There’s a debate between a lot of folks: Will landing pages still work five or ten years from now?

Just a quick primer on landing pages: a landing page is simply a page, typically without a menu or anything like that, and it’s designed to convert a lead. It’s an e-book, it’s a “Contact us” or a “Schedule an appointment” type of page with one singular focus. One thing I see as a common issue with these types of pages is that a lot of times, the form has too many fields on it. They’re typically asking for a lot of information and the perceived value of the information that the prospect is looking for does not equal what the supplier is asking them to give up. Their inbox.

The debate is, “Landing pages don’t work anymore. Live chat is the only thing that works.” I really don’t think that’s true. I think the vast majority of customers and prospects are going to choose the path of least resistance. I think that’s a good rule.

It’s pretty easy to follow that thread. Start to look at look at your own consumer behavior how you watch TV. How do you buy things? How do you order things? You’ll see some of the behavioral changes that you’ve even adjusted and made over the last few years. Get out of your own head at work and think about how you’ve adjusted your personal life, and you’ll see how things could catch up. You might find that you tend to move toward the easy and crave less friction over time as things become easier.

That’s not to say you need to tear down every single landing page that you have on your business website, because those things do still work and there is still value in the individual offering of a webinar or an e-book or a “Schedule a demo” type of page. Not everyone is going to know the exact path to go and have a conversation with an agent to schedule a demo with whatever you’re offering.

No, you don’t want to tear down everything you have, but would I start a business today by first building up all those landing pages and then putting the live messaging in? Absolutely not. I’d make sure I have the live messaging in place so that no matter what somebody wants, I have a path for them, and then start to build up those individual offerings. There will be a certain percentage of people who will always fill out those forms, at least for the foreseeable future.

My gut tells me to always trust what you see people doing and how you are adjusting your own behavior but to know that the mass at large is always going to choose the path of least resistance, so try and make things easier for them, going forward. It’s sort of like the golden rule.