I audited your landing pages — here’s
what you’re missing

Happy Sunday!

Apologies for the late send today, my flight had no wifi for the first few hours, so I’m just getting this out.

I hope if you’re reading this email, you feel caught up on sleep, you’re sitting on a plush couch, feet up, a Snif candle’s scent in the air, and you’ve got a beverage in your hand. Today we’re going one level deeper into landing pages, and talking about the most common mistakes I see when reviewing landing pages, or just in the thinking behind the page being put together.

But first, I have a few awesome goodies:

• MarketingLand, a marketing festival (yes, not a boring old conference), is finally announced and happening on October 18 in Austin, TX. I’ll be speaking there and hope to see you there. There are only 500 tickets that will be released this year, so join the list here.
• DTCx is hosting a virtual event called, “The Ultimate Shopify Customer Journey”, and you can RSVP on this special link. If you can’t make the live time, still RSVP so you can get the full recordings after and watch them on your own time (DTC on DVR?).
• This past week’s Limited Supply was probably one of my favorite episodes we’ve ever recorded. The energy was at an all-time high, and we were talking about some fun topics: mommy bloggers, Olipop and DTC weed. Click here to listen to the episode!
• Remember the Limited Supply Slack channel where we have 15 channels around media buying, supply chain, container costs, and more? We are hiring a part-time community manager to join the Limited Supply team and help us keep the Slack valuable. We are a small team of about 6 people at Limited Supply, click here to apply!

And lastly, a shoutout to Nick Shackleford for having me in LA this weekend, for Geekout, to be on a panel with Sean from Ridge, and Jason from Hexclad.

Ok, let’s get into today’s email…

Almost every time I get on a Zoom with a marketer or founder of a brand that's doing at least $5M in revenue, I get the same question, "Can you take a look at our website or landing page?" If I'm lucky, they built their page using my Landing Page Cookbook, a guide with all the relevant sections and strategies to have on a landing page, or a website page.

At Sharma Brands and HOOX, we build so many landing pages for brands at different stages in their journey, so we've testing a number of things that help strengthen brand familiarity and conversion rate. Today's email is going to be a list of the common misses I see on these LPs. Whether you spend $10k a month on traffic, or $2 million, there's a good chance you're missing some of these, too.

The Hero Section aka the Site’s Foyer

In your hero section, you have to address two main things: An upper-funnel-friendly headline and product image or video.

This means a headline with supporting copy that makes sense to someone who doesn’t know the problem you’re solving OR your product’s benefits before they come to the page. This is why you also want a image or video asset that you can insert that quickly demonstrates the benefits of the product itself.

This Cadence LP is a great example of a headline that reads the way Cadence would introduce itself to a customer, if it was a person. You want this section to match the source of traffic it’s from. So if your ad is conversational, then match your tone to be conversational. If you’re showing a specfic SKU in the ad, make sure that same SKU (ideally the same flavor/color/scent/style, too) in the hero. You want familiarity in the consumer journey.

Lack of Social Proof

You know that one friend you have, who loves to tell you things you didn’t ask to know, and you’re almost always sure what they’re saying to you is just a lie? That’s what most consumers think when they come across a new brand. It’s on you to convince them that what you’re saying is legit, and the best way to do that is with social proof. Here’s where to insert it:

• In the hero section, include a big stat: “10,000+ ★★★★★ Reviews” or “100,000 Bars Sold!”. This stat becomes synonomous with saying “You don’t need to worry, thousands of people have done this before, we’re not hiding anything.”
• Immediately following the hero section, you should have a brag bar. Depending on what you’re selling, and who your audience is, your brag bar might be one of 3 things:
• Customer quotes, ideally with faces, names, and an attribute that correlates to the problem (i.e. “Nik Sharma, Business traveler” if I was on the Cadence LP).
• Logos from publishers that are relevant to the audience you’re going after. Older folks? USA Today, NBC, New York Times, Forbes. Young folks? PopSugar, Business Insider, VOGUE, etc. Industry folks? Put the industry publications there.
• Logos from publishers, just like above, but with a quote. Ideally this then becomes scrollable.

Curation of Content

Now, even if you have all the necessary sections in your landing page, unless you have chosen the right content, it’s not going to persuade someone to believe that what you’re selling is for them. Here are some examples:

• Photos and Videos: Are you using photos that clearly show the benefits of the product? If this is a powdered product, make sure you can see the little powder easily mixing into the water. If this is a serum, make sure you can see the texture on skin, with bright lights. If this is a TUSHY bidet, make sure it’s easy to show the installation process can be done by a 10 year old.
• Quotes: Whether these are customer quotes or they are publisher/press quotes, you have to curate the sentences to display that show the problem and solution of your brand. If the quote is not only showing the benefit, but also countering a common reason that people don’t complete their purchase, now you’re really winning. For example, if you’re selling a razor, a good quote would be “The quality of the Brown Bear Shaving blades are incredibly strong, and provide a smooth shave.” But a great quote would be, “The Brown Bear Shaving blades are so strong, I get a close shave, but I also don’t experience any more razor burns.”
• Customer Generated Content: I’m not a fan of saying UGC anymore because there are 4,000 “UGC Content Creators” that are just rejected Hollywood actors. There are some good UGC creators, but make sure there is a genuine alignment of the product and who is filming for you. That said it’s always stronger to have a genuine customer videos on your page. With this, your goal is to capture that light-bulb moment that comes with your product. If it’s a weighted blanket, you need to be able to see that immedieate relief on someone’s face when the blanket is put across their lap. If it’s something you eat or drink, you want to see that face people get when they take their first bite or sip of the product. That face is the punchline of that content, and that’s what you need to show.
• Payment options: A lot of people have one of the BNPL solutions enabled in their checkout. If you don’t have more than 5% of your purchases using BNPL, you don’t need to even include it on the landing page, if it makes it a clunky experience. Some people also use the ShopPay Checkout button on the LP, next to Add To Cart, which you also don’t need to do, unless it really works. You want to minimize the number of decisions someone has to make when it comes to the shop section and checking out.

Misleading Clicks

There are 2 things here that I see done wrong:

• Deadclicks: Deadclicks are clicks that lead to nowhere, which means that you created an opportunity to click which didn’t lead anywhere. This is generally done in the logo at the top of the landing page, which can lead to the homepage. It’s also usually done in a collections-style landing page where the product image, or the product title, look clickable but they don’t do anything. Don’t think about what you would click, or not click. Think about what would a drunk person would click, and you’ll be mostly covered.
• CTAs that are too-forward: If you have CTAs in the hero section that just send people straight to the next page in the customer journey, whether that’s a pre-loaded cart, or a PDP, you’ll have a higher bounce rate on the next page. In my opinion, good landing pages don’t need to rely on tricking consumers to get to the next stage, they should provide enough information to where a consumer can make the decision of wanting to move to the next step.

Lack of Explanation

• Benefits, not value props: I am beating a dead horse here (sorry PETA), but customers don’t care that your water bottle purify’s water when they first hear about your brand, it won’t hook them. However, they will be attentive as soon as they hear that the tap water they drink is what leads to serious medical issues. Or, on a lighter note, instead of “Long lasting scents” you should say “Smell fresh for 8+ hours” for your deodorant.
• Next steps: Once the customer makes a purchase, what happens next? Think of this like a meeting. You need next steps. When does the product ship, where does it ship from, when should someone expect it to arrive? Make all this clear.
• Customer protection: What happens if the customer doesn’t like the product? What’s the return policy? Is there customer service available if someone needs? What’s the response time from customer service? Spelling all this out clearly improves the Add To Cart rate siginificantly.
• One liners: If you have a collections-style page or a page featuring multiple products or categories, just add one-line (in a conversational tone) to explain what it is. You know it well, because you work on the brand, but you can’t assume everyone knows it to that extent. How would you explain it to someone at a bar at midnight? Make it super simple and to the point.

Discount Code Presentation & Implementation

Most brands offer some sort of a discount for new customers, or promotions, that run on landing pages, but this is how you make it even stronger:

• Underneath every single CTA that goes to the next step, write the discount code as an action item. For example, “*Use code ***“WELCOME” for 30% off”. Sure, you may have mentioned it up top, but don’t make someone spend 3 seconds to scroll and find that — bring the value of convenience to them.
• The URL that goes to the next page, whether it’s a PDP or a pre-loaded shopping cart should have the discount code inserted and auto-applied to the link. Even if you have it listed under the CTA, including it will prevent someone who gets to the checkout stage and forgets the code, from completely abandoning the journey.
• Make sure the discount code is only applicable to new customers, which you can make a condition in the discount code’s settings.

Generally…

Generally, I like to ask a few questions when going through a website or landing page, which helps me understand the missing gaps, like the ones above:

• What would my mom get out of this page? Would it click for her?
• What would a drunk person percieve from this page?
• Is there something in the customer reviews that people mention, that we’re not talking about on the page?
• Does the page do well if someone knows the problem you’re solving or the category, but not the brand? What about the other way around? What about if they don’t know either?
• If I was treating a site visitor like absolute royalty, what else can I do to make sure they have everything they need in order to make an informed decision?
• What can I do to make someone feel like this really is a safe purchase?
• Having a sticky CTA scroll with you on the LP

I’m curious if you have anything else that should be added here. Reply and let me know. Again, this is generally what I see as I scan websites or landing pages. You could also probably apply this to email flows.

On to some fun stuff…

Vendor of the Week:

minisocial — The content “hack” used by Olipop, Native, Hydrant, and Imperfect Foods to create social-media-first content for your brand.

Did you know that Imperfect Foods partners with minsocial to produce a HUGE asset library of fully-licensed assets? By working with 100 creators, they created 150+ assets which plugged into ads across TikTok and Meta.

The beauty of working with minisocial, is they’re a fully-managed solution, all you have to do is submit the brief and they’ll take it from there. They handle booking up your creators and managing the nitty-gritty. The content comes back quick, and the pricing makes sense, starting at 2k for 25 creators, so yes that’s 25 fully-licensed videos for just $2k.

Remember my Broke Man’s Content Strategy? minisocial is exactly what I’d use for that scenario. Bootstrapped budget, a need for good content, and fast turnaround time? minisocial is the answer.

minisocial has worked with hundreds of the top DTC brands and is sharing with us their guide guide on the Top 5 UGC strategies used by leading brands so you can get a glimpse into examples and data from REAL brands taking their UGC to the next level. Click here to download the guide: The Top UGC Strategies Used by Consumer Brands.

LP of the Week:

For those of you who know me well, you know I’m a secret reality TV junkie. In that process, I’ve gotten to see which ones end up becoming entrepreneurs, using their platform. So combining that with Ritual, a HOOX client, I was stoked for us to build a different type of landing page, where we start with UGC at the top, and use it as the page’s hook.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PAGE!

As you scroll down, you’ll be see flawless toggle options within different sections. The HOOX engineering team isn’t here to play around. The page finishes with an introductory offer made for sampling to their high-end customer base.

We just doubled our prices with HOOX, and for good reason… we are going to be focused on conversion optimization and iteration with the landing pages we build going forward. So once we build a page for you, we’ll study the qualatative and quantatative analytics, and optimize the page to increase conversion rate. If you’re interested in working with us like this, click here to schedule a call with our team.

That's all for this week

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter. I am currently on my flight back to New York, preparing for the upcoming week. I hope to see you soon at an event IRL, it’s so much fun to meet others in the community… we’re all a bunch of nerds and we’re proud of it!

Don’t forget to get those 9 hours of sleep tonight so you can start this week off with a bang. I wish you nothing but another successful and positive week ahead.

Have a great night and see you next Sunday!