Design Tips on How to Incorporate Video into a Landing Page

Video landing pages can be incredibly effective – but only when you do them properly. Here’s a detailed look into the most important design tips you need to know when incorporating videos into your landing pages.

Why use a video in your landing page?

Landing pages are essential for many businesses, but especially for new businesses. They are designed purely to convert prospects, so you could send targets to your page from an advertisement or email and then sign them up to your list.

This can be a quick and effective way to start getting more sales for a new business – and to build up your email list for future sales.

So why use a video in a landing page?

Videos are ideal when you are marketing complex products and services. They can make them more accessible, clearly communicating the benefits in a way that text might fail to do.

They are also a great way to effectively revamp your brand’s image. Branding is everything in today’s market, and a good brand can sell anything.

Take dropshipping for instance. Video is your way to make your dropshipping business’ landing page stand out against the competition. You could buy an Oberlo store that might not be delivering in sales, launch an email or PPC marketing campaign that leads to a video-led landing page, and generate a whole new customer base.

Videos are also entertaining, which can be especially useful if you are selling fairly dull products. By creating a short animated video complete with characters, for example, you can tell a simple but engaging story that could make even the most uninspiring of products interesting.

In short, videos can be a powerful addition to any landing page.

How to use video properly

There are many things to keep in mind when it comes to the design of a video landing page. Here are some of the most important to focus on.

Choose the best thumbnail

The thumbnail is essential wherever you use videos, but it’s particularly important on a landing page.

Think how much time you put into choosing the right image on your landing pages. The same effort should go into your video thumbnails. This is the first thing people will see, so it should look enticing. A smiling face is always a good way to engage, but it really depends on your campaign.

You want to draw the prospect in. You could do this by using the headline before the video and then providing a suggestion of an answer in the thumbnail to inspire more clicks.

Don’t make it too big (or too small)

Size is the next important consideration. But what is the right size? There is no right answer.

As a general rule, you want to make sure your video gets noticed – especially if it is the main focus of the landing page. That usually means putting it in the middle of the page and making sure it is large enough that it won’t be missed.

Position it above the fold

Again, looking at getting a video noticed, you want to position your video where it will get seen. If it is an important part of the landing page, you don’t want anyone to miss it, so position it above the fold. That way, it is the first thing the prospects see, catching their attention immediately.

Set it to autoplay

It’s usually a good idea to make videos on landing pages autoplay, at least the primary videos. This is normally very annoying on standard websites, but on a landing page, it’s vital that your customers don’t miss the video.

A delay in play might risk losing their attention. It’s not worth the risk. You only have seconds to capture their attention, so make the most of it.

Use text alongside the video

The video can be the entire landing page, or it can form part of the landing page. In either case, you will usually need some kind of copy on the page alongside the video. On a landing page, this might take the form of an email subscription box, and the video might encourage viewers to enter their details after watching.

Video is often more effective when used alongside other elements like a headline and bullet point benefits – even if they just reiterate the main information in the video. Some people may only need to watch the video to make a decision, while others will need more persuading.

Other handy tips you need to know

As well as these design tips, what else should you keep in mind to make your video landing pages as effective as possible?

• Keep it short: Get across your point quickly and don’t let your video drag on. If it really does need to be long, that’s okay, but only make it as long as it has to be.

• Use an animation: this really depends on your campaign, but for many businesses it can be a good idea. An animated explainer video helps to simplify complex topics to make the video more engaging.

• Include a strong CTA: your call-to-action should be bold, clear, and easy to find. A good idea is to keep its copy related to the video to create a logical consistency in your viewers’ minds.

Next time you are designing a video landing page, keep these in mind and improve your conversion rates. One final thing to remember is this: test. Landing pages need to be tested to find out what works best. Don’t be afraid to try new things. Experiment, track your results, then optimise your video landing pages for conversions.