Give the gorilla the banana

In early 2008, ion interactive EVP Anna Talerico began posting a lot about gorillas and bananas on this blog.  We even had a gorilla make a cameo in an ion interactive post-click marketing webinar.

Anna wasn’t blogging about a National Geographic or Discovery Channel special, what she was referring to was the all-to-often-forgotten concept of “giving the gorilla the banana” in your post-click marketing.  The gorilla being the audience you want to convert and the banana being the reason they clicked your ad in the first place.

Why did they click and what do we want them to do?  

Pretty easy questions to answer, and super simple to execute on our landing pages.  Although we often hide the answer among superfluous images, blocks of copy, or irrelevant rich-media we think will enhance the user experience.

Always, always, always give the gorilla the banana.  Keep it simple. Pare down the copy, the images, the extraneous navigation—anything that could potentially divert your audience from why they clicked and what we want them to do.  The action should be immediately clear when your user lands.

And unless viewing your CEO’s holiday message is the conversion—move it to the thank you page and spread the holiday cheer after they convert.

Will all the gorillas like the same banana?

Gorillas can be a finicky lot—and so can your users!  Some gorillas might like fresh, bright yellow bananas with just a hint of green.  And some may like sticky-sweet, over-ripe bananas with black spots on them.  It is possible to appeal to both groups—and even one in between—if you apply a segmentation strategy to your landing page.

When someone clicks and lands on your page, all you really know about them is they clicked on your ad—and maybe in the case above that they like bananas.  If you land your users on a single-page designed to appeal to everyone, chances are you will lose about 97% of your audience.  But if you segment your users by the offering that’s right for them and create an experience that is relevant to each segment, you will move more users through the point of conversion.

By using a segmentation strategy, you can make sure you appeal to all of the gorillas funneling into your page.  And if the experience is relevant, a higher percentage of them will convert!