We create a working landing page on our own

When a landing page, in which a lot of resources have been invested, does not bring applications, this is at least a shame. To prevent such a situation on a limited budget, Vyacheslav Sergeev, the author of the Landing School project, presents to your attention a step-by-step instruction for creating landing pages.

If an entrepreneur asks the question “how to make a landing on his own”, then he usually opens the constructor and outlines an approximate layout using the constructor blocks. In what happened, there is no structure, no copywriting. And that means there is no conversion. And I don’t want to spend money on agencies and studios.

But I will “please” you: most studios do exactly the same. Only not on the constructor, but investing in design, layout, they solve the problem aesthetically, functionally and efficiently. The conversion will be higher, but not significantly. Then what's the point?

One of the most important foundations of a landing page is the quality of the content. What is the point? You know your product well, much better than any agency that won't bother properly. (Of course, there are exceptions.)

Today I want to offer you a clear step-by-step instruction, how to make good landing page copywriting resulting in a high conversion.

Step 1. Research the target audience

Who comes to buy your product? Typical general characteristics of the buyer: people from 18 to 50 who live in Russia. But what are these people? For example, you sell paintings. Who usually buys paintings? Women go home, restaurateurs go to their establishments, businessmen go to their offices. And now certain characters of representatives of the target audience are emerging.

Write down each portrait in detail, one per sheet.

Here are a few questions to help you write these descriptions.

Where does a typical representative of your target audience from each segment live? What age is he, gender, does he have a spouse, children?
This person is looking for your product like what? What does he want to find?

Remember one important marketing phrasing: people don't buy a drill, they buy a hole in the wall.

Your product can evoke different emotions for each representative of the target audience. Consider the same pictures. Someone wants to decorate their home and is looking for a way to do it. This important information detail will then come in handy in creating a strong selling proposition, which will lead to a high conversion.

What if we take another area? People are not looking for lawyers for individuals, they are looking for ways to write off debts.

Thus, people are not looking for a specific product (portraits, live butterflies, printing on mugs), they are looking for the emotion that can be obtained from the product, the value that it brings to them.

What is the purpose of the purchase? Why is it for the client? What prompted him to buy?
What is he afraid of when buying this product? What can be objections? Why might he object?

The most banal objection - "Why is it so expensive?". Find more objections to your product.

What competitors can he go to?
Who will influence the purchasing decision?

All these questions help to find the client's pains, to understand what he is afraid of.

This is the core of a good landing page, this is the pain of a person. It's a hole in the wall, not a drill.

Step 2: Build Your Benefits

The client has a problem - you offer a solution. There is an objection to your decision - close immediately, answer questions, explain.

For every suggestion, for every objection, for every wish, write down what your product has to offer. How can you close this need? This forms the list of benefits. Based on this list, create a unique selling proposition for each portrait of the target audience. Benefits can be repeated. Write down the key. This will be the backbone of your unique selling proposition.

Step 3. Create an offer

An offer is a brief statement of the benefits of what you do in a form that is understandable to the client. The offer should clearly answer the question of what you are selling. Why exactly are you doing this? Why do you better meet the needs of the client? Why does he need your product at all?

What should the offer include?

The product's name

If a person is looking for a drill, you say that you have such and such a drill.

Key Benefits

Describe the main pain and advantages of your product over others that cover this pain. How good is this drill? Why is she better than others?

Consider a GPS watch for kids. The representative of our target audience is my mother. Mom has pain: she is afraid that something might happen to the child, he might get lost.

We use these pains and say: “If you are afraid of losing your child, put a GPS watch on his hand that will indicate his location at any time.” In this part of the offer, we put pressure on pain and offer a product.

There are other ways to describe this pain. For example, like this: “According to statistics, so many children go missing every day. If you don't want your child to be on this list, put a GPS watch on them."

You can describe the pain in different ways, put pressure on it, open up the problem and offer a product as a solution. In 80% of niches you can find such pain.

If you sell flowers, your target audience will have at least two portraits: those who want flowers and those who buy flowers as a gift. These are two different USPs. It is important for the first to know how to care for flowers, for the second - to make it, maybe cheaper.

If you want conversions from a landing page, paint the product through pain.

An offer consists of a problem and a proposed solution. From the list of advantages, write down the key ones for each portrait of the target audience. They can be divided into two types: those that you pulled out of the pain, and those that the product originally has.
Let's get back to the pictures. As a product, they have clear product advantages: the quality of the canvas, paints, and the execution technique. And there are benefits formed from pain: an easy way to decorate an apartment, surprise a girl, and so on.

The offer, combined with the benefits of the product, creates a unique selling proposition.

Focus on how the product will benefit the customer. This is called YOU-orientation.

Figures and facts

No "quality and inexpensive"! Write how much the product costs, how long it will take you to make it, or who the manufacturer is, what kind of warranty it has.

Segmentation

Specify narrow geography if you work only in Irkutsk or only in Sochi. Or, on the contrary, say that you work with the whole world.

Step 4. Target action

It happens that the offer is well written, the user reads, agrees that the product is cool and closes the page. But the offer will not work without a call to action. And the target action will not work without an offer.

Don't require the user to order right away, give them something light, valuable, that will benefit them. Request a minimum of data. In 90% of cases, it is enough to ask only for a phone or email, you don’t even need to ask for a name. This is just one field, which means one action. For the convenience of the client, in the field where you need to enter a phone number, add a phone mask and automatically adjust the numbers according to the template. This is a job for the programmer.

Form the utility that the user will receive immediately by completing this action: it can be a detailed commercial offer, a free consultation, a layout, and so on.

Step 5. Prototype your landing page

I do not advise you to go directly to the constructor. Take a landscape sheet and sketch out how you see the future landing page.

What elements will the landing page include and where will they be located? In what order? How will these elements switch between themselves so that the user does not leave the page and, as a result, arrives at the target action?

Try to put forms, not buttons. The AB test results show that forms convert more than buttons. That is, if you take the button that opens the form, then it will convert visitors into buyers worse than if you immediately put a form on the site that you can fill out and send.

The first screen on a landing page is the most important. On it, indicate what you do and write down the key advantage. Take a photo of your product and describe the results of its action, if it really makes sense.

Be sure to place the form on the first screen. Sometimes the user performs a slight impulsive action, besides, customers sit on the first screen the longest, and sometimes they don’t even move on.

Make the color of the target action button unique. I like the phrase “landing form button should be like a pimple on a teenager’s nose.” It should be visible from everywhere, have a unique color, be the brightest and most visible element on the landing page.

Write on the button what exactly happens after the completion of the target action. For example, "Get a commercial offer", "Request a call", "Get a free consultation".

Below, under the button, I advise you to leave such remarks: “This does not oblige you to anything”, “We do not spam”, “We do not transfer data to third parties”, and so on.

The background is best done in color with white margins.

So, you have come up with the layout of the first screen, it has a title, benefits, main picture, form and menu. Further, the structure may vary.

The main blocks of the landing

I propose the following content.

core value

Be honest about the customer value of your product. I write my texts from the heart, they clearly spell out the pains of clients. When I was making a landing page for a corporate party, I honestly put a photo of people dancing on the table and wrote that everyone was tired of drinking in the cafe. It got into pain, it was clear to everyone. The client should be pleased to read the texts, the constructions should be short, without unnecessary unions, punctuation marks, no need for long sentences.

Additional Benefits

Benefits are not enough to be placed on the first screen. There may be additional ones that require more description and detailed explanation. But don’t overdo it: thirty landing screens are also useless.

In headlines with benefits, write down the key idea as concisely as possible, add pictures or icons - but only when they are really needed and will make sense.

Social proof and portfolio

Tell us about the production of the product, show your office. Add examples of work, tell us about yourself if you are the main producer. Add facts, figures, pictures. But also be careful.

Social proof and immediately - a form for the target action