October 7, 2017
“Am I in the right place?”
Earlier today, a colleague asked me to review the home page of her new marketing website.
The site is meant to attract potential customers for her SaaS business and encourage them to sign up for a free trial.
Within two seconds of reading the page I knew there was a problem. The primary headline (and virtually everything else) was totally focused on the features of the software.
It didn’t immediately answer the big question that is in every visitor’s mind:
“Am I in the right place?”
To discover whether this software was potentially of use to me, I was faced with:
- Reading a page full of copy
- Watching an introductory video
- Participating a free trial
I have limited time and attention. I’m not going to devote that much effort to find out whether I’m in the right place.
If the headline doesn’t make me holler “YES!” I’m probably going to bounce immediately.
Whether you’re selling a SaaS, or a book, or a class, or professional services, or whatever else... it’s in your best interest to let the reader know immediately that he or she is in the right place. That he or she is likely to benefit from spending a few minutes exploring your website.
If I had to boil it down to one concept, it’d be this:
Promise and then deliver value in exchange for their investment.
(NOTE: It is no coincidence that this is exactly the same dynamic as with any other client interaction, whether it be the exchange an email address for a free template, $50 for a book, $500 for a class, $50,000 for a website, and so on...)
Yours,
—J