How to upgrade your site to grow your business
This week I’ve been looking at the websites of branding experts and graphic designers as research for a sweet new project. And it’s kinda hilarious how crap most of the sites are.
These are professional visual communicators. People hired to package organisations visually so they can sell more of whatever it is they sell.
And it’s terrifying. Because most of the sites I looked at couldn’t sell a glass of water in a desert in the middle of a hundred year drought. They sure as shit aren’t selling thousands of dollars’ worth of strategy and design.
Sure, lots of them were real pretty.
But they were almost all a testament to style over substance.
They demonstrated zero grasp of the art of persuasion, which is concerning given their purpose.
There was :
No clear offer to an ideal client.
No emotional connection.
Very little proof to build trust.
No useful resources to show off their expertise.
No insights into process, timing, price, or anything useful really.
In short, there was no content aligned to their customer journey. In fact, I’d wager good money that customer journey wasn’t even a consideration when most of the sites were designed. Most were glorified portfolio sites, and some weren’t even doing a great job of that.
I can state confidently that these agencies are selling their services despite their websites. They will be relying on referrals and direct sales. And that’s a trap.
Why referrals are not enough
Many coaches and consultants are in denial about the difference a decent site makes to their bottom line. Let me be plain with you. If your site isn’t regularly bringing you business, it’s not that you’re a singular creature with clients who don’t care about websites. It’s that your site is shite.
Loadsa coaches and consultants operate purely through referral. They’re the ones who tell me, “But I don’t really need a website.”
And they’re right, to a point. Their business is thriving.
But they’re relying on everything staying the same.
Getting lots of referrals is excellent. It means you do a great job, give good service, and people dig your style. Take yourself out on a date to congratulate yourself for being so hot sauce.
But a business that’s 100% referral is also a trap because it makes you lazy about marketing.
So, everything’s sweet as, so long as everything’s sweet as.
However, if something untoward comes along … say a global pandemic, or a great hoofing recession, and those referrals dry up, then you’re in a sticky sitch. You’ve no idea what marketing levers to pull to get your new business pipeline flowing again.
A good website and a content marketing strategy that promotes your services works to bring in leads from outside your existing circle of influence. The best time to build this machine and get it working for you is when everything is going grand, and referrals are flowing in. That’s when you’ll get a solid understanding for how much marketing can lift your bottom line. And you’ll get a feel for how much extra effort you’ll need to put in to bring in more marketing leads when things get tough.
So, ask yourself, if your referrals stopped tomorrow and you had to attract new business with pure marketing graft, how would you fare? Would you know what to do? If you don’t know, don’t feel bad. Lots of service businesses have no idea how to market themselves. Which is why I’ve put together this article as the first of a two-part series of guides to generating leads through content marketing.
It all starts with a decent landing page
When I help coaches and consultants make their website content more magnetic, one of the key things we do is create landing pages to sell their offers. And that’s all a landing page is. A page that makes an offer. The offer can be a product, a service, a course, an event, or an invite to get involved. Whatever your offer is, a landing page sells it for you by making a clear, compelling case for why someone should buy your offer today.
I create landing pages for every one of my clients’ offers, but that takes time. A smarter way for you to roll is to start with your bestselling offer. It makes sense to double down on what’s working. So, start by building a decent landing page to help you sell more of that.
You can make this new landing page one of the pages on your existing site. But consider this. If your site has never delivered you a single business lead what might happen if you threw it all out and started again with a simpler site designed to sell?
One of my contacts on LinkedIn is a dude called Mike Walters. Mike does one thing. He designs and builds landing pages. He charges £4,000 a pop, which is NZ$8,111. For one page. But it’s a page with the potential to deliver hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of business. Mike is so good at what he does that he requires full payment up front. Mike’s own website is a single page site. One landing page. So maybe if a single page is enough for the OG of landing pages, maybe it’s enough for you.
Let’s take a closer look
You can use a landing page to do three things.
Attract qualified leads. Set it up to speak directly to your ideal clients and give them all the info they need to make a decision, so by the time they contact you, they’re already sold.
Qualify enquiries. Give people all the info they need to decide if your offer’s for them. No more wasting your time answering the same questions over and over again.
Increase your conversion rate. If you send people to a landing page before they book a call with you, you massively increase conversions. No more ghosting or pointless discoveries.
But a kick arse landing page that attracts more ideal clients and grows your revenue doesn’t happen by accident. Every successful landing page is different, but they almost all have three common features. They set the scene. They establish trust. They give people enough info to make a decision.
As I walk through the elements of a good landing page I’ll tell you what content you should share, but I’ll also talk about the format you can present this info in. When I write content I wireframe it up at the same time. A wireframe is a simple diagram that shows how content should sit on a web page. It also shows helpful information like the hierarchy of headers and explains how parts of the site work. I do this because I learned to write website copy at a digital design agency so it’s second nature for me to think about how content will work on screen. But I also do this because I’ve studied hundreds of successful landing pages, I’ve seen what works, and I don’t like to leave this stuff to chance and the whims of web developers, many of whom know very little about designing a page to sell an offer.
You can download a wireframe for a landing page below. This shows you how you can lay out all the elements of a good landing page. Obviously there are heaps of other ways too, but this is good start.
Start by setting the scene
Nailing a successful landing page that attracts more ideal clients and grows your revenue starts with setting the scene. You do that with the four Ps.
Proposition. Summarise your offer and why your ideal client should care
People. Explain who your offer is for.
Pain. Show you get their problem and the pain it causes.
Payoff. Paint a picture of the payoff they can expect.
The key to setting the scene effectively is specificity. The more you know about your ideal client, the more your proposition can be crafted to speak to them. The best landing pages use your clients’ own words and real life stories to connect. You need razor sharp focus on who your ideal client is to talk to those people in a compelling way. And if you don’t have that clarity, get a heck of a lot more specific about who your target market is, then get out there and talk to those ideal clients to get a clear picture of how your offer alleviates their problems and how they feel about that.
Setting the scene typically occupies the first four sections of your landing page.
1.Proposition content block
Your proposition is the first block on your landing page. This is where you grab your ideal client’s attention, tell them what you’ve got for them, and what’s in for them if they keep reading.
An effective format for this block is:
Subtle target market header. Who your offer is for.
Hero header. Title of your offer.
Sub header. Why your ideal client should care.
Hero image. You or your ideal client.
Call to action, or visual cue to encourage people to keep reading.
2.People content block
If you’ve only one target market keep this simple.
Target market header. Who offer is for and the main benefit you deliver.
Short para expanding on who offer is for. Be as specific as you can.
If you’ve more than one target market, then you can create a content block with sub-sections that call out each of your markets and summarise the big benefit for them.
3.Pain and payoff content blocks
This is where you talk about the challenges your offer addresses and the benefits it delivers. You can use the same format for both of these content blocks.
Your offer will solve more than one problem for your ideal client, and more than one benefit. This is excellent, but you don’t want to overwhelm people with too much info. So, consolidate those problems or prioritise them so you’ve three-five pain points. As a rule of thumb, don’t present more than five bullets at once. Most brains can’t deal with more than five points without starting to feel overwhelmed.
If you’ve three pain points or payoffs, a good format for your content block is:
Main header. Call out problem. E.g., 3 ways this problem is making your life hell.
3 x sub headers. 3 main pain points.
3 x text blocks. Expand on 3 main pain points in a few lines.
If you’ve five pain points of benefits then a good format for your content block is:
Main header. Call out main pain point. E.g., 5 ways this problem is making your life hell.
Text block. List your ideal client’s pain points as bullet points.
Prove you deliver
Before someone hires you, they need to trust you.
And for strangers to trust you, you gotta show them proof you can deliver the goods. A successful landing page that attracts your ideal clients and grows your revenue has several levels of proof. In fact, you can layer that proof like a mille feuille until it’s eight layers deep.
You can use:
Success stats.
Credible clients.
Testimonials.
Case studies.
A portfolio of work.
Social clout.
Thought leadership.
Your personal story.
Let’s take a look at these bad boys.
1.Success stats
Prove your work gets results by sharing stats that show your impact on your clients’ businesses.
Growth in revenue.
More clients.
Improved retention.
Improved satisfaction.
These stats can be hard to get. Not only do you have to ask your clients for this data (unless you’re a digital marketing agency and report on KPIs, but plenty of businesses don’t track ROI as a matter of course, so you’ve got to ask them to dig. But persevere.
2.Credible clients
Humans are lemmings. We like to go where others have blazed a trail. Sharing client logos helps establish clout at a glance. Bonus points if those clients are cool or famous.
3.Testimonials
Testimonials are more credible if they are:
Specific and detailed. Generic waffle is less compelling.
Accompanied by a photo of the person who said the nice things.
If you’ve video testimonials great, but make sure they’re captioned, and don’t forget to include written testimonials as well for folks like me who can’t be fecked watching videos.
4.Case studies
Case studies offer a deeper dive into a project and share proof, process, and learnings. A good case study is a huge value-add because it shows potential clients how a business like theirs tackled a problem they’re experiencing.
5.A portfolio of your work
Work in isolation is always going to be less compelling than success stats and case studies that give people a look under the hood of a project. But a portfolio gives people a feel for what they get as an outcome when they work with you, and it can get folks excited about how cool their project could be.
6.Social clout
If you’ve a decent following on social or your email list is bigger than the legions of Rome then say so. We’ve a tendency to believe that if someone is popular, they’re good at what they do. This is why you see e-newsletter sign ups that say things like “Join the 15,765 people who receive this email every Friday.”
7.Thought leadership
The best way to establish yourself as an expert is to share your smarts for free. So, show people how to DIY the thing you do for them. Feature a freebie resource on your landing page that addresses a common client pain point related to the offer you’re making.
And if you write for well-known, reputable publications, or have appeared on big deal podcasts, whack those logos on your landing page too, like the shameless self-promotor you are.
8.Your own story
Your own story is a rich source of cred because it shows how you earned the right to solve the problem you now solve for your client.
You can mention things like impressive previous roles, sexy past projects, the number of people you’ve helped, and how many years’ experience you have in your field. Heck, you can even be a real wanker and mention any awards you’ve won. Although I’d stick to the real big ones.
And don’t forget your own life experience. Often we end up helping other people solve problems we’ve already solved for ourselves. So, share your story, because your challenges, striving, and success prove you’ve got the chops to help others tread the same path.
Prove you deliver
Now you’ve established a connection and earned the right to sell, it’s time to walk people through your offer. This is a five step dance.
Offer.
Price.
Process.
Timing.
Answer FAQs & objections.
1.Your offer
What do people get when they buy your offer? Give them a high level overview of the things they can expect to receive from you. This can cover calls, workshops, modules, coaching sessions, and written deliverables. And don’t assume people will know why each thing is valuable. Explain why each piece of the puzzle matters.
2.The price
It’s bizarrely controversial in B2B world to put your prices on your site, and frankly most of the reasons given for not including prices are total BS.
The main reason to include prices on your site is because your clients want you to. The second big reason is because it’s a brilliant way to qualify potential clients, and it will immediately stop you wasting time on discovery calls and meetings with people who can’t afford your rates. Ever since I put my prices on my site my conversion rate on proposals has been around 85%.
The biggest objection people give for not including their price online is, “But the price is different every time.” Well firstly, stop that. Stop wasting your time on bespoke projects. Pick your most profitable, popular services, package them, hone your skills, and become famous for your expertise in those areas . But secondly, it’s almost never true. Most service businesses make most of their money from a small number of services. It’s the old 80/20 rule. And when you look at the estimates for your most popular services, you may find they’re very similar.
In any case, it’s easy to give a price on your site and still account for variations.
Here’s four ways to price your services.
Create fixed price packages. Way more consultants and coaches could do this.
Give a starting from $XXXX price. Explain what that price includes.
Take a tiered price approach. Explain what each tier includes.
Take a menu style approach where you break your pricing down and allow people to build their own package. Be cautious with this as you don’t want people leaving our critical items like customer research to save money. State what’s essential and what’s optional.
3.Process
Walk people through the journey you’ll go on together. Break the project process down into simple, digestible steps. This helps flesh out potential clients’ understanding of what they get for their money, because the process is often as much part of the value you deliver as your final deliverable. Sharing your process is also a good way to help people imagine what it’s like to work with you, and once they start doing that, you’re closer to closing that deal.
Another huge bonus of doing this is it helps you document your operating processes, refine the way you do things, and create valuable assets for onboarding new people, assuming you have a team.
4.Timing
How long does each step take? What variables affect timing? How much lead in do you need?
5.Answer FAQs and objections
The purpose of a landing page is to be your number one salesperson when you’re not in the room. So, answer your clients’ questions. FAQs are also a great way to pre-empt objections that stop people buying. And you couch these objections as questions because you’re sneaky like that.
Examples include:
I only have a small budget for coaching. Is this investment really worth it?
I don’t have much time. How long will this take?
I’ve done something like this before and it didn’t work. Why would this be any different?
You get the picture.
FAQs also help educate. Because while some of the people browsing your sales page will know they need the thing you offer, others won’t. So, the FAQ section of your sales page gives you a chance to take a step back to the very beginning of the sales process, and answer basic questions like, why do I need this anyway?
Wrapping this all up
A landing page makes an offer. But that’s too passive a way to describe what a landing page does. A landing page sells the snot out of your offer. And it does that by covering off three buckets of content.
You can download a wireframe for a landing page that shows how you can layout all these different content blocks below. Feel free to use this as a template if you’re in DIY mode and writing your website copy yourself. And hey, if you need help crafting a kick arse landing page that makes outrageous eyes at your ideal client and seduces them silly, you can hire me.