The rise of the startup landing pages
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The rise of the startup landing pages
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: The rise of the startup landing pages
#2Whilst I agree that a one liner teaser page is not good, I will disagree about "It’s a myth that people don’t read long copy. Of course they do."
They really don't. But the article is misleading, because the 'long copy' example provided, the highrise teaser page, is not an example of long copy. It's a well formatted bunch of meaningful information, strategically designed and placed carefully (flow) that keeps enticing users to read more of it.
It's a well documented fact that people DO NOT read long boring paragraphs. They DO, however, read highly entertaining webpages with a fairly big copy so as long as it breathes and attracts them.
So to wrap up, yes write more than a sentence, no don't write a book. Instead, carefully craft sentences to entice potential customers to turn into real future customers.
Re: The rise of the startup landing pages
#3Whilst I agree that a one liner teaser page is not good, I will disagree about "It’s a myth that people don’t read long copy. Of course they do." They really don't. But the article is misleading, because the 'long copy' example provided, the highrise teaser page, is not an example of long copy. It's a well formatted bunch of meaningful information, strategically designed and placed carefully (flow) that keeps enticin…
Sorry, but I think you're making the common mistake of expecting that most people will react to a particular sales tactic the way you would react to that sales tactic. Also, the example shown is absolutely a long form sales letter.
It may be true that people do not read long boring paragraphs, but I'd bet the research to which you're referring is not addressing ad copy. If it is, I'd like to see it. It is in fact well documented that long form sales letter DO convert better than short copy in many situations.
Read here for context of the example used: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2977-behind-the-scenes-highri...
Re: The rise of the startup landing pages
#4LaunchRock is sort of a victim of its own success. Now that every startup wannabe has a hipster.com like landing page, we're all getting sick of it and looking for something better.
Re: The rise of the startup landing pages
#5LaunchRock is sort of a victim of its own success. Now that every startup wannabe has a hipster.com like landing page, we're all getting sick of it and looking for something better.
It depends on your target audience. Perhaps if it is HN readers, but there are many markets that are not saturated by this type of launch site.
Re: The rise of the startup landing pages
#6I'm not sure I follow. How can getting (for free) a long list of people who may be interested in the product once it launches be a bad thing?
I think the OP's main point is that instead of having a landing page you should be concentrating on product/market fit by describing the product. I think startups with these coming soon pages are already doing that, just not on their public website.
Re: The rise of the startup landing pages
#7What is really bad is wasting months building software no one wants. Or finding out after the fact that your cost of acquiring a customer is too high to make the idea viable.
Sure there are people doing it wrong, but done correctly its a powerful tool that raises the odds that your startup will become a success.
Re: The rise of the startup landing pages
#8I'm not sure I follow. How can getting (for free) a long list of people who may be interested in the product once it launches be a bad thing? I think the OP's main point is that instead of having a landing page you should be concentrating on product/market fit by describing the product. I think startups with these coming soon pages are already doing that, just not on their public website.
Perhaps I wasn't clear. Collecting email addresses is fine, but make sure you're really getting people who are genuinely interested in your product. My point is that people shouldn't focus on hoarding emails. The focus should be on testing certain message, certain angle of the product, whether they like the future vision, etc...
Re: The rise of the startup landing pages
#9I'm not sure I follow. How can getting (for free) a long list of people who may be interested in the product once it launches be a bad thing? I think the OP's main point is that instead of having a landing page you should be concentrating on product/market fit by describing the product. I think startups with these coming soon pages are already doing that, just not on their public website.
Perhaps I wasn't clear. Collecting email addresses is fine, but make sure you're really getting people who are genuinely interested in your product. My point is that people shouldn't focus on hoarding emails. The focus should be on testing certain message, certain angle of the product, whether they like the future vision, etc...
So you're saying startups should be A/B testing their coming soon landing pages. That sounds like good advice. I'd be surprised if that feature were not on the todo list of the LaunchRock guys...
Re: The rise of the startup landing pages
#10LaunchRock is sort of a victim of its own success. Now that every startup wannabe has a hipster.com like landing page, we're all getting sick of it and looking for something better.
Simple answer - LaunchRock needs to develop more landing page templates to choose from