Dear E Me: How do I optimise a landing page for sales?

Welcome to TechSPARK’s digital advice column, Dear E Me.

Every month we look at digital marketing problems affecting tech businesses. To submit your own question, just email us at (jo@leancontent.co.uk / hello@techspark.co)

Dear E Me,

I run a small SaaS company in the South West, and we’ve decided to spend some money on advertising. We’re using LinkedIn and Facebook to target the right businesses for our free trial, but we don’t have a great landing page.

Any advice on how we can put together a sales funnel with a low budget? Possibly even for free?

Thanks a lot,

Chris

Hi Chris,

Congratulations! You’ve decided to invest in some social media advertising, but rather than diving straight in, you’re thinking about it. That’s really encouraging, you’d be surprised how many businesses spend money on advertising without thinking about how to drive traffic into a sales funnel. You’re right, you need a great landing page.

You’re not alone. Every company out there wants to unlock the ‘secret’ to a perfect landing page. And there’s a whole host of companies and consultants who’d gladly take all your money and purpose-build you a landing page for thousands of pounds. I’d suggest you do it yourself, and here’s why: if you hire someone else to code a bespoke page, every change you make will cost you more money.

The problem with every landing page is that without testing, you have no idea if it works. The key to a great sales funnel is in A/B testing. If you write a landing page yourself, you can make a few different versions of it without mounting costs.

Spend your budget instead on testing. Start with small amounts of money, and don’t invest until you can be sure which page your audience will respond to best. To get you going, here’s what I’d recommend you do:

1. Use a free landing page builder

MailChimp, ClickFunnels and many more offer free landing page templates. Choose one, customise it using their visual composer, and don’t code a bespoke one on your first foray. The bonus of DIY is that you have ownership of changes, tweaks and can constantly improve your sales funnel. Oh, and you can re-use it. Genius!

2. Keep it simple

Whether you’re selling an IT service, SaaS, consultancy or any business service, your customers will always be busy people. There’s no excuse for giant landing pages. There are a few key components (coming up next) but don’t waffle. Write the copy, sleep on it, delete 20%, print it out, delete another 20%, and even then, aim for as little bulk as possible.

3. Core elements to include:

• A single call to action that’s visible (with a clear, simple form for people to input their details). Ideally, this form will be ‘sticky’ – meaning it stays with the website visitor, regardless of where they are in the scroll.
• A clear reason to purchase – incentives come in various forms. They could be time-bound, or relate to a specific customer pain point, or a lead magnet (an ebook, a free resource, or some other downloadable asset)
• Customer testimonials – proof is key on a landing page. Aim for three testimonials that relate to why people should purchase your SaaS product.
• Great pictures – use some fantastic pictures of your product, avoid stock imagery wherever possible.

Good luck with building your first landing page, once you’ve found the right mix for your customers you’ll be getting plenty more sales in no time!

• You may like: Why not read last month’s Dear E Me, which covers GDPR.