The importance of an online presence can not be understated. Your website is a digital introduction that makes or breaks your brand. A landing page is commonly used to build an audience before the release of a product and, upon release, to convince users to take action.

To help boost your business goals with a powerful landing page, we've gathered insight from Squarespace, a platform that lets users easily create stylish websites, and email marketing powerhouse Mailchimp to share what defines successful landing pages and what they learned from building their own. We explore the influence of branding, desirability, polish, and the values of a company and learn why they matter.

Showcase Your Company's Values

“Good marketing is about transmitting your company’s values to your users,” says Anthony Casalena, CEO of Squarespace. “We focus on emotional appeal before making a logical one. We want potential customers to feel like we’re an aesthetically driven, sophisticated company before we start selling.”

A landing page is an opportunity to boast about your company's culture and values; this paired with focused branding has become increasingly important to convince potential customers to take action. An app for dreamers called SHADOW was successfully kickstarted because of a compelling concept and strong branding to support their cause. The site's sharp attention to design adds a level of trustworthiness as well, which is particularly important when your playing with data and dreaming.

The same applies to culture fit. Companies who invest in branding have a bigger chance to improve desirability as users sense a connection with the company. Nike’s “Just do it” and Squarespace’s “Create Your Own Space” campaign are examples of expressing an almost human-like identity that helps users feel connected.

Keep it Fresh to Improve Chances Of Success

Mailchimp believes great landing pages require iteration beyond showcasing your brand. David, who writes for DesignLab at Mailchimp says that “constant creation means our kitchen is always full when we need it to be, and we’ll never go hungry.”

Iterating your landing page means testing and trying to understand what works. A great user experience designer in your team is a wonderful asset to emphasize the user’s perspective during iteration without forgetting your business goals. For example, this is why the landing pages of Huge, Honey and Treehouse change often enough. There’s no better testing environment for your landing page than putting it online and measuring user behavior.

Andrew Power, designer at Fueled, agrees that landing pages deserves your team’s highest attention. “Landing pages aren’t simply a quickly designed website to unveil a product. They’ll be generating your first leads, making your first sales and engage your first fans. It’s serious business.”

Make A (Big) Statement

At its core, landing pages aren’t simply just a sales tool or platform to generate an audience. They are a showcase of who you are and what you’re doing. Kim agrees, saying, “We also liked the idea of making a big statement with our homepage and doing something that would be considered very forward-thinking in our industry.”

Perhaps you know Dollar Shave Club? The LA based startup included a humorous video on its landing page, which has been a successful strategy to get people to sign up for membership. Or what about Notegraphy? Their colorful website isn’t your typical app landing page. These are different examples of making a big statement.

It's All About Desirability...

A landing page can also be made more efficient by bold design as it increases the strength of your message. At Fueled, exceptionally great design is called polish. As Power explains, “It’s a way to to increase desirability, which defines the success of a landing page. You want to make people wanting what you’re showing.”

The users’ desirability is defined by two important characteristics:

• Perceived value: How much does this product or service mean to me?

• Culture fit: How do I feel about this company and their appearance?

Perceived value is influenced by a number of factors. Here are a couple of examples:

• What is my personal gain by taking action? An action could be making a purchase or subscribing to a newsletter.

• What is my return on investment? Usually, we trade money for a product. The price point set by a company influences our decision.

• How does this product relate to me? We’re human beings so we have our personal preferences. There’s a bigger chance you’ll purchase a portrait if you like art.

...And Experimentation

One can never be 100% certain what will work design-wise and content-wise, which is why it's important to test. “We’re always running A/B tests around the system to test certain hypotheses we have,” Kim explains. Without testing claims about user behavior it’s nothing more than a hypothesis.

It's important to remember that your landing page is always an experiment. You can try to improve the user’s desirability to take action by having a closed beta, creating a viral campaign or make a humorous video. As David from Mailchimp puts it: “Fortunately, there’s no right or wrong way to cook up something delicious”.

A bold landing page is worth the risk. Take some time to look around and be inspired. For example, Fueled loves to showcase landing pages that inspire our designers. A strong, polished brand with attractive company values will help you improving desirability. Desirability is the secret to make users click.

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