Page 285 - SKU-000506274_TEXT.indd

264 Part IV Promotion and Monetization

Close the Sale on Your Website

Now it’s time to close the sale, which, because you can’t sell directly from your
YouTube page, you do on your own website. The URL you point to from your
YouTube video should be a relatively hard-sell landing page. This means that you
don’t point to a generic page on your site or even to your site’s home page; both
approaches require unnecessary work on the part of the customer to place an order.
Instead, link to a specific product page on your site, one that includes information
about only the product shown in the video.

Note

The landing page is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks
an advertisement or search engine results link. This page should display
content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link. Depending
on the nature and intent of the page, it should provide additional informa-
tion, ask for information from the customer, or ask for the sale.

Why design a special landing page for viewers of your YouTube video? It’s simple:
You want to make it as easy as possible for them to give you their money. If you just
dump potential customers on your site’s home page, they could get lost. Or they
might have trouble finding the product they want and give up. In any instance, you
don’t want them randomly browsing your site; you want them immediately
responding to your specific offer.

Landing pages are all about presenting a consistent image to potential customers.
You wouldn’t get a lot of sales if someone clicked on an ad for blenders and landed
on a page talking about your company’s vast international manufacturing capability.
That sort of inconsistent message is a surefire way to get people to click back to
someone else’s site.

For this reason, your product landing page should have the same look and feel of
the video so that viewers sense the underlying connection. It doesn’t hurt to include
a screenshot or two from the video, or even an embedded version of the video in
the case the customer wants to rewatch it. The page should also include more
detailed information about the product than was possible in the video, as well as
more detailed product photos.

Some experts recommend a more stripped-down landing page, with links to addi-
tional information if the customer needs it. The thinking is that anyone clicking to
this page has already been convinced to buy; you don’t want to introduce any ele-
ment that might make her rethink her decision.