STEP 16 : Landing Page and Website Design.

Learn How to Design Your Landing Page . In Step 15, we looked at how to craft a distinctive Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for your business, side hustle or if you are just testing the waters of entrepreneurship. In this step we’ll move to focus on testing your MVP by prospecting for potential future customers who are looking for the problem you have identified to see if your solution fits their need.

For those just joining us at this point, you can continue and learn about the how to assess opportunities before starting a business or side hustle, but it’s worth starting at Step 1, My Current State, to give you better context. And its the starting point of this adventure into entrepreneurship.

Let’s get started. In our Happy Path Flight Plan illustration, we are touching on Landing Page and Website Design, which is now in orange and bold below.

Introduction

““Dream big. Start small. But most of all, start.” – Simon Sinek

Firstly, lets start off by differentiating a website and a landing page.

A website is a collection of immersive pages designed to captivate and educate the reader. It should ideally take the person on a journey of discovery where they are the center of attention, the hero.

A landing page is purposefully crafted to catch your eye and drive you to take action. Whether it’s signing up, making a purchase, or simply learning more, a well-designed landing page has the potential to turn visitors into loyal customers.

Building from Step 15, the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), we’ll first focus on Proof of Value for Landing Page design that will be used to validate your MVP idea as well as Value Proposition from Step 14.

For this landing page design, we’ll use an approach called the 4Es.  The 4Es Approach is a set of 4 steps focused on building relationships, trust, sharing knowledge and encourages participation through action. It uses specific tools needed to build the landing page’s platform and should facilitate synergistic partnership development between you and your prospect or referral.

We will use the term prospecting that will cover both prospects & referrals. The method by which they will be taken to your landing page will be through clicks of your links from either an email, a post, social media ad, referred, etc. As you can see Prospects can come from many sources that includes referrals. Going forward we shall refer only to prospects, but this will include referrals. Keep in mind, people love referrals, and they trust the opinions of their family and friends when making purchasing decisions. Referrals are a powerful way to build trust and a loyal users base.

What are the 4Es

• Engage with your prospects (Must know they are at the right place within 5 seconds of landing on your site)
• Empathize with their problems/challenges (Articulate your customer persona’s problem clearly)
• Explain your solution (How your solution specifically solves their problem by focusing on an outcome)
• Exchange of value (They are willing to pay to solve a problem)

So, these 4Es start off with Engage, engage with your prospects. These are also what we call potential customers, so we must get their curiosity within the first 5 seconds of either landing on your ad or your webpage/landing page. If we don’t get them within 5 seconds, we will then lose them. Once we have their attention, we need to start Empathizing with their problems or challenges.

We then Explain our solution. With Empathize and Explain combined we follow Stephen Covey’s principle of “first seek to understand before being understood”. Finally, if we do satisfy the first three steps in our approach, the Exchange of validating can then take place, which could be in the form of a sign up in terms of giving them a lead magnet, or they can make a purchase where they then give us money in exchange for the product that we are offering.

Let’s look at each more closely.

ENGAGE with your prospects by establishing what their pain point (current state) and what their future state looks like (the benefit). Start with a summary of the story (before and after) and a ‘what-if’ this could be you scenario in their mind.

EMPATHIZE with their problems/challenges by starting the story with a vivid painful emotional moment. Describe the problem/challenge, the worst fear and empathize what was at stake. Describe what was either lost or came very close to losing because of this problem/challenge.

EXPLAIN the solution that will resolve their problem/challenge and averted a crisis. Highlight what results they can expect from your solution and how they will transform their life for the better. Explain how the transformation will work using your solution, highlighting that you empathize with their struggle and are ready to guide them. Explain how the solution can be used in your customer personas circumstances. This story must be targeted to the right customers you are prospecting for. Explain how you will guide them through the transformation and this solution is the best you know of to solving the problem/challenge.

EXCHANGE of value through a ‘call-to-action’. The solution resolves the problem/challenge and averts a crisis. Tell them their current state will remain the same with no action and how your solution will get them to their desired state of happiness. Address any reservations using risk mitigation techniques such as guarantees and customer friendly terms such as no obligation refund within a given period of time.

These 4 stages are a transition from prospect with a problem to a hero who saves the day. This is the Hero’s Journey.

The Hero’s Journey is the story of your customer’s experience with your brand from the original engagement into the long-term relationship and/or partnership. Therefore, it covers the complete sum of experiences that clients go through when interacting with your brand. From initial contact, through the process of engagement, the call to action into customer service and ongoing support.

Prospects must, within 5 seconds, answer 3 questions upon landing on your landing page or website if you expect them to engage with your brand. These are:

1. What value do you offer?
2. How will it make my life better?
3. What do I need to do to buy it or try it?

Engage

Engage is probably the most important because if you don’t engage your prospects, you will not get any attention and they will then leave your page within a few seconds. When we do this, we need to establish what their current state is, what is their pain point and are they wanting to have it solved.

Start with the story of the before and the after scenarios that you have been through.  The after scenario needs to convey that this could be them too. You need to plant that seed in their mind. However, we do not use words like ‘what-if’ and ‘imagine’ as it’s too salesy and lazy.

Convey the story as it is by making it relatable, real, and doable for your target prospects. Your customer persona profile plays a pivotal role in understanding who you are talking to. For everything that we do, including even social blogging, et cetera, we need to do a customer persona to get into the minds of who we need to talk to and how we can then relate in terms of the story that we tell. We do not brag, so we don’t use pictures of us standing next to a luxury car, for example. If we do that, we lose credibility, we need to be humble and giving. Remember to always seek to understand the prospect first, before letting the prospect understand you and your solution.

Empathize

Next step is to empathize with your prospect. With engage we started with our problem and our challenge at the beginning of the story to get an emotional response. People always empathize before they buy anything, if they don’t feel something they’re more likely not to buy.

With empathize we now relate our story to theirs by relating their problem to ours. Describe the fears, anxiety frustrations then empathize with the stakes that are involved if the problem does not get solved.

Describe what is either lost or came very close to losing because of this problem or challenge. To help understand how to do this, think of a Hollywood movie. There is no movie that really exists without a problem or a challenge that people are drawn into. You have got to have a hero who has a problem and how they overcome that problem as your general storyline then describe what the turning point was. That moment of realization is the a-ha moment.

To be clear, we do not spend too much time on the empathy. We get our point across as soon as we can and then move into explaining the solution that will resolve the problem of challenge and avert a crisis. If you look at the Hollywood movies, we’ve got a hero who always has a problem or a challenge they need to overcome and eventually the hero saves the day that’s the general plot of most movies. Without it, we do not have a story and it’s not worth watching.

Explain

Explain the results of your situation and how they’ve transformed your life for the better. We then describe the state that you’re in right now and why the person reading your story could also benefit from the same state that you’re in. As you can see the empathize blends into the explain like a story. Engage is the introduction, the empathize the challenge, the explain the transition of the prospect into the hero. So you need to clearly explain how the transition will work using your solution. By doing this the message to your prospect is that you are the authoritative figure and want to be their guide.

By putting yourself in their shoes, explain how your solution can then be used in your customer persona’s circumstance. This is why customer personas are so critical for you to get into the head of your prospects and speak their language and truly understand what their problems, challenges, needs and wants are. Therefore, the story must target the right customers / clients that you are prospecting for. Explain to them how you will guide them through the transition, and how your solution is best for them in their current circumstance. Again, just demonstrating your authority and trying to avert any possibility of them going to someone else for that solution, then finally moving to the exchange.

Exchange

Exchange is just the transfer of value. It’s our call to action where we then resolve the problems and challenges and avert their crisis. You need to tell them that their current state will remain the same if they do not take any action and how the solution will then take them to that desired state of happiness. Focus on the outcome, what winning looks and feels like.

Exchange also needs to address any reservations that they may have. These are your risk mitigation techniques. What you will use as guarantees, such as a 30-day money back guarantee, and very friendly customer terms. And if they do want to refund, we don’t ask any questions.

Exchange can come in numerous forms and not just a sale like I have just described in the previous two paragraphs. One of the most powerful assets you can get from landing pages is prospects email and most of all landing pages focuses on getting prospects email addresses.

To do this you will offer some valuable information in exchange for their email. This valuable information is called a lead magnet. Because this step focuses on the Proof of Value to validate your MVP idea and Value Proposition. To do this you need to provide something of value in exchange for the prospects to complete a survey or partake in an interview that also gives you, their email. The value you offer could be a big discount upon MVP launch or a once off purchase to give lifetime access. It’s critical to target prospects who would genuinely need your solution.

An effective way to do this and the first way is to try word of mouth using your friends, family, acquaintances and ask them the spread the work with a link to your landing page. This can be done on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, your email list, etc. Second method is to find online communities who fix your customer persona/s and join. Ask the community admin if you could do a survey to their members, this usually would incur a fee to do so. Another way is to do Facebook and Instagram advertising to your customer persona profile by enticing prospects to your landing page to complete a survey for an exchange in value.

4Es Landing Page Design

Generally speaking, when a prospect lands on your website they are subconsciously thinking, “my time is precious is this site saying what I want?” All within 5 seconds. Their first decision is should I stay or should I go. Remember your site needs to answer those 3 questions we have spoken about quickly:

1. What value do you offer?
2. How will it make my life better?
3. What do I need to do to buy it or try it?

Transitioning your prospect is the name of the game and prospects need to understand how they would be better off once this happens. To do this you must have a clear message using simple language about how prospects would be transformed and what it will be like for them when this happens.

Your landing page and website needs to communicate to your prospect in a Z shape flow for easy navigation and to be able to answer the 3 questions quickly. Each point must be focused on answering the 3 questions.

Let use this approach by showing an effective example below that worked for Indochino. Take note of how space is used in this example. Minimal wording and effective use of pictures to engage, empathize and explain.

Headings and subheadings visually stand out on this page and are descriptive. So, prospects engage in an efficient scanning pattern that allows them to quickly find the information they need.

People don’t usually read every word on a landing page, webpage or in an app. Experience with many websites has taught them that scanning can deliver almost the same value with significant less time and effort.

The way this page is organized visually plays a big role in how people scan its content. If the page layout allows users to quickly identify the essential information that is relevant to their needs, users will save a lot of effort and will be able to accomplish their goals fast.

This example uses short paragraphs and with effective sub headers sequenced correctly making it easy to scan and absorb information. But if the layout does not emphasize the important information chronologically people end up leaving the site.

4Es Landing Page Breakdown

The use of a catchy headline to draw a specific prospect in based on this landing pages customer persona.

Empathize has subtle messaging and is part of their value proposition. Targeting people who aren’t happy with fixed suit sizing that do not fit them correctly. The pictures below emphasize how Indochino suits are fit for purpose for every occasion.

Flow from Engage into Empathize & Explain is easy to follow, easy on the eye and easy to absorb making the message clearly communicated.

Engage Section

ENGAGE with prospect – The Upper Body Hero Section

The Headline: Simple clean headline that gets people’s attention and speaks directly to the company’s core business. Sparks curiosity. Headline is supported with a cool, relaxed, confident picture of a well dress man in one of their tailored suits – which also qualifies their target market.

This section is inviting the prospect into the story. The man in the picture looks like he’s been through the tailored experience and what you see is the result.

The Sub-Headline: Supported by a descriptive direct sub-headline that specifies the target market and encourages action. No fluff. Uses word ‘experience’ relating to the ‘experience economy’ that indicates that this is a frictionless process to be enjoyed.

A competition creates a sense of urgency to take action. Uses subtle ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) without using cheap gimmicky pop-ups.

Page does not use the words ‘imagine’ or ‘what if’ but the words and picture create this in the prospects mind automatically. This technique is far more effective as it builds trust by letting the prospect come to that conclusion.

Empathize Section

Empathize with prospect – The Middle Body Sections

Looking at the below section of the landing page we are able to empathize the problem together with the value proposition. A small but effective section reinforces the story started in the engage section.

Value Proposition empathizes with Indochino’s customer persona. Has option to view suits if unsure about styles or get a better understanding.

Pictures reinforce the empathize by illustrating real life scenarios that the prospect can picture themselves to understand why the tailored experience suits them.

Building credibility and trust through a quotation from a respected magazine.

Explain Section

Explain with prospect – The Middle Body Sections

Looking at the below section of the landing page Indochino explains how to have a tailored suit made for the prospect by explaining in three clear easy to follow steps. The use of space follows with a single call to action button standing out in front of a dark background.

Exchange Section

Exchange with prospect – Throughout All Sections

There are three ‘Call to Action’ (CTA) buttons throughout this landing page, therefore the prospect can at any point click without having to look for the button as they scroll. The first CTA is right below the completion so that they can enter the draw. The second is strategically below the Explain with its own section so that it stands out. The third is at the bottom of the page after the prospect has been through the whole page, after the bottom sections reinforces the empathize message by providing the prospect various scenarios and a credible statement to reduce friction and persuade with person to click the CTA button.

Landing Page Funnel

As part of your design, you will need to take into consideration how you will get prospects to your landing page. The illustration below shows a funnel with the various media sources at the top. Using your customer persona, you should have identified where you perfect customer spends their time online; besides the obvious social media platforms your customer persona should also consider other platforms such as reddit, communities, etc. This is another reason why your customer persona is so important, so revisit it if any of this has been missed, treat your customer personas as living documents.

At the bottom of the funnel is your landing page objective, your call to action. Based on your objective this determines the landing page you design which in term determines the avenues you need to get traffic to your page.

Summary

Majority of landing Pages and Websites are just brochures that talk about themselves and their product/s. If you think about being given a printed brochure. The vast majority of these brochures get tossed into the trash. The same thing happens with landing pages and websites with the majority of people leave in less than 15 seconds. Never to return. Those sites have been trashed by the prospects.

Your Landing Page and Website Needs These Key Elements:

1. Engaging Headline: Lead with a clear headline answering the 3 questions in a single sentence using simple English, this is your one-liner.
2. Highlight the problem (the pain) with empathy and relate to it through an experience.
3. The success (the gain) if they do buy and use your product. What good thing would happen or what problem will be solved?
4. The consequence (the loss) if they don’t buy your product. What bad thing could happen or what problem won’t be solved?
5. Illustrate in 3 easy steps the risk-free CTA process. Make it super easy to unsubscribe. If required a no questions asked refund policy with a clear allowed number of refund days/weeks (don’t waste each other’s time and make it friction-less = no stress).
6. A firm and obvious ‘Call To Action’ (i.e. Join Now).

The steps leading up to this step are a combination of the Happy Path Flight Plan to illuminate your path towards startup success, empowering you and propel your aspirations to new heights. As the digital entrepreneurship landscape continues to evolve, the landing page will be used time and time again. Making it an indispensable tool for your business that’s looking to innovate, adapt, and thrive in a competitive market. These are key ingredients for building your Forever Business.

With the Happy Path Flight Plan to building a successful business we are focusing on the key elements you need to be successful and be rewarded with the freedom where you control your time. The essential key to making this work is starting with Step 1 by understanding Your Current State, all the steps are a culmination leading up to this point, the starting point to launching your product.

If you are new here then I’d suggest starting with identifying your Current State covered in Step 1. For those who have been following their adventure along the happy path let’s move onto Step 17 – Sales Funnel.