Does the front door of your site (the place where your conversations and ads direct people to go) match the expectations created by your marketing activities? This question is rarely asked by beginning marketers of their own campaigns and websites. They are so hungry to get people to go to their website that they will use any hook that gets clicks. They are too willing to generate traffic and are blind to whether or not their website is going to deliver on the promises inherent in their marketing message. It is also way too common among the people I have worked with to not even know what expectations are being created in their potential visitors.

The front door of a sales funnel, from the internet marketing perspective, is the landing page of a website that an ad or other marketing activity points to. One example would be a banner ad floating around out there in the wild. The copy on that banner intrigues someone enough to click on it and end up on your landing page. The copy on that banner created some sort of expectation in the viewer or they would not have clicked on it, essentially agreeing to give you some of their time in return for the promise implied (or directly made) by your banner. The page they land on absolutely positively has to deliver in some way on the expectation that was created clickfunnels price.

If it does not then the resources expended to get that click were wasted. And, more importantly, the credibility of your website has been irrevocably harmed. Do not underestimate how quickly the “street cred” of a web presence can be undermined because of this. In some cases, such as Google AdWords and similar high profile services, you may even lose your opportunity to continue marketing through that channel at all. Your goal should be that even if a visitor decides to take no further action after seeing your landing page that they do not feel like they were tricked into going there or the target of a bait and switch style campaign. Respect their time by delivering on the expectations created by your marketing activities starting with the very first page they see after acting on your marketing message.

Now that you understand the high importance associated with matching your landing page to the expectations you create, do you know what expectations you are creating? A troubling percentage seem to use ad copy or presentation just because they like it, someone told them too or history says it is going to get a lot of click-throughs. They have no understanding at all regarding the specific expectation it is creating in the potential visitor. They do not know what promise they are making to get the investment of time they are asking for. In that situation it is just blind luck if the two match and there will be no way to improve the marketing activity to landing page pairing to increase their effectiveness at getting visitors to take that next step into your sales funnel.

Take the time to really understand the expectations created by your marketing message. Take the time to understand who is going to respond to that message and why. Think about what promise you are making to get them to invest their time in you and learn to respect the investment they are making. Take the time to make sure the front door of your sales funnel is speaking directly to those people about exactly what they came here expecting to find out. Preserve your marketing resources and your online credibility by delivering on your promise. Do all those things to maximize the percentage of visitors to your website’s front door who end up taking the next step your landing page is designed to inspire…get them in the door!