'Landing Page Makeovers'

I've previously talked about the importance of dedicated landing pages for any of your marketing outreach vehicles -- such critical aspects as form design, providing one 'door' for the respondent to walk through (no multiple links on the page), web analytics on each page to see where your traffic is coming from and to monitor page drop-offs, etc.

It should also be noted however that for those companies that have embraced more of an inbound marketing orientation, and are beginning to plant seedlings of content throughout the web, giving ALL your web pages a 'landing page makeover' might not be a bad idea. By that I mean as your entire website begins to reflect your relevant content, links to that content come into your site from various places (not just from spots where you have a dedicated marketing program in place).

Although it wouldn't be feasible to make every one of your website pages a dedicated landing page, you can create standardized page templates that contain in each margin either static buttons/links to dedicated landing pages within the site, or in fact newsletter sign-ups. Those buttons/links can route a surfer to either a gated demo, free trial, contact us form or even live chat. A great example of that is what Marketo does:

This design can be found on EVERY web page on their site, thus turning each page into a de-facto landing (or at least routing) page. That way when anyone hits a page anywhere on your website from any outside link, you've made it that much easier to start a dialogue, capture data and begin the online relationship.