Before we get into the course content, let’s take a moment to define a learning objective for this masterclass.
Learning objective: the central question I’m answering is how can I (and you) write landing pages that make the right people want to opt-in without offering an ‘ethical bribe’ (e.g., lead magnet, video series) or relying on curiosity to do the heavy lifting.
For the purposes of this masterclass, I’m defining a landing page as an intermediary destination that leads to further action (usually an opt-in).
Prospects may find your landing pages from paid ads, organic traffic, affiliates and other referral sources, podcast mentions, and more.
That doesn’t mean every landing page has to be used for lead generation. You certainly could send an existing audience to a landing page for other reasons.
However, I think those other use cases are distinct and deserve their own approach.
A common distinction you’ve probably heard relative to landing pages is whether or not they’re written for “warm” or “cold” traffic.
Broadly speaking, “warm” traffic is familiar with you, your offer, etc. and “cold” traffic is not.
Rather than think in terms of “warm” vs. “cold” traffic, however, I prefer to dig much deeper to better understand my audiences.
To help you do that, you’ll find the pre-writing questions I answer, along with other prompts, in the Introduction.
Don’t skip this step. I do a LOT of work before I write a single word and that work is very important. (You’ll see the pre-writing work I did for the example landing page too.)
Next, let’s get a few questions out of the way.
Question #1: How long should a landing page be?
There is no right answer to this question. The length of the landing page depends on the work you need to do to take someone to a point where s/he can decide if the next step is right for him or her.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,200 – 1,800 words is a good starting point. Then adapt your work and word count from there.
Question #2: What’s a ‘good’ opt in rate?
Again, there’s no right answer to this question. It depends entirely on the source of traffic and what happens after.
For example, if you’re sending paid traffic to an opt-in page and making an offer a week later, the economics of that entire system will dictate what works and what doesn’t. A low opt-in rate with a high conversion rate would be similar to a high opt-in rate with a low conversion rate.
Consider a 20% opt-in rate as a starting point for evaluation if you’re not sure. Ideally, you’ll want to segment by referral source rather than average all referral sources together.
For example, 100 organic visitors opting in at 40% and 100 paid visitors opting in at 20% averages out to a 30% opt-in rate (which isn’t accurate for either traffic source!)
That leads me to…
Question #3: Do I need a separate landing page for every source of traffic?
Probably not. Ideally, using Google Analytics or an equivalent tool, you’ll be able to see opt in rates for different sources of traffic.
That’ll tell you if performance is wildly different between different sources of traffic. If it isn’t, don’t worry about it.
If it is, go through the pre-writing prompts in the introduction and try to figure out why, then create new versions of the opt-in page if that seems worthwhile.
Do not let this turn into an excuse for procrastinating, however. A sub-optimal opt-in page generating leads is better than a perfect opt-in page that never sees the light of day.
Remember, generating leads is not the only job your opt-in page does. Equally important is that a good landing page tells everyone who isn’t a good prospect that they’re in the wrong place.
Think of your opt-in page as a red velvet rope. You only want good prospects to get through and the way to do that is to write for your best prospects!
(That’s also why I don’t rely on curiosity for lead generation.)
Yes, that sounds counterintuitive but it’s very, very, very important. You aren’t trying to attract everyone — you’re trying to attract those people who you can help most, who will value your help, and who can (and will) pay for it.
That’s the signal you’re optimizing for.
I recommend that you go through all of the writing tools in order, start to finish, before you write your first landing page. Then, when you’re ready to work on your first project, start with pre-writing prompts and go through each remaining module in order.
You’ll find all of the interviews at the end. You can choose to listen to those any time, and I recommend that you come back to those interviews and listen to them again (and again and again).
There’s a wealth of wisdom in those conversations well beyond the topic of this masterclass, and I’m confident that you’ll find value there for decades.
I don’t say that lightly. They’re that valuable.
I’ll leave you with one piece of advice. Chase perfection, but don’t let it prevent you from getting your work out into the world.
Write the best you can where you are right now, edit until it feels right, and then publish. You’ll get the most useful feedback from your audience, not from the voice in your head!
As Robert Fritz says, “there’s a point when you need to sign your painting.”
Enjoy.
Shawn
NEXT: LPM: Pre-Writing Prompts