Yesterday I got an email from a company trying to sell me on a landing page optimization webinar. Now, we write a lot of landing pages at We Know Words (yes, landing pages are another piece of marketing collateral best left to professional copywriters!), and I’m constantly watching for opportunities to stay current on marketing trends. So I was more than interested.

As I skimmed the email, I counted four different calls to register, but no price. So I clicked on one of the “register now” options thinking that would take me to a landing page (of course) with more information about the webinar, including price. Nope, took me to a registration form. So I tried another link. Same thing. And another. Same thing. Every link on that page took me to the same registration form.

OK, does it make any sense at all for a company to advertise a webinar on optimizing landing pages when they can’t even do one themselves?? And this is a big name company! (Just for the record, no, a registration form is not a landing page if there’s no selling going on. It’s fine to have a registration form on a landing page, but don’t stick it there by itself and expect a conversion.)

The main marketing communications lesson to be drawn from this is: Walk your walk and talk your talk! If you’re going to sell a webinar on landing pages, use an optimized landing page to sell it. That’s also part of show AND tell. (Marketing has to be the right mix of copywriting—tell—and delivery—show.)

The other mistake they made from a marketing perspective: They asked for too much of me early on in the sales cycle. Which is hilarious given that their email marketing included a picture of a funnel. They apparently chose to send me straight to the bottom of the funnel, but marketing doesn’t work that way.

Maybe they’ll do a better job after they see that webinar they’re marketing…