Want to know my personal favorite? It's ConferenceBadge [1]. The design is clean and the page is very snappy. But what I absolutely love is how they answer every question that I might have on the landing page itself. I am not personally a fan of Close.io's that sells itself as "close more deals," but doesn't answer how.
I think a landing page should answer what it does, and how it does it in very unambiguous terms. Too bad so many SaaS companies try to make promises without giving an idea on how they'll deliver them.
I'm the CEO at Conferencebadge.com but I also happen to be the CEO at https://missiveapp.com, a team communication SAAS.
Both home pages were designed by the same team.
Designing Missive's home page was way harder.
Why Conference Badge:
- I have a conference in a few days, I have absolutely no time, I don't know how to do this but I need badges. HELP!
Why Missive:
- I have a shared inbox, I need to easily collaborate around some emails.
- I want to consolidate all my shared inboxes into one app.
- I have an assistant, I want to her/him to help me with my emails.
- I want to merge back both internal and external communication into one app.
- I receive hundreds of orders a day, I want an app that let me share the load in between my production team.
- I'm a solo user I just want a fast email app that works fast on Android and a Mac.
- I want an app that lets me auto send confirmation SMS to my customer when their order is ready.
- I want to chat with my team in a threaded interface
- …
As added bonus, everything is still visible, the signup button and phone button rollover work with my default mode of all JS off. None of the usual need to enable JS for clicking a signup button to have any effect at all, or to be permitted to see images.
Solid article, but essentially nothing new. For me it boils down to:
1) Have a product the market needs (even if they don't know they need it yet.) Yes. Easier said than done. The point is marketing mumbo-jumbo won't make a Me Too product unique.
2) Explain __crisply & clearly__ why I need it. Focus on benefits more than features. In short: Why should I care?
3) Make finding a complete features list easy. If I'm interested (i.e., I think I will benefit) I'll want to see in detail all you can do for me.
4) Making finding a product comparison (e.g., free v paid) easy.
5) Making finding an FAQ is easy, and make sure that FAQ is an FAQ and not more marking spin.
6) Make finding pricing easy.
7) Maintain a semi-active Twitter accnt. If that looks left for dead then I'm going to presume you're soon to fade as well. I can't commit to and invest my time in a solutions that'll soon be MIA.
8) A free trial is NOT a proxy for any of the above. My time is valuable, so free is not really free. If you can't clearly communicate your brand / product to me then I'm going to presume you don't know, or are too lazy. In any case, it's a red flag. I'm leaving.
9) Speaking of leaving: conversions are a false god. What's more important is churn / retention. High conversions aren't good if there's also a lot of churn. You want to build relationships, not one night stands.
10) If you think you're special and that any of the above doesn't apply to you. Think again.
7) Maintain a semi-active Twitter accnt. If that looks left for dead then I'm going to presume you're soon to fade as well. I can't commit to and invest my time in a solutions that'll soon be MIA.
I abstain from Twitter because I don't believe it's a good place to actually communicate and I refuse to buy followers and likes to keep up with the Joneses. Not saying you're wrong, but there's a disconnect between being "social" in a specific platform and being able to do the job.
The main point of that article was showing strategies that you can replicate for each scenario (social proof, intro, product explanation...)and I think you got that ;)
Why would I need a twitter account at all? I have used twitter on and off for years, and have never been able to get any value from it. Sure, if you have a twitter account (or any social media accounts, really) it should be semi- frequently updated.
Oops. How could I forget, my favorite one? This should have been 10, and 10 becomes 11.
10) Beyond just the website...The Experience is The Product. Not just the X in UX, but the end to end experience. For example, does the contact form send me a copy? How soon do I get follow up? Is the getting starter / documentation up to date? Etc.
For what it’s worth, we’ve had a lot of success with a strategy not mentioned here: hosting a site that’s intentionally mysterious, if not slightly provocative.
About 35% of all visitors to our site end up subscribing.
We’re not a SaaS company, so I realize this may be comparing apples to oranges, but we had experimented with a lot of different, elaborate, shiny landing pages that were similar to a few encouraged here.
And after falling flat on our face for months, we realized that an incredibly simple, borderline-mysterious landing page converted users far more effectively.
This is important - techloaf (big fan here!) is obviously an outlier, but generally the bigger and more complex the product, the vaguer the landing pages get.
I always thought this was a shifty strategy to get you on the phone and have salespeople con you, but after reading _Mastering the Complex Sale_ I've come to realise that it makes sense - you want to understand a potential customer's needs before you actually try to pitch anything concrete at them.
That's probably good for getting a lot of sign-ups with no intent to become a paying customer/active user of your product, but I'm curious how many of those users would convert down funnel.
IMHO, "I’ve compiled the best examples of SaaS Landing pages I’ve seen over the years (1000’s of them) into actionable examples you can use as reference!" is incomplete without mentioning actual statistics about conversion -- or any other measurable goal that the company might have for the landing page.
Without that, what would be the qualification of "best"? The best the OP has seen... but then that's comparing landing pages mainly from the perspective of one person (that may or not be part of the target group of the SaaS).
Without conversion data it's impossible say something meaningful about the effectiveness of the showcased landing pages.
The author gives several reasons why he likes the examples (creating curiosity, layout, using case studies, ...), but without data it's more about personal preferences, current best practices and common sense. No real secrets.
I’m amazed that your comment isn’t higher. That was my first thought as well. They may be great design wise but if they don’t covert at all it means very little. Many tv commercials than win awards are terrible at converting for example.
I mean no disrespect, but I am horrified by your first case. If I don't know what a product does and the basics of how it works in the first 15 seconds, I move on. I never give personal info in order to proceed into the web site. Not ever!
Good observation. The reason that CrazyEgg can get by with such a headline is that they count on their audience (marketers) already being familiar with the tool. If you look at older versions of their website through the web archive you'll see that they used to have more informative headlines, such as "Get Immediate Insight Into Your Visitor's Behavior"[1] followed by actual descriptions of what the product does.
When creating their landing pages, people often model pages of well-established companies, missing the fact that their audience's awareness level is totally different. It's a common mistake. You end up with a website as pretty as the one from your favorite startup, but with horrific bounce and conversion rates.
I feel like pretty much all websites and landingpages are the same - a single page, broken into sections, plenty of space, some happy people, some key points, a pricing table, maybe a section that scrolls in parallax. In fact this is such a pattern that pretty much all website builders put together this formula of site.
Indeed I noticed this pattern in 2014 and suggested the idea to a colleague who then built the first website builder around this pattern: https://www.redferret.net/?p=45278
These days, a site has to completely break this pattern to be innovative.
Do people actually give away their email address when stumbling across a mysterious non-descriptive landing-page that says nothing about who or what a company is? In other words - what's the point of having "we're in stealth mode" landing page in the first place? Might as-well point your domain at an ambiguous Tumblr blog, or a Facebook page. Thoughts?
This is the dozenth post of its type. The truth is that there isn’t some secret sauce when it comes to marketing and conversion. What makes an effective landing page is pretty well documented at this point.
Frankly, Medium killed objective analysis. Even though that site is not hosted, on Medium, it's junk like most Medium articles, based on confirmation bias. I can bet +1 that you can have a plain HTML page, that explains what your SAAS does and still make a killing, if you build a product that the market wants/needs! Without all landing page gimmick.
Thank you for saying this! I've been pressing Medium for a long time to be more aggressive at shoving crappy publishers off of the platform.
I think what happened is that Medium was originally great for content marketers. There was a growth hack that let certain publications get big just by publishing any remotely relevant article. Many of these published 30 times a day (and still do). Additionally, the Medium algorithm seemed to reward articles mostly for having a clickable title.
However! Medium made a recent change to manually review all articles before allowing them to get algorithmic boosts. That did a ton for weeding out the junk articles and removing the incentives for these content-mill publications.
You can see this in action if you go to one of the big publications and append /latest. Most of the articles these pubs are publishing now are getting fewer than 50 claps. In other words, nobody is reading them. I think eventually, most of these pubs are going to end up leaving.
Then on the flip side, Medium is partnering/paying a lot more for high quality writing. And as a result of less competition with content marketing junk, those high quality articles are getting a lot more views. I just published something the other day that I spent two years writing and researching, and it's got 250k views (and I think will make $10-15k in their network over its lifetime). I'm not going to link it, but I think it met a bunch of standards of quality that many past Medium articles haven't: all the advice had been tested on multiple people by the author, the article was peer reviewed, it was copy edited.
My world is mostly personal development writing and we do have a partnership with Medium. It's just a weird middle ground where the old growth hackers are still around and have been offered a chance to participate at a higher level of quality. But I'm finding that most of them either aren't able or don't want to. From my world, the old definition of quality was an article that was a summary of something the author read but probably never personally tested, i.e. "10 Foods That Made Ben Franklin Crazy Productive." And what got us a partnership with Medium was putting together a style guide that had a much stronger opinion about what goes into a high quality personal development article. Style guide here, but you'd really have to be a nerd to read it =)
https://betterhumans.coach.me/draft-style-guide-for-personal...
Could you explain a bit why do you think it's "junk like most Medium articles" ?
Sure simple landing pages can works really well, but that's not the point.
The first rule of effective writing (of any sort) is to imagine yourself in the position of the reader. It's not about what you want to say or get done, it's about what they want or might be interested in.
The examples in the first half of this article are supposed to be sarcastic, right? EmbedSocial is the first one to show any semblance of information, and even then it doesn't say what it does.
[+] [-] shubhamjain|7 years ago|reply
I think a landing page should answer what it does, and how it does it in very unambiguous terms. Too bad so many SaaS companies try to make promises without giving an idea on how they'll deliver them.
[1]: https://www.conferencebadge.com/
[+] [-] plehoux|7 years ago|reply
Both home pages were designed by the same team.
Designing Missive's home page was way harder.
Why Conference Badge:
- I have a conference in a few days, I have absolutely no time, I don't know how to do this but I need badges. HELP!
Why Missive:
Some products are easier to market.[+] [-] NeedMoreTea|7 years ago|reply
As added bonus, everything is still visible, the signup button and phone button rollover work with my default mode of all JS off. None of the usual need to enable JS for clicking a signup button to have any effect at all, or to be permitted to see images.
I'm very impressed.
[+] [-] ThomPete|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MaxBarraclough|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tzm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loeber|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathan_f77|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pedrocortes|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|7 years ago|reply
1) Have a product the market needs (even if they don't know they need it yet.) Yes. Easier said than done. The point is marketing mumbo-jumbo won't make a Me Too product unique.
2) Explain __crisply & clearly__ why I need it. Focus on benefits more than features. In short: Why should I care?
3) Make finding a complete features list easy. If I'm interested (i.e., I think I will benefit) I'll want to see in detail all you can do for me.
4) Making finding a product comparison (e.g., free v paid) easy.
5) Making finding an FAQ is easy, and make sure that FAQ is an FAQ and not more marking spin.
6) Make finding pricing easy.
7) Maintain a semi-active Twitter accnt. If that looks left for dead then I'm going to presume you're soon to fade as well. I can't commit to and invest my time in a solutions that'll soon be MIA.
8) A free trial is NOT a proxy for any of the above. My time is valuable, so free is not really free. If you can't clearly communicate your brand / product to me then I'm going to presume you don't know, or are too lazy. In any case, it's a red flag. I'm leaving.
9) Speaking of leaving: conversions are a false god. What's more important is churn / retention. High conversions aren't good if there's also a lot of churn. You want to build relationships, not one night stands.
10) If you think you're special and that any of the above doesn't apply to you. Think again.
[+] [-] decentralised|7 years ago|reply
I abstain from Twitter because I don't believe it's a good place to actually communicate and I refuse to buy followers and likes to keep up with the Joneses. Not saying you're wrong, but there's a disconnect between being "social" in a specific platform and being able to do the job.
[+] [-] pedrocortes|7 years ago|reply
The main point of that article was showing strategies that you can replicate for each scenario (social proof, intro, product explanation...)and I think you got that ;)
[+] [-] ensignavenger|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|7 years ago|reply
10) Beyond just the website...The Experience is The Product. Not just the X in UX, but the end to end experience. For example, does the contact form send me a copy? How soon do I get follow up? Is the getting starter / documentation up to date? Etc.
[+] [-] tnolet|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ccantana|7 years ago|reply
About 35% of all visitors to our site end up subscribing.
We’re not a SaaS company, so I realize this may be comparing apples to oranges, but we had experimented with a lot of different, elaborate, shiny landing pages that were similar to a few encouraged here.
And after falling flat on our face for months, we realized that an incredibly simple, borderline-mysterious landing page converted users far more effectively.
(For the curious, this is the landing page: https://techloaf.io)
[+] [-] Untit1ed|7 years ago|reply
I always thought this was a shifty strategy to get you on the phone and have salespeople con you, but after reading _Mastering the Complex Sale_ I've come to realise that it makes sense - you want to understand a potential customer's needs before you actually try to pitch anything concrete at them.
[+] [-] capkutay|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] puranjay|7 years ago|reply
For the lazy, here's a preview: https://mailchi.mp/872ceee548ec/its-loaf-time
[+] [-] benirving|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swsieber|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jschulenklopper|7 years ago|reply
Without that, what would be the qualification of "best"? The best the OP has seen... but then that's comparing landing pages mainly from the perspective of one person (that may or not be part of the target group of the SaaS).
[+] [-] pedrocortes|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yabatopia|7 years ago|reply
The author gives several reasons why he likes the examples (creating curiosity, layout, using case studies, ...), but without data it's more about personal preferences, current best practices and common sense. No real secrets.
[+] [-] FollowSteph3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oldmancoyote|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] supersrdjan|7 years ago|reply
When creating their landing pages, people often model pages of well-established companies, missing the fact that their audience's awareness level is totally different. It's a common mistake. You end up with a website as pretty as the one from your favorite startup, but with horrific bounce and conversion rates.
I call it the cargo cult[2] approach to marketing
--- [1]: http://web.archive.org/web/20110225071634/https://www.crazye... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
[+] [-] raiyu|7 years ago|reply
They do a very poor job of explaining what it is the company does and you could put 10 companies under the same tag line and it would be just as true.
[+] [-] AznHisoka|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pedrocortes|7 years ago|reply
This would be a stupid idea in most cases but I mentioned CrazyEgg get's most of their traffic through content marketing.
This means their landing page is an article and when people see that headline the audience is already warm, it's totally different.
[+] [-] andrewstuart|7 years ago|reply
Indeed I noticed this pattern in 2014 and suggested the idea to a colleague who then built the first website builder around this pattern: https://www.redferret.net/?p=45278
These days, a site has to completely break this pattern to be innovative.
[+] [-] xtrapolate|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mring33621|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woogiewonka|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbos87|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pedrocortes|7 years ago|reply
Let's face it people are looking for "secrets" so I used the article to steer them to the right direction.
[+] [-] dzonga|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tonystubblebine|7 years ago|reply
Thank you for saying this! I've been pressing Medium for a long time to be more aggressive at shoving crappy publishers off of the platform.
I think what happened is that Medium was originally great for content marketers. There was a growth hack that let certain publications get big just by publishing any remotely relevant article. Many of these published 30 times a day (and still do). Additionally, the Medium algorithm seemed to reward articles mostly for having a clickable title.
However! Medium made a recent change to manually review all articles before allowing them to get algorithmic boosts. That did a ton for weeding out the junk articles and removing the incentives for these content-mill publications.
You can see this in action if you go to one of the big publications and append /latest. Most of the articles these pubs are publishing now are getting fewer than 50 claps. In other words, nobody is reading them. I think eventually, most of these pubs are going to end up leaving.
Then on the flip side, Medium is partnering/paying a lot more for high quality writing. And as a result of less competition with content marketing junk, those high quality articles are getting a lot more views. I just published something the other day that I spent two years writing and researching, and it's got 250k views (and I think will make $10-15k in their network over its lifetime). I'm not going to link it, but I think it met a bunch of standards of quality that many past Medium articles haven't: all the advice had been tested on multiple people by the author, the article was peer reviewed, it was copy edited.
My world is mostly personal development writing and we do have a partnership with Medium. It's just a weird middle ground where the old growth hackers are still around and have been offered a chance to participate at a higher level of quality. But I'm finding that most of them either aren't able or don't want to. From my world, the old definition of quality was an article that was a summary of something the author read but probably never personally tested, i.e. "10 Foods That Made Ben Franklin Crazy Productive." And what got us a partnership with Medium was putting together a style guide that had a much stronger opinion about what goes into a high quality personal development article. Style guide here, but you'd really have to be a nerd to read it =) https://betterhumans.coach.me/draft-style-guide-for-personal...
[+] [-] ksahin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mannykannot|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dandare|7 years ago|reply
"Make your website better. Instantly." is a totally meaningless header that will only frustrate visitors.
[+] [-] intellent|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pedrocortes|7 years ago|reply
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