Guiding The Next Step With Thank You Pages
VIDEO 1: HOW DO YOU USE A THANK YOU PAGE?
In this video, we’ll discuss what a thank you page is and why you’ll want to utilize one in your conversion process. After this class you will know how to create your own thank you page using best practices and what role a thank you page plays in a successful conversion process.
A thank you page allows you to present the next step to the newly converting lead, moving them even closer to becoming a customer.
To review, the conversion process begins when a visitor clicks on a call-to-action or CTA. Then, the visitor learns about your offer, fills out a form on your landing page and becomes a lead. Finally, the converted lead is taken to a thank you page where the offer is delivered.
A thank you page, as the name implies, allows you to thank the new lead for signing up to get the offer, but also provides some additional direction on what the new lead might want to look at next. A thank you page is important because it gives the lead the information they hoped for. While this is the end of the conversion process, the thank you page can be used to help someone continue through the buyer’s journey.
Now, some of you may already have some landing pages set up to display an inline thank you message after a visitor fills out a form. While this is a good start, we’d encourage you to redirect your visitor to a thank you page instead, so that you can thank them while providing additional information.
By simply thanking a lead with an inline message, you’d be missing out on a huge opportunity for additional engagement with the lead.
Thank You pages are a great way to thank your leads for their interest in your offer and give them a little more information, which hopefully moves the leads just a little bit closer to becoming a customer.
VIDEO 2: HOW DO YOU CREATE SUCCESSFUL THANK YOU PAGES?
Let’s go over some best practices that can ensure successful thank you pages.
But before we look at best practices, let’s see if you can answer this question:
Question: Why is a thank you page more helpful to a marketer than an inline thank you message?
A thank you page is more helpful
A thank you page allows a marketer to provide additional content, move leads further into the buyer’s journey and extend their social media reach.
Let’s discuss some Thank You Page best practices now. The first one is pretty straightforward.
Deliver the offer or set some expectations about when your lead will receive the offer. Your lead gave you their information in exchange for the offer, so now you’ll need to hold up your end of the bargain. Make sure it’s easy to get the offer they’re expecting. What was the offer? Was it an eBook, whitepaper, free trial or a demo? Your Thank You page should either include a link for them to access the offer or, in some cases, set proper expectations on what happens next.
If you can’t deliver the promised offer right away, you’ll need to let the lead know what to expect. The example reads, “Thanks! We will give you a call in 2-3 business days to schedule a demo.” The expectation is specific, with little room for misinterpretation. Describing the timeframe as “soon” or “shortly” could mean different amounts of time to different people, so try using a specific timeline when possible.
Additionally, your thank you page should display the site’s navigation menu.
Unlike the landing page, where you kept the focus on the offer and minimized navigational options, you’ll want to give your leads every opportunity to look around after they’ve converted and reached your thank you page. If they want to read more about your company and explore your website after converting, make it easy for them to do so!
A lead that makes it to your thank you page has demonstrated that they are interested in your offer. The lead will receive your offer, but might think, “Now what?” You should use the thank you page to provide additional next steps for your new lead.
This might mean linking to a case study, key pages on your website or some blog posts. Just make sure that these content options are closely related to the offer that the lead just received from you. When you provide additional content links remember to clearly explain where you’re sending them, next.
Aside from providing additional content, why not use your thank you page to guide your leads even further into the buyer’s journey? Your leads are pretty excited about your content and your company — after all, they just filled out a form to get your offer.
Use this opportunity to show them another offer that might be of interest and grab their attention with…?
That’s right! Another call-to-action. The cycle continues onward, kicking off another conversion process.
When considering which offer you’ll present on the thank you page, you’re aiming to move your new leads one step further into the buyer’s journey. If they’ve just downloaded an educational whitepaper, they’re just gathering information, so they’re probably not quite ready for a free trial. Choose your CTA very carefully and if you feel like the call-to-action might be too aggressive or unnecessary for your new lead, then you don’t have to include it.
And finally, there’s another opportunity for engagement on the thank you page when you include social options.
There are different ways to approach this. You can allow the leads to connect with you on social media by linking to your company profiles, or allow them to share the original offer across their own networks. The choice is yours. Either way, the thank you page can be a great place to extend your reach on social networks and generate more leads.
That’s all of the best practices for a thank you page. To recap: Deliver the offer or set expectations on when and how it will be delivered. Display the site navigation menu. Provide additional content. Suggest another offer that moves leads further into the buyer’s journey. And include social options.
Apply these best practices to your thank you pages and you’ll be able to present content to your leads that could move them one step closer to being a customer.
VIDEO 3: WHAT DOES AN EFFECTIVE THANK YOU PAGE LOOK LIKE?
We’re going to apply best practices to an example and transform it into an effective thank you page.
Our example is a Fifth Season thank you page. Fifth Season is a fictional business that we use for training at HubSpot. As a business, Fifth Season provides adventure travel experiences to families, businesses and nonprofits.
The thank you page example is the result of signing up for a free family vacation planning consultation.
How can we improve upon this thank you page? Let’s start with the text on the page. It says thanks for signing up! We’ll be in touch.
As I mentioned, this offer is for a family vacation planning consultation. It’s hard to tell what happens next. A lead has signed up, but when will Fifth Season get in touch and how? Let’s set some expectations and change the headline to say:
Thanks for signing up! We’ll call you in 2-3 business days. Since Fifth season is promising a phone call, they’ll want to make sure that they asked for a phone number on the landing page. Don’t forget about the conversion process of call-to-action to landing page to thank you page and how all of these assets work together.
If someone wanted to learn a little more about Fifth Season before getting that phone call, there aren’t too many options to do so. Let’s add the navigation menu onto this page —
Great. Now the lead can easily navigate through the rest of Fifth Season’s site. On the right side, there are links to our offerings and contact us pages. It’s a good idea to offer additional content, but these links aren’t really providing additional information to the lead.
Let’s change these links to a page that describes Family Lodging and Hotels, which is a subpage of Fifth Season’s Our Offerings page and we’ll add a link to a blog post titled “The Best Hiking Trails for the Entire Family”.
Also, let’s add a CTA here so the lead can move a little further into the buyer’s journey and get a little closer to becoming a customer.
And now we’ve added a packing checklist for a family adventure trip. That might be helpful to the lead that’s getting ready for a trip consultation with Fifth Season.
By applying some best practices to this thank you page, we’ve been able to give the lead opportunities to learn more about Fifth Season.
Now you know why a thank you page is important, how to effectively use it at the end of the conversion process and how to apply some best practices when creating a thank you page.