Walking into any branch of Starbucks is like déjà vu all over again….
The same familiar mermaid logo hangs on the wall. The layout of the room and the faces behind the counter may change, but if you’ve seen one Starbucks menu, you’ve seen them all. The drinks taste exactly the same too. The aprons, the cups, even the way they write your name on the cup – all standard.
If you’re even a semi-regular customer, you know exactly what to expect, and will immediately feel at home in every branch.
Now imagine walking into another branch of Starbucks, where the franchise owner has taken some creative licence. The logo is blue, there are no frappuccinos or any of the familiar drinks – just a whole new range you’ve never heard of. When you order your regular piece of chocolate cake, you discover they’ve changed the recipe.
Even though you know, logically, that you’re in the right place, this coffee shop feels ‘off’. You find yourself looking around, double-checking you’re really in Starbucks, and if you haven’t sat down yet, might even walk out to find a nice Costa. The differences are too jarring.
As human beings, when we deal with the same company, we like consistency of experience. It’s comfortable and comforting.
And it’s the same with your online marketing campaigns, as well.
Very often, companies treat the elements that make up their online campaigns as completely separate entities.
They write brilliant ads on Facebook or LinkedIn, and pick suitable images for them.
Then they send that traffic to landing pages on their website which use different messages, graphics and even colours.
Now, from your company’s point of view there may be good reasons for this. Perhaps the images you really want to use look amazing on the landing page, but awful squeezed into a LinkedIn ad. Maybe different people wrote the texts. Perhaps no one was thinking about it too much…
But look at it from your prospect’s point of view.
They clicked on your ad because they read or saw something that really appealed to them.
Then they reach a landing page and…. Hold on! Everything’s different! Is this really the same company? The same product? It’s being described in a completely new way… It looks like a different campaign…
It’s like walking into that alternate Starbucks universe.
Click! Off they go to something else.
To maximise conversions, you need to minimise the mental friction for your prospects. That means using the exact same message on your ads, landing page (and any other pages they click through to before converting). The exact same pictures. The exact same colours. Where possible, similar design.
Just as it is immediately clear that you have walked into a Starbucks whether you are in London, Toronto or Sydney, your prospects should never be in any doubt they are still looking at the same campaign, whether they are on your ad, landing page or payment page.
The closer the match, the higher the conversions.
