[box]Today ‘s article is a guest post written by Brian Pohuski. As manager of Interaction Design at Randall-Reilly, Brian’s team builds and optimizes thousands of campaign websites, mircrosites, and landing pages – reaching millions of visitors per month. He is passionate about user experience, obsessed with information architecture, and proud to be a third-generation coder.[/box]
In today’s world, trucking fleets are desperate for drivers and have been left scrambling to find them. Every rig that sits idle in a truck yard is money lost.
For many, digital marketing has become an essential tool in this constant struggle to find qualified recruits. Ideally, intrigued prospects are prompted and end up on a recruiting landing page. This is where it can get a little tricky. Most fleets are tempted to share all job information with potential drivers – after all, isn’t an informed driver a better lead?
While you may not realize it, this is a major error. Visitor decision can be negatively influenced by an abundance of information. In layman’s terms, too much information leads to people having a harder time actually making a decision. Getting the prospect to the landing page is only half of the battle.
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Information Overload Is the Biggest Mistake
After getting potential drivers to the landing page, it is vitally important to entice them to complete the process and either dial the provided phone number or fill out a form to provide their information. If they are overwhelmed they may lose interest or just leave the page.
Visiting the site without supplying any information for the recruiters to follow up is a wasted opportunity. Generally speaking, this information overload happens in one of two ways:
1) Choice Paralysis
The concept for this is simple: every option available to the consumer introduces a choice. Choices are conflict in disguise, and conflict ultimately leads to hesitation. Unfortunately, hesitation interferes with purchase decisions.
A psychology experiment, commonly called the jam study, carried out by Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper in the year 2000 illustrates this point perfectly.
The study revolved around the relationship of number of choices given and how they related to the likelihood of purchasing. A display table with samples of 24 different jams was set up with the promise of a $1 off coupon to anyone that sampled one of the products. On a separate day the experiment was repeated with the same offer, only this time there were only 6 different types of jam for shoppers to sample and choose from. As you might expect the larger display garnered more attention, but that didn’t translate into sales.
When analyzing the data the psychologists discovered that while the larger display was more popular, those who saw it were 10 times less likely to purchase a jam as opposed to those who saw the smaller display featuring far fewer choices. Faced with so many possibilities those who were exposed to the bigger sampling opted to not buy any of the offerings at all.
Campaigns are similar – the balance of information lies somewhere in the middle. Give enough information to pique the drivers’ interest, but not enough to overwhelm them. Does that mean a company shouldn’t post a pay rate that is above industry average? Absolutely not. However, listing the entire pay structure of the company will stall the decision-making process, and ultimately do nothing to influence a conversion.
2) Unfocused Value Proposition
The second variation is unfocused value proposition. Supplying an abundance of data doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve done anything to educate your audience. Over the years, I have seen campaigns grind to a halt due to falling victim to this.
Think about a billboard. We routinely see these outdoor advertisements all across America. When traveling down the highway a motorist will on average view the ad for 5-10 seconds. That is a very short period of time to get the point across. Think of a busy billboard.
Most of the time there is too much to fully comprehend in the short time the sign will be in view . . . unless you’re stuck in traffic. So, what has it accomplished? The window of opportunity for a billboard is very small. They need to be concise and convey the needed information without becoming overly distracting. Similarly, viewers’ attention spans are short. So, in order to maximize your impact and avoid information overload, there are a few things you need to do.
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How to Avoid Information Overload and Optimize Your Landing Page
1) Eliminate Distractions
Just like Google search results pages, campaign landing pages are not works of fine art. While beautiful pictures, animation, and videos do provide artistic appeal, they can also be significant distractions.
Distractions take time away from the decision-making process, and will cause many drivers to leave your page without converting.
The solution: Make sure all visuals on your landing page directly support the decision-making process or minimize distraction.
2) Address Needs and Desires
The quickest way to an audience’s heart is to address fundamental needs. By only posting common benefits or insignificant pay rates, you risk blending in with thousands of other similar pages. Find something unique about your job’s competitive advantage, and you will be positioned better in the market.
Do you offer better pay than the national average? Do you have an example of when one of your dispatchers went above and beyond to help a driver when needed? Maybe your company utilizes a product that makes living on the road easier. Any unique bit of information can be a differentiator for an applicant – even if it does not seem significant.
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The Bottom Line
Always include a positive trait, feature, or situation on your landing page that sets your company apart from the rest. Over the course of time and many successful landing pages, Randall-Reilly driver recruiting services have helped promote unique traits to more effectively drive conversions. After all, landing pages serve one purpose: create conversions. By following these two all-important concepts and avoiding information overload, you can take your operation to the next level.
