A landing page is a page on a web site where someone “lands” after clicking a link. In some cases it might be the main page (or home page) of the site, but in many cases a landing page is used as part of a marketing campaign and the desired action is for the person who clicked the link to sign up to an email list.

In the distant past it was enough to say you’d send the prospect more information if they signed up for the list, but that approach doesn’t work as well today. People are more wary about giving out their contact information unless they’re getting something of value in return.

One way to accomplish that is to offer some kind of “ethical bribe” if the person signs up to the list. That could be a special report or white paper with information that’s useful to the prospect. And, of course, you’ll include more information on your product or service to try and convince the prospect to buy.

So now you have a reason for the person to sign-up, but you’ll still find far more people just go away rather than giving you their email address. You need to build some trust before they’re willing to go that far.

And that’s where video comes in.

Adding video to a landing or opt-in page not only gives the prospect information in a visual manner, but hearing a real person (and seeing them, in live videos) increases the trust factor. And the more trust that’s built, the higher conversion rate you’ll have on your landing page.

In a test that just finished running I went from a 31% opt-in rate on a landing page, to a 40% opt-in rate simply by adding a short video.

There’s no guarantee that adding video to your landing page will increase your conversion rate as much as I saw — but there’s nothing saying you won’t do even better, either.