedicated page for it: a squeeze page.
A "squeeze" page is a special kind of web page that offers the reader the opportunity to access valuable information ONLY if you, the reader will sign-up / opt-in in your list.
It is called a "squeeze" page because it metaphorically "squeezes" the visitor in between two specific choices. a) Sign-up on your list to get the information she wants, or b) give up and go away without it.
How Does A Squeeze Page Work
To create a list, you generally need to offer, promise something. A content gift, a software tool, a PDF report, something so good that your readers will not hesitate a second to give you their email to get it.
So the basic squeeze page approach is to promise you something of value, say a free report, or access to a unique downloadable tool, in exchange for your reader email. You don't put it exactly in this terms, but essentially you excite up your readers by telling them how good and useful it is what you have to give out ad why you want to give it freely to them.
You pre-sell to them in video or writing something really good you have decided to give away, but again, to obtain it, they will need to fill in their name and email to get it.
The final goal of email lists is to act as your key, most direct communication channel, with your hottest prospects and raving fans.
Inside internet marketing circles, the "squeeze" page has become one of the most upheld standards of effective online sales and marketing campaigns.
Squeeze Page - Key Benefits
The key benefits of creating a squeeze page instead of building your email list contacts in a more informal, less strategic way. They are:
1) Simple To Create
Squeeze pages are simple to create. It takes no special technical expertise or fancy design skills to design one.
2) Acts As A Filtering Gate For Those Prospects Who Are Really Interested
A squeeze page drives to you those readers and potential customers that are really interested in what you have to offer and want to be kept informed.
3) Opens Gate To Truly Direct Communication With Prospects
A squeeze page gives you the ability to start communicating, one-on-one with each one of your most interested and passionate readers.
4) Gets Them To Give YOU Permission
Via the squeeze page you give the opportunity to your raving fans to give you permission to engage them via email with other relevant news and information.
5) Is Effective
A squeeze page is the most direct and effective way to obtain permission for direct email communications from your potential customers.
6) Is Fast
A squeeze page takes very little time to be setup and published online. If you feel you do not have the technical skills required to set one up you can get assistance from any tech skilled person or freelance webmaster, which you can easily find online via craigslist.org or elance.com.
Reversed Squeeze Page
The reverse squeeze page is an evolution of the basic concept outlined above. The basic idea is to take take the content assets you would normally provide AFTER the opt-in and give them out free before they even sign-up. Offer it UP FRONT to your readers! Then, after your reader has watched, read and has become further enthused and interested in what you have to offer, you offer her the opportunity to sign-up to receive more, be informed and be kept up-to-date on your next releases.
You give your prospects something great, fully free, and having them impressed and surprised by your sudden generosity, you offer them more, but in exchange of their name and email.
"If you think this report I have shared with you is something you want to get more of , you can sign up on this page and I will alert you via email whenever I will have new exciting material like this."
This approach relies on a psychological phenomenon called "reciprocation". The more you give out spontaneously to others without asking anything in return, the more the others will feel obliged to "reciprocate" back in a fair way anytime you will give them an opportunity to do so.
By using this approach you actually prove your real value in full well before ever asking anything in return. It is a very generous proposition and one that we are not generally exposed to. This makes it even more appealing and effective.
More Resources
What Is List Building?
Originally written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on May 28th 2008 as "Squeeze Page: What Is It And Why Is A Must For Your Online Marketing Strategy"
blog comments powered by Disqus