Layout Builder, landing pages, marketing, and Drupal

If you have been working towards your marketing campaign landing pages with Layout Builder, you are probably familiar with Drupal. If not, you should know that it is a free and open-source type of software called content management system, or CMS for short. Apart from Drupal, another widely known content management system is WordPress.

 

In a few words, Drupal CMS lets you manage your site through an application programming interface (API). It is a convenient way to write, edit, and publish content directly on your site that minimizes the amount of developer intervention daily. That’s how writers (as yours truly) can do routine stuff without having to worry about the underlying code or inner workings of the site.

 

You have probably guessed it already: it has a lot to do with landing pages and layout. Here is where Drupal’s Layout Builder comes into play. The result is making the life of non-technical users easier and giving editors more flexibility, including the marketing team.

How marketing campaigns use landing pages

As part of the marketing team, I can assure the amount of possible and active channels for communication and bringing leads home is monstrous. Social media, email lists, backlinks, word of mouth, advertisement, Google search… The list goes on and on. But there is a specific channel that is 100% controlled by you: landing pages.

 

When planning your marketing strategy, there is no silver bullet that solves all your problems. Still, there are some guidelines: having appealing and updated landing pages is a must.

 

The process of setting up a landing page seems simple, especially when you are into design or marketing. But a thoughtful page is harder to come by than you might think. Before getting there, you most likely already have created a marketing plan that includes designing the buyer persona, setting goals, choosing communication channels, setting up ads, and such…

 

Then, you can start making a landing page. What does it contain?

 

• Unique Value Proposition (UVP): how your product or service helps out your customer
• Header: most people only read this bit
• Media: images, graphic material, videos, you call it. Liven up the place
• Call to action (CTA): that button that always, when done correctly, stands out
• Listed benefits: self-explanatory

 

Why do I list them out? Well, because setting up a landing page with all of these elements, adjusting contents and arranging them in the grid, and being happy with how they turn out are just some of the things you might have to do as part of the creative team.

 

Without a given tool, the process of creating landing pages can be tiresome and slow, as you rely on asking for changes and revisions from the already overclocked developer’s team. When the next Hot Sale is about to roll, the traffic is about to peak, and you still have a giant backlog of dev tickets waiting, that’s when you’ll ask for the Layout Builder.

Layout Builder

What is Layout Builder? Drupal’s Layout Builder module is a tool designed to create complex layouts easily. It helps technical and non-technical users alike, saving development time and giving autonomy to the marketing and editorial teams.

 

How does it work? With an easy-to-use drag and drop system. You have a grid system based on CSS that allows you to move your pre-built elements by simply adding them to the grid and then dragging them to the desired place.

 

Why is it so cool? That does not sound like much, you might say, but it really is. Without Layout Builder, each change on any of your landing pages would be requested to and controlled by the development team, adding to their already extensive backlog and requiring a long back and forth with design, marketing, and the editorial team.

 

By using Layout Builder, you just plan out types of content that you might need in the future, making them easier to code, faster to build, and with no need for implementation from the development team.

Marketing benefits of Layout Builder

You might think that those benefits are enough, but stopping there is just a lack of imagination. Marketing campaigns tend to be volatile and don’t last very long; also, they must be versatile and react to feedback immediately. Cutting one blocker from that process short is a game-changer.

 

Apart from Layout Builder being intuitive to use and much more flexible, it lets you change your landing page on the go, that’s your entry gate for every user, customer, person, and google algorithm bot alive (alive?).

 

As we’ve discussed in a previous article, you can perform multiple tests to better understand your audience. This tool can easily let you tinker with your site, allowing you to run A/B testing in no time or any user interface changes you might consider necessary.

 

When rearranging elements in the layout, you can modify the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) without revamping the website entirely. Like so, you can check if there is a core issue with your design or any organizational issue with the elements and banners.

Layout Builder takeaways

As Danny Englander (link below) summarizes in his talk, the Layout Builder module provides an updated paradigm for component bases and structured modular content on top of a layout, which helps content editors and site builders.

 

Layout Builder not only helps out a single group of people in your organization, but the benefit is threefold:

 

1. For content editors

2. For site builders

3. For developers

 

That’s how you keep your editorial, design, and development teams happy altogether, which should be considered a successful multidisciplinary practice. Also, with the added speed, I’m sure we can also put it under the agile software development practices, which have been all the rage lately.

 

At, Awkbit we are big fans of Drupal and the open-source community in general. We strive to give independence to every client and end-user so they can easily access technology and information. We believe that features like Layout Builder save time and money and democratize the process of making changes and working uniformly within multidisciplinary teams.

 

Are you ready to bring productivity to your multidisciplinary team with Layout Builder? Would you like to fast-track your marketing campaigns?