It’s been a pretty cool 2016 for Copter Labs and our clients. We’re working with new people and doing new things for clients, and the clients themselves are turning into TV stars.
Rob Sulaver of Bandana Training rode to the rescue for LaTasha on ABC’s My Diet is Better Than Yours in January, and she started shedding weight as soon as he started on the show.
To top that off, for the last month two Copter clients have been tearing it up on NBC’s STRONG – Chris Ryan and Todd Durkin. The competition show, which airs Thursdays at 8 p.m., has been dramatic, exciting, inspiring and heartbreaking to watch.
While we could brag all day about Copter clients – really, we could – what we wanted to highlight for you was the two different approaches Chris and Todd took to spruce up their websites to take advantage of the increased traffic from the show.
A special-made single page for email capture
Todd Durkin only knows how to do things one way – all in and full speed – and that’s how he approached the single page we made special for his time on STRONG. He came to us looking for a place to put all his purpose-built content around the show, like pre- and post-game videos (that are fantastic) and information about all his appearances with local and national media.
But most importantly, he didn’t want to miss out on any opportunity to capture information about all the visitors coming to his site to check out who this crazily-intense competitor was.
So we built him a page with a email capture front-and-center supported by Todd’s guide “5 Secrets to a STRONGER Mindset.” We crafted a gorgeous cutout of his promo picture from the show, and supported the top banner with a nice big STRONG logo to make sure everybody got the picture. Todd wanted people to be drawn to that free guide, and nobody who hits his page can possibly miss the offer.
The next element has his video content, which he updates each week with two videos for each show. That’s dedication and hard work, and it’s bringing people back to the site over and over, week after week. If he didn’t get their information on the first go-around, he’ll get them eventually.
We incorporated the colors, fonts and style from his original site to make sure it was a smooth experience for visitors heading from the single page to the rest of his site. On his home page, the button in the top banner sends traffic to this single STRONG page, indicating that right now this is the most important action for a visitor to do when they first arrive the site.
Email capture through a clean, simple pop up
Copter built Chris Ryan’s site way back 2013, and it’s still one of our favorite sites we’ve ever made. It’s simple, it’s elegant and it’s different (back then it was also way ahead of its time).
It’s also one of the last sites we did before mobile-friendly responsive design was part of our standard build on launch. At that point, the iPad hadn’t even been out a full year, and people still were surfing the Web almost exclusively via computers.
Well that’s all changed – more people surf the web via mobile phones today than any other device combined, including computers. Chris knew that people sitting on their couches would search for his site with their phones, so he came to us to get the site mobile-friendly and ready to wow them.
Like Todd, he also didn’t want to miss any opportunity to capture information from the increased traffic. He went a different route, one more in keeping with the design of his site: a simple, clean pop up that offers his guide in exchange for an email address.
We used his cutout from the NBC promo material (we just really like cutouts, okay?) and used as much white space as we could to keep people’s eyes on the text and moving towards the goal of capturing their email.
We hooked Chris up with one of our favorite new tools, a plugin called OptinMonster that’s not only pretty easy to use, but it shows you a ton of great data on how well your pop-up is performing.
Grab the bull by the horns
Chris and Todd (and Rob too, though for a different show) knew that their appearances on these nationally-televised network TV shows would get increased web traffic, so each came to Copter to make sure their everyday businesses took advantage of the boost.
Not everybody is going to make it onto TV. But if you’re doing a special promotion, or you’ve got a big advertising campaign about to happen, or if you’re brand has just gotten much bigger than when you started, make sure your site is prepared to take advantage of that increased traffic.
Good luck to Chris and Todd on STRONG!