Landing Page Design, Email Marketing, and PR Strategy: My Latest Review of CXL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree
This week I tackled CXL’s courses in Landing Page Optimization, Email Marketing, and Messaging Strategy in Public Relations.
Let’s get straight into it with my review of Michael Aagaard’s excellent course on Landing Page Optimization.
Landing Page Optimization By Michael Aagaard
To be honest, I had high expectations for this course from the outset.
Firstly because CXL have their roots in conversion. And also because Michael Aagaard has worked with some of the best-known names in Landing Page design. Unbounce being a great example.
The tutor started by explaining what a landing page is and what a landing page isn’t.
Michael explains that a landing page:
- Is an entrance point after clicking an ad source
- Works independently from the wider website
- Has a clear conversion goal
- Should get the user to that goal as quickly and as easily as possible
This might sound very simple. But keeping these principles in mind will help you avoid some fundamental errors in landing page design.
For example, the tutor stresses that the landing page must follow on smoothly from the ad or traffic source that precedes it. So when it comes to optimizing, you can’t just look at the landing page in isolation.
Every step has opportunities for friction. So if you just dive in and assume that the landing page is the issue, you could be missing a huge bug elsewhere!
Further, you should never forget that a landing page should have one clear conversion goal. Or that the landing page’s raison d’etre is to make getting there as easy as possible.
Your landing page design can do this by:
- delivering on the promise made in your ad
- addressing barriers and maintaining clarity
- providing a clear path to conversion
After setting the foundation, Michael reveals his approach to making this happen and solving landing page design problems.
Step 1: Research, Research, Research
Everybody loves hacks or sneaky tricks. But time and time again, Conversion XL’s world-class teachers stress the same core principle:
It all starts with research.
Building on the ResearchXL process covered by Peep in an earlier module, CXL’s Landing Page Optimization course gives students a great overview of a solid research process. Starting with a heuristic-style walkthrough like in ResearchXL and moving on to quantitative research with Google Analytics.
Like the other CXL courses, the instructor is very generous with the frameworks and custom reports he provides. I particularly enjoyed the GA part as it let me use some of the skills I’d been taught by Chris Mercer in his Google Analytics courses for CXL.
Why Understanding Psychology Is Key
A real bonus in this course was the tutor’s dive into human psychology. Which includes some great insights on topics such as:
- The importance of empathy with your user
- Kahneman’s System 1 and System 2
- How Dopamine and Cortisol impact our users
- How ‘priming’ and ‘framing’ influence results
After covering the theory, the tutor then moved on to give us a crash course in landing page copy and design. This included a great section on the 6 most important design elements in every landing pages, using a page from Unbounce as an example.
A Great Primer On Landing Page Optimization
Overall, I enjoyed this course a lot and found it incredibly useful. The principles Michael teaches make intuitive sense. So much so that once you stop to think about it, you’d never dream of breaking them.
This reminded me of a book I read once, called the Slight Edge. The writer says that if something is easy to do, it’s also easy not to do.
Maybe the reason a lot of landing pages break these rules is because they’re so simple!
Throughout the course, Michael arms you with a load of principles to make your landing pages easier to use and more likely to succeed.
Furthermore, this module fits nicely into CXL’s core growth marketing methodology.
By arming yourself with Michael’s principles, you’ll be better placed to come up with better growth and optimization experiments. You’ll also be better placed to use the other frameworks taught by CXL — such as the heuristic analysis part of Peep Laja’s Research XL process.
This is a great course taught by an experienced, interesting and highly enthusiastic teacher. I can’t recommend it enough!
Email Marketing By Jessica Best
Ever since I started as a freelance marketer, I’ve been heavily involved in email marketing.
So I was really looking forward to Jessica’s course. Both with excitement and a certain amount of apprehension!
This was largely because a lot of my education in email marketing was of the old school calibre: Plain text emails, direct-marketing techniques, and so forth.
As a result, I really appreciated this chance to add some more modern, cutting-edge principles to my weaponry.
A great primer for novices and pro’s alike
If you’re new to email marketing, Jessica’s course is a great primer in a whole host of ways you can use email (and email marketing software) to:
- Drive better, more personalized customer experiences
- Vastly increase the lifetime value of your customers
Because of my background, a lot of this course was a ‘refresher’ rather than breaking new ground. But Jessica’s excellent case studies and deep-dives meant I got a hell of a lot from the material.
I particularly enjoyed the modules on email deliverability and list growth. Especially in terms of making sure you’re a) ready for list growth and b) going about list growth in the right way.
As I said, the course is full of excellent case studies from a host of industries. And I found the examples of clever, subtle techniques for segmentation and personalisation really useful.
Jessica’s course is perfect for novices and pro’s alike. From finding new ways to connect with your audience… to improving your email’s chances of hitting the inbox and getting results. Don’t miss it!
Messaging Strategy in Public Relations by Ray Young
To wrap up the week, I took Ray Young’s short course on Public Relations.
This module was a fascinating insight into the world of PR. Mostly because it shed some light on an underappreciated marketing tool.
As Ray explains in the final video, PR provides third party validation to your products and brand in a way few other mediums can.
The course is only 27 minutes long with each video weighing in at about 3–4 minutes. As a result, it wasn’t too heavy on specific techniques or case studies.
This is a shame in some ways, but there was still a lot of good stuff in there.
For example, Ray’s inside advice for pitching old and new media sources is well worth listening to. And I thought the sections on defining your audience and refining your messaging were particularly good.
Ray’s common-sense approach to each topic makes for enjoyable viewing and a whole lot of learning. As a result, his course on PR was a fun and valuable way to close out the week.
Next week it’s time to learn about Facebook ads, Google ads, and Product Messaging from CXL’s world-class tutors. Exciting times!
This was my review of Landing Page Optimization by Michael Aagaard, Email Marketing by Jessica Best, and Messaging Strategy in PR by Ray Young. Each of these courses can be taken as part of Conversion XL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree.
