Why a Landing Page? Why Not a Google Form?

Key Takeaways

• Google Forms are typically used for one-off event sign-ups or product sales
• A landing page is the gateway to marketing automation — invite a visitor in, and you can guide them every step of the way
• A funnel leads your prospects up the value ladder until they become high-value customers

You've no doubt heard the term "landing page," and you've probably noticed the many lightweight page formats that have appeared in recent years — One Pagers, Microsites, and the like. They all lead to the same destination and share a single purpose: to simplify the customer's decision-making process and guide them to the most useful information. Paired with an eye-catching CTA (Call To Action) button, a landing page becomes the perfect way to start a conversation with your customer — drawing them into the nurturing journey you've designed for them, so that, little by little, they become one of your fans.

In our article "Landing Pages — How They Differ from Websites and Shopping Carts," we noted that a landing page has a single, crystal-clear goal that makes it easy for the customer to hit the CTA and sign up or buy. If all you want is for visitors to fill out their details, then yes — a Google Form can certainly do that.

Google Forms let you build a form where visitors provide their personal information to sign up for your event. But a Google Form's CTA is nothing more than a plain "Submit" button. And once the details are in, you still have to export them and follow up yourself.

A landing page, by contrast, is a mini website — complete with layout design and a built-in web form. You can add all kinds of elements to the page: CTAs (and you can have more than one), videos, customer testimonials, and more. On top of that, you can style your buttons in different ways to match your design and heighten the sense of urgency.

What sets it apart from a Google Form…

A landing page isn't just for event sign-ups and sales. More importantly, it helps your business build an automated marketer that's on standby 24 hours a day to serve and communicate with customers. Once a customer signs up, the funnel system kicks in (that's right — the real value of a landing page lies in the funnel marketing behind it), launching an automated follow-up and nurturing campaign. The more of your shared content a prospect consumes — and the moment you hand them a limited-time offer at just the right point — the more they'll be itching to buy your product.

Landing pages come in several types, each designed for a different goal. Here are the most common ones:

• Lead Generation Landing Page — The goal is to use a data collection form to gather the contact details of visitors interested in your product or service, so you can follow up with sales.
• Click-Through Landing Page — This is simply a presentation page with no form. Its goal is to present some useful information and then prompt the customer to click a button that sends them to another destination (for example, an e-store or an online course).
• Squeeze Landing Page — A short page, usually with a bold, prominent headline and very little content. Its purpose is to collect the customer's email and add them to your prospect mailing list.
• Informercial Landing Page — A page that tells a story. It can take the form of long-form copy or a multi-step sequence, and it centers on higher-priced products or communicating the company's values. By building a relationship of trust, it makes customers willing to buy the product and follow the brand.
• Viral Landing Page — Primarily built to raise brand exposure, with content as its most important element. It could be something innovative, a mini game, or a compelling video or image — anything that gives visitors a fresh experience and makes them eager to share, earning them social currency.

Google Forms can handle types (1) and (3) in a basic way — they're functional for registration. But when it comes to look, feel, and content, they lack the aesthetic appeal and rich information needed to draw people in, which makes them hard to use as a marketing tool. What's more, after registration you often have to export the data and re-import it into some other email system, so you can't achieve the efficiency of marketing automation — and without marketing automation, you can't drive the nurturing that leads to conversion.

Google Forms are commonly used for one-off sign-ups or sales, whereas a landing page is built for marketing. In promotional strategy, its exposure and traffic are also set up to come from different sources. Your traffic can come from paid ads, paying media to target specific demographics, search engine optimization (SEO), friendly backlinks, and more. It's a gateway that stays open to customers over the long term. And when you promote this page, you know exactly what your goal is: to make it easy for users to obtain the relevant information they're after and to receive the very best value you've promised them.

Finally… once you start thinking backward from your end goal, you'll know exactly how to set up a Value Ladder — a path you've designed to lead customers toward becoming high-value repeat buyers, and even loyal fans who become the most powerful word-of-mouth advocates for your brand!