Are Squeeze Pages a Bad Idea?

I received an email this morning from a client that asked whether or not she should use squeeze pages as part of her list building strategy. Since this is a question I receive quite often, I decided to share my thoughts on squeeze pages with our readers.

In case you aren't familiar with this marketing tool, squeeze pages are dedicated pages (and often, a dedicated website) that uses long copy to entice readers to subscribe to the owner's email marketing list. Squeeze pages usually have few or no outbound links, to minimize the reader's temptation to click away from the page.

Squeeze pages also often use incentives, such as free reports, email mini-courses, or web-based tools, to get visitors to give up their email addresses.

I can't really discount the value of squeeze pages -- a number of internet marketers are very successful with squeeze pages, and have built impressive marketing lists by promoting them along with their full websites and other marketing tools.

Squeeze pages have a few distinct advantages. First, they are fairly easy to build. If you use dedicated URLs for your squeeze pages, you won't have to worry about checking your links or making sure that multiple pages compliment each other visually. You can use a website creation tool such as PageBreeze to easily create squeeze pages in just a couple of hours each.

Second, squeeze pages are easy to optimize because of the long copy style and the level of description you will need to use to convince visitors to opt in to your email marketing list. Once you have selected your keywords, you can quickly write copy for your squeeze pages around your keywords, without having to check the keyword density for multiple pages.

Third, squeeze pages allow you to easily segment different product groups you may have available on your main website. You can use squeeze pages to put your visitors in the correct mindframe to be receptive to product offers, and once they have subscribed to your list, you can use email marketing efforts to further entice your prospects to buy certain products. Once they have decided to buy, you can redirect them to the correct page on your main website. After the sale, you can introduce them to other products on your website, or direct them to new squeeze pages to promote other products.

My one reservation about squeeze pages is that many marketers load them with content similar to strong sales copy. When I land on squeeze pages and see long, drawn-out copy loaded with Impact font headings, bullet points, and testimonial boxes, I find the benefits (the free products) as quickly as I can. If I can't find them right away, I find something else to do. I don't have time to read tomes of website content lauding some free product that may or may not be worth reading.

Maybe I've just seen so many squeeze pages that they're beginning to lose their effectiveness. I know I'm not alone in losing my patience with squeeze pages -- I'm hearing from more and more internet users that are starting to groan every time they see one.

As effective as squeeze pages have been for internet marketers, I have to wonder if more and more people are going to burn out on squeeze pages over the next few years. If that happens, marketers will need to quickly drum up some other way of building opt in lists.

My short answer is that I don't see anything wrong with squeeze pages right now, but I'm not sure they're a good long term strategy. While squeeze pages are not jet on their collective deathbed, I'm cautious about relying on them as a permanent marketing tool.

To Your Success,

Lee Rowley
Java Joint Media
www.javajointmedia.com