How to Leverage Thank-You Page Real Estate for Better Marketing

We've touted landing pages as one of the most crucial parts of your marketing (next to content creation, of course) for some time. But there's something that comes after the landing page that doesn't get a lot of attention in the marketing blogosphere ... that moment after a lead converts, and you say "thank you."

You do say thank you, right? Usually it comes in the form of a thank-you page that appears after a lead fills out your form, a thank-you email that goes into their inbox, or both. And there are plenty of opportunities to keep your prospect engaged with your website, content, and brand even after the conversion event. This post will break out those ways so both you and your prospect can keep reaping the benefits of your relationship!

8 Ways Your Thank-You Page and Emails Can Keep Prospects Engaged

1) Include Social Media Follow Modules

One of the simplest ways to keep the conversation going with your recently converted prospects is by encouraging them to follow your social media presence. This provides an opportunity not only to expand your social reach, but also to reconvert those leads in the future as they consume your status updates with links to your other lead generation content and offers. And remember, social media follow buttons can easily be included in both your thank-you emails, and your thank-you pages -- that's double the opportunity!

2) Let Leads Share Your Offer Socially, and Via Email

Your social media opportunities don't end with follow buttons -- you can include social sharing buttons, too. You know, those buttons you see to the left of this blog post that let you tweet, +1, LinkedIn share, Facebook like, and even sometimes pin our content.

In fact, Econsultancy reports that emails with social sharing options generate 30% higher click-through rates -- and that click-through rate increases to 55% higher with 3 or more social sharing options. Just be careful with what exactly you are letting people share. When setting these buttons up (we have a handy guide to help you create social sharing buttons) you want to include a link to share the offer's landing page, not the thank-you page ... otherwise you won't generate any leads from your prospects' social shares!

3) Get New Blog Subscribers

Your business blog houses some of your best content, and it's all form-free! Leverage that content warehouse by inviting your prospects to subscribe to the blog with a simple RSS button like you see on the right. You could even include a few sentences explaining what your blog talks about to make the case for the subscription, and include a link to a blog post relevant to the subject matter of the offer prospects just redeemed. For example, if your prospects just downloaded a unicorn beauty supplies buyer's guide, perhaps they'd also be interested to read your blog post, "8 Creative Ways to Braid Your Unicorn's Tail." It behooves you to grow your blog subscriber list, because it generates repeat traffic to your blog that can continue to reconvert on the calls-to-action in each post -- and you are putting calls-to-action in each blog post, right? ;-)

4) Bring Back Your Navigation

You know how we told you to remove the navigation on your landing page, because it distracts visitors from completing your form? That rule does not apply on your thank-you page! You want your visitor to continue exploring the content on your site! Just look at all the opportunities:

Think about it ... this visitor just showed enough interest in you to redeem your offer. It's kind of like buyer's euphoria -- capitalize on that feeling to direct them to case studies, information about your company, your product and pages, and the like.

The only exception to this rule, however, would be if you're explicitly trying to use your thank-you page to reconvert your lead on another offer, which leads us to our next opportunity.

5) Reconvert Using a New Call-to-Action (CTA)

There are two opportunities to reconvert your leads on your thank-you page. First, hyperlink text within your thank-you page copy directing your lead to your offer, like you see here with the blue hyperlinked text, "See how you can track that in a free demo of the HubSpot software."

Then, you can supplement your text-based CTA with a larger, more eye-catching CTA elsewhere on the page, like you see in our example here from our Pinterest ebook's thank-you page.

Again, your leads are pretty excited about your content and your company -- they just filled out a form to redeem your offer! Use this opportunity to reconvert them on an offer that might be of interest to them based on the offer they just downloaded and their stage in the buying cycle. To continue our unicorn beauty supplies buyers guide example, one might infer that someone downloading a buyer's guide is pretty far down the sales funnel. Your next conversion offer, then, might be a free sample of unicorn shampoo or a free consultation with a unicorn stylist!

6) Show Them a Video (With Calls-to-Action)

Your thank-you page affords an opportunity for you to highlight some of your most important content -- ebooks, case studies, blog posts, and yes, videos. At HubSpot, for example, we want all of our leads to understand who we are and what we do -- we are a company that sells inbound marketing software! Which is why we created this handy dandy video and put it on our thank-you pages ... not-so-coincidentally, where all of our leads end up at some point.

Notice that orange callout in the top right corner of the video? Leads can share the video socially and via email, or if they click "More Info," the second screen you see above will appear. That's another call-to-action to subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's two layers of opportunity to continue engaging with your prospects!

7) Conduct a Survey

You know how I mentioned we at HubSpot want to make sure all of our leads know we sell inbound marketing software? On some of our thank-you pages, we use the real estate for a survey to ask leads that very question ... do you know what we sell?

The survey results help our product marketing team gauge the effectiveness of their messaging efforts. You can also use a survey to ask for feedback about your product or services, see how your leads like your content, ask for suggestions on new content to develop -- the sky is the limit!

8) Show Off Your Customer Love

Case studies, testimonials, reviews, and other user-generated content are critical to convert prospects into paying customers -- especially if your customer base is made up of Millennials.

Data from Bazaarvoice indicates that more than 8 in 10 say user-generated content from people they don't know influences what they buy and indicates brand quality. So at the point someone becomes a lead for the first time or reconverts -- you know, right after they fill out your landing page form -- don't you think it's a great opportunity to remind them why people love you so they are more likely to become a customer? If you're using your thank-you page or emails primarily to reconvert a prospect, this is a particularly valuable piece of content to include alongside your calls-to-action.

What other content do you like to include on thank-you pages to provide more opportunities for engagement with your prospects?

Image credit: Jon Ashcroft