Premier Training International brought atom42 on board to develop a digital acquisition strategy. With a focus on the search engine marketing, atom42 built a new custom landing page for PPC traffic in June 2016.
Resolving multiple UX issues identified during usability testing, the new landing page saw an impressive 100% increase in conversion rate. Here’s the scoop on the project.
The Challenge
Premier Training International is a leading health and fitness industry training provider, established 25 years ago. The company vision was, and remains today, to raise standards throughout the health and fitness industry.
Although search engine marketing had been the key customer acquisition tactic for Premier Training for quite some time, and paid channels optimisation had had a positive impact on CTR, getting users to the site was just half of the problem. While carrying out usability testing on the main website, we found that the conversion rate was quite volatile and that users arriving on the site via PPC ads were distracted by extensive navigation. Furthermore, the brand didn’t come across as a leader in the industry.
With a positive experience of running campaign landing pages in the past, Premier Training tasked atom42 to create a new page with a view to resolve UX issues and improve the efficiency of the PPC channel.
The Strategy
We knew that in order to improve the conversion rate, we would need to adopt a fresh design and take advantage of the knowledge we gained during the usability testing project. Our landing page needed to introduce Premier Training as a leader in the industry and make it clear why users should pick Premier as their training provider.
From the usability perspective we identified four potential objections that could have been affecting PPC conversion rate on the main website:
- Lack of awareness of Premier Training’s reputation
- Concerns around sharing contact details
- No clarity on the benefits of picking Premier Training
- Distraction due to multiple navigational elements and limited visibility of an enquiry form.
Here’s how we resolved them.
Lack of awareness of Premier Training’s reputation – We added a USP section to the page and highlighted the fact that Premier Training has been in this industry for 25 years. As well as this, we added a bar stating: “As preferred by the UK’s leading health clubs” in the above-the-fold section and featured graduates’ testimonials to improve trust signals.
Concerns around sharing contact details – We reassured landing page visitors that we won’t spam them with information and, to strengthen the call-to-action, we added an extra click trigger under the “Enquire now” button. This highlighted the fact that by providing their contact details they could get access to promo offers. We also offered an alternative route to users who didn’t want to submit their details, in the form of the “Go to the main website” button.
No clarity on the benefits of picking Premier Training – this is where the USP section came in handy again: to highlight that Premier Training is the industry leader and that they offer flexible study options and career support. We knew that both of these things are fundamental for anyone who is considering changing their career (as often students need to adapt their training to a busy schedule).
Distraction due to multiple navigational elements and limited visibility of an enquiry form – A heatmap tracking analysis showed that some users clicked away from the previous landing page to check course dates and venues. Whilst some still enquired, many decided to leave the website. We found that many users failed to scroll to the bottom of the landing page, where the contact form was located. For this reason, we decided to go with a navigation-free landing page and we featured the main call to action and enquiry form at the top of the page to ensure they are visible right away.
Furthermore, with multiple competitors using standard website layouts and over-relying on text elements, our modern and dynamic design really stood out and reflected on the characteristics of the fitness industry.
The same applied to the messaging we used. Although we kept the course information to a minimum, we made sure to highlight more emotional messaging; Premier Training prospects are not only passionate about fitness, many of them are also facing a career change. As they are about to shake up their lives, messages like “Become a stronger person while strengthening other people” reassure them that Premier Training, as a brand, share their dreams and goals.
The Results
By displaying ads at the top of the SERPs for key terms like “personal training courses”, the new landing page quickly generated enough traffic for us to assess its performance and roll it out across more ads.
With features like testimonials, inspiring video content and a more effective (and visible) call to action, the finished page delivered a 100 per cent increase in conversion rate! Key results also included a 43 per cent reduction in cost per lead.
Secondly, the new page continued to drive traffic to the main website. With the soft conversion point in place at the bottom of the page, users who weren’t quite ready to submit their contact details continued their journey to the main website. Once they gathered more information about Premier Training, many of them decided to enquire in the end.
Overall, the new landing page is contributing to a more effective and consistent PPC user journey.