Landing Page

Heeey there,

Every week I write about a B2B marketing topic with tangible tips and real-life examples. 👨🏻‍🏫

Today is about how we approach creating Landing Pages.

Plus a free template and a collection of resources from smart marketers.

But first » my past few days were spent as a mover. 🚛

Decided to move back to Belgium for a month. 🇧🇪 ✈️

At 11 pm, on a Tuesday evening in Romania. 🇷🇴

Without a place to stay, of course. 🤦‍♂️

My friend however is currently staying at my place in Dubai... and as it turns out, he just recently got a new place in Belgium.

So for a few days, I was running around like a mover with a truck, to get some furniture into his new place. 👷‍♀️

You really learn to appreciate every job when you try yourself in their shoes for even a couple of days. 😅

Now back to marketing stuff.🤙

[Stick around until the end to get the fresh, free Landing Page template.
Just make sure to CLICK "View entire message" 🤙]

Topic Overview:

• The importance of a good landing page 🤓

• Why you shouldn’t reinvent the wheel 🧠

• Why using frameworks isn't cheating 🤔

• Why Most Landing Pages Suck 🧐

• The template 🏄🏻‍♂️

Why putting effort into your Landing Page makes sense? 🤓

I’m sure you know this, so I’ll just run through this quickly

Your Landing Page should:

• provide clear information on your product/service

• decrease anxiety over trust issues & questions

• eliminate distractions & focus on 1 goal

• emphasize service benefits & results

It in itself should be enough to clearly let someone know:

• What your offer is exactly

• Who your solution is for

• What problem it solves

• What are the results

Should you always create a completely new Landing Page and resources? 🧠

How often do you see a website and think: “Wow this is a fresh look”?

I sure don’t think that regularly.

But the question is, should I?

I often see marketers bashing companies for doing what everyone else does.

I have likely done that more than once myself.

…and to an extent, one can definitely sense that one of the most common issues with marketing is that it relies too much on ‘what others do’.

You see the Nth social advertisement, billboard, and landing page, and you may very well get a feeling of ‘déjá vu’.

While doing what others do, just because:

• It seems professional

• That’s the way to do it

• They have success with it

can easily be connected to confirmation biases and false causality (they do that - they are successful - we should do that too)...

There are definitely some practices that have been formed for a reason.

Does it pay to experiment with new, creative ideas and see if you can elevate certain aspects of a “best practice”?

Sure it does.

Does that mean, that you should always aim at doing something completely different/new?

I don’t think so.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to make it better.

Sometimes cutting away some unnecessary pieces may raise efficiency more, than adding something.

There are a million ways to make something work better, especially better for you and for your specific situation.

In my opinion, it does not mean you can not or should not use proven frameworks.

Use websites like the following to not reinvent the wheel every time:

1. Saaspages

2. Saasframe

3. Unbounce Swipe File

The Structure Of A Highly Converting Landing Page 🤔

There is a reason why architects have to study statics to a certain extent.

While crafting a landing page without structural integrity won’t cause buildings to fall on your head, it sure won’t help your conversion goals either.

The point of sticking to a proven framework is not to copy what everyone else is doing.

It is to make sure your buyers find the necessary information to make a decision that benefits you as quickly as possible.

You can still be highly creative, but it pays to stick with a frame that helps your buyers see ‘What is in it for them’  through all of your creativity.

There is a great formula created by Julian Shapiro that simplifies this into an equation:

Purchase Rate = Desire - (Labor + Confusion)

The more your visitors have to work and the more confusion they are facing, the less likely that they’ll end up buying from you.

Can they easily find out:

• What value you are providing for them?

• How are you providing said value?

• Why you are the right choice?

• How much it will cost them?

If any of the above takes more work than necessary (“Schedule a Call With Sales”) »

then you are creating unnecessary hurdles for them and for yourself.

That does not mean you have to have every tiny detail explained on an LP.

You just have to make sure your visitors are intrigued enough to want to find out more.

Why your page may suck 🧐

Your page might be doing amazing.

If it doesn’t, I think it might be due to one of the 4 following reasons:

1. Your Offer is MEH

2. Your Messaging is MEH

3. Your Reviews are MEH

4. Your page is super creative! But no one understands it.

Stick around for a great carousel from Alisha Conlin-Hurd that provided the basis for this list.

Let’s quickly run through each point.

[+1. The Solution]

1. Your Offer is MEH 🤷‍♀️

One of the most common mistakes I see is a crappy offer. 💩

Even if the messaging is on point and structurally the page looks good… a crappy offer will kill the entire purpose of your page.

There were times when one could get away with an OK offer.

There weren’t many competitors or they just lacked the know-how and resources to get their offer in front of the right audiences.

Those days are gone.

The eyes you are fighting for are bombarded with thousands of offers each moment.

You don’t even have to have a significantly better alternative.

Even an indirect competitor could be winning the attention of your audience.

Unless your product or service is a must-have, it is easy to lose interest when your offer is weak.

2. Your Messaging is MEH 🤷🏻‍♂️

Are you certain your offer is a killer, yet you are still having issues with converting your audience into your customers?

Perhaps your messaging is not as clear as you had hoped it would be.

In my experience the struggle with messaging will often stem from 2 roots:

1. Not being able to define 1 key target audience

2. Not knowing how to focus on 1 key Unique Value Proposition

The 2 are of course related.

In the 1st version, the issue is that you want to include as many potential audiences as possible.

What ends up happening is that you are talking to everyone and in turn, you aren’t really talking to anyone specifically.

If no one specific issue is addressed then no one will feel like you are solving their problems.

In the 2nd version, the issue may be connected to a few things:

• You think you need a million benefits to prove your worth

• You are not sure what is of value to your audience

• You don’t really have a Unique Value to propose

Some of these are of course related to a bigger problem with the business.

But if you know for sure that you are indeed solving a relevant problem that your audience is facing »

You just need to get better at focusing on that value and communicating it in a clear form.

3. Your Reviews are MEH 😒

This is something that in my opinion many don’t take seriously.

Or don’t take it into consideration at all.

One of the simplest ways to convince your buyers about the value you generate for them »

is to showcase others like them that have already benefited from your service.

BUT simply showing a few good reviews won’t cut it.

They have to speak to the buyers.

They should be relevant.

They should have context.

Angie Schottmuller has created an easy way to score your “social proof”.

It is referred to as CRAVENS (why is there no raven emoji?!) and stands for:

Credible

Believable, trustworthy, authentic, authoritative, ethos.

Relevant

Pertinent, germane, applicable, important, meaningful.

Attractive

Emotional trigger, value-added, satisfying, pathos.

Visual

Pictured, drawn, mapped, graphed, viewable.

Enumerated

Quantified, scored, ranked, calculated.

Nearby

Close, proximate, or near anxiety or uncertainty points.

Specific

Distinct, descriptive, named, detailed, precise.

In more basic terms, your social proof should not look like a generic sentence from a fake person.

4. Your Page is Super Creative! 🤩 But no one understands it. 😳

Going back to my original point for a second.

You don’t have to and frankly shouldn’t copy what other businesses do to a dot.

Even if they are very successful.

But you can and should get inspired by work that makes you want to get the offer it “advertises”.

With the spread of the false idea that only short-form copy can win the hearts of people because they lack focus » tell that to someone who binge-watches an entire season…

A false narrative also spread that relates being mysterious with being cool.

While the mysterious kid in a leather jacket may be interesting and cool, your message and offer should be anything but mysterious.

You can certainly leave your buyers wanting more, but that won’t happen by making them confused.

The goal of your landing page is to act as an online salesperson.

A great one.

Imagine someone cold-calling you and talking about a service/product in riddles.

It’s bad enough that they cold-called 😀, you shouldn’t put further effort into finding out what they are on about.

The Framework To Use for Your Next Landing Page

Now it is one thing to point out all of the issues I see, yet without a solution, it’s a bit like a bumhole.

So, if you feel like some of the above may relate to you…

If you are not sure how to implement all of the great advice that you’ve found online, I’ve got great news.

You can copy this template for free and put all of your creative magic into a structured framework.

You'll see it consists of 5 parts:

1. Upfront Research Questions

Exemplary questions you can ask different stakeholders like customers, sales, or customer success to draw extra insights for your page.


2. Copy Blocks

Gather the right input from stakeholders, align on the objectives and start building your first draft.


3. Landing Page Checklist

60 points to check off before finalizing your page check based on the steps the page is being created.


4. Heuristic questions

Run the 5-second test to test the first impression of your page, and draw insights from your interviews on what is missing.

And.... Extra links to draw inspiration from pages, get better at writing copy, or optimize pages on best practices.

LinkedIn posts worth reading this week:

1. A 43-page "short" Masterclass from Alisha Conlin-Hurt

43-page carousel with short form copy that is. It is the one I referred to in the list of why your page may suck.

2. 35 LinkedIn Tips for 2023

Well, actually 24. But you can get the rest through the post 🤙