Tim Draper and Kevin break down landing page design, from button copy to signup forms. Keep form fields minimal, avoid "Submit" as your CTA, and combine features with benefits in your copy. They walk through examples from Salesforce, Basecamp, and Patreon.
Chapters
The third key component to success is a call to action. This is probably the most important thing on your webpage. So here we have a Salesforce landing page that they have made to try to gain some customers. This is the call to action over here. What they're asking the person landing on this page to do is to sign up to get a quick guided tour of the Salesforce platform. Using what, first name, job title, email? I personally wouldn't ask for all that stuff, but Salesforce is a lot bigger brand, so they can ask for more information from you. And if you're gonna have a call to action, you're gonna need supporting copy that tells the user why they should give you their data in exchange for whatever you're offering. And Kevin's gonna go into some of the things that get offered. There's also, Click-through calls to action. So these are actually more of like a homepage website. So if we go over to Crunchbase's website, or Basecamp's website, we actually see that this is their homepage, even though it's really busy.
Mm-hmm.
And so on click-through landing pages, there are multiple calls to action, and the goal is to educate the customer on your platform so that when they get to the buying option, they're informed about the decision and they can make a decision on whether they want to commit to you or not. So, up here they've got a bunch of links, how it works, paying customers, so testimonials, and then they've got try it free over here. If we scroll down, they've got another call to action where you can sign up for 30 days. Down here they've also got a bunch of links that are probably linking, no, they actually link away from their page, which is interesting. I would link deeper into my page if I were them. And then they've got a show us how Basecamp works. Down here they've got a bunch of other links like, hey, we've got a podcast, we've got our blog, we've got this, deeper links into their company. They've also got another call to action when you scroll down at the bottom. So this is an example of a click-through page. It's, the Salesforce one is just one page with one call to action, a singular call to action. Tends to work better if you're a newer company. But Basecamp wants you to spend as much time as possible on their site and really dig in before you sign up for that free trial. These are generally, like I said, homepages so that the customer can make an informed decision. So, this is a singular call to action and this is more of an informed decision. And then here, Kevin, you can take over on common action calls.
Yeah. So, say you do— say you're in the process where you're building the app and you want to gain some kind of— or not just app, just your service— and you want to gain some kind of momentum, right? Some validation. This is where you would have some kind of signup form and you collect all the emails and then once your product is ready to launch, that's when you email them. So that's really, really common to have there. And then you can also have a download link if your product is out. It's pretty clear here that if I click on that button, I can download it. And with the sites I mentioned before like Squarespace and Wix and all that, usually they have integrations so you can easily integrate MailChimp Have you guys used MailChimp before?
Yeah.
So you know it's really easy. They gather all the emails for you and you just send your email, one click of a button. And then also with your signup form, I've seen some really bad examples. You want to make it as simple as possible for the person on your website.
What's the worst example that you've seen?
I was signing up on this website and I put all my information in, and to get to the next step I need to fill out a long-ass survey. And honestly, when I saw that, I just clicked out. I don't have time for that. So, if you want to do market research, do it somewhere else, but your signup form should just be just that. Name, email, last name maybe, and that's it.
Does anyone use MailChimp for list management? Like everyone uses MailChimp? Yes. Does anyone not use MailChimp?
What do you use? Spreadsheets?
Oh, you don't have a signup form?
Mailchimp is free up to 5,000 emails, I believe.
Yeah, this is a good starting point. Hmm? SendGrid? Is that free up to a certain point? What's the number, do you know?
2,000.
3?
2,000.
On SendGrid?
Yeah, SendGrid charge cheaper if you are by subscription, let's say you have 2,000 users, then Mailchimp probably charges more because it's sent by email volumes.
Oh, I see.
Also, I almost forgot to mention, you can also offer a free trial here. I'm sure you guys have seen it all the time. Just put your information in and you get a free 30-day trial.
Yep. On that note, definitely get the signup form because that's That's super important. And I was gonna say, it reminded me of something, and now I'm totally blanking on what I was gonna say. Oh, oh, oh, with your example of the market research. If you wanna collect market research, get the email first, and then in the follow-up email, ask the questions with a link. Don't have them sign up and then take a survey and then get the email. That's not a good flow.
Yeah.
But I think Juan will talk a little bit more about flow and I think you'll have some stuff to say on that a little later.
This is a good example of a signup sheet. Just 4 items and that's it.
And then also on the 4 items and that's it thing, pro tip from market research is never use the word submit on this. Always use something like sign up or I'm in, I'm ready. I want it, reserve my trial, anything that's not submit. Because submit, not that it has a negative connotation, but it also, being submissive isn't, it's not something that you want to send into your user's mind. Like, I'm submissive to this company. So try not to use the word submit. Anything that you can do to not use the word submit. Continue, next, whatever it is. I like I'm in or sign me up or something like that. I have a question. The 4th thing that a landing page needs is a features and benefits section. So back to Patreon, they've got a nice features and benefits section right here. So there, when I say features and benefits, those are 2 different things. So features are facts about your platform, true facts about your platform, things that it does. A benefit is a a value that a user gets out of using your product. So Patreon actually does a good job combining features and benefits in their explanation. As we can see here, I think this is the zoomed-in one.
Mm-hmm.
It says, paycheck from your fans. Harness the power of your biggest fans by letting them fund your ongoing content creation with a monthly subscription amount of their choice. This right here and these ones are kind of more of like the benefit. So you get a paycheck from your fans. That's value that you're getting. Freedom to create more. So that's value you're getting. You can be more creative in your work. Give your patrons special stuff. Another value that you're getting through the platform. And then with here it says harness the power of your biggest fans by letting them fund your ongoing content creation. So if that is a feature of the platform, you know that you're You're letting your fans fund you through this platform. So if you can kind of combine your features and your benefits into statements like that, it's a lot more effective and it kind of shows what they're going to get from signing up with you.
Right, and just like that, try to keep it just to one sentence.
