This is mostly aimed at some of the intermediate-advanced marketers whom I know routinely go about these forums. Consider this hypothetical scenario: If there was a premium landing page creation service that charged, let's say .. $100-$300 for providing you with a top notch landing page guaranteed to work; Do you think there would be a market for that? I mean, regardless of word count and time involved in writing it. Just charging you $xxx for a single landing page for whatever product or service you're selling, either as vendor or affiliate. Would you go for something like that, if there was some kind of bullet-proof guarantee... such as the right to get unlimited revisions (let's say one per month to let the servers collect traffic data), until the job gets done, meaning that you actually get your money back, like 10 times over? ... does that sound like something that would tickle your fancy, or do you suppose there wouldn't be a market for that? I hope I don't get banned over this thread, but I'm thinking of creating such a service (actually I took a break from writing the landing page for this service, because I wanted to gather some feedback on this concent). I really hope this doesn't come across as spam. This is genuinely market research, and I know I can gather valuable information from the members of this forums. Thanks in advance for the cooperation, Pedro
if you will be able to track whether your client got their investment back or no, then yes, your service would definitely work. Otherwise you might get a client or two, but the rest who are already premium affiliates, they would rather spend a day or two on a landing page themselves, rather than outsource it
I have not found anyone yet that has produced any content that has made me any money. If i could find such a person, then we would be doing business forever because that means this person would be providing a service that actually makes me money, but I have found no such person to provide such a service, as anyone that does this sorta stuff keeps everything to themselves by making and publishing their own content. First off, you would have to prove your service to me first, why? The moment that I heard "guaranteed to make you money" red flags automaticly went up... make me money first, then we do business forever.... keep making me money, we keep doing business....
good point. I think Smitten has to take this into serious account if he is planning to launch such a service
Of course there's a market for that! If a landing page is actually going to convert for me, then it's worth plenty of money. After all, it's making me plenty of money! (Considering that I send traffic)
@ludwig, @dscurlock: It's great you're bringing that up! Because actually... I *am* taking those concerns very seriously. In fact, there are two major stumbling blocks I have come across, while thinking up this advanced writing service: "how will customers know for sure this service will work?" and "what kind of guarantees can I offer to reassure new customers?", I don't have a definite answer yet, but I've already drawn some of my long-running customers into helping me test-drive this service, and we should be able to flesh out all the technicalities the best way possible: through practice and experimentation. Within a month or so, I should be ready for the official launch of my landing page creation service... but it should work along the lines of: 1- a conversion goal of some kind most be established for the landing page, and mutually agreed upon. 2- there will be unlimited revisions of each landing page until goal is met, which should happen within a trimester 3- there possibly will be a "split the difference" 50% refund guarantee if goal isn't met after a year or so. 4- revisions will take place at with monthly intervals, as to allow the LP to gather traffic and conversions data 5- revisions will only take place if the customer provides me with said data, as to allow me to effectively revise LP @ Crossroad, that's another vital point you've brought up: Only by delivering actual results, i.e. "copy that gets the job done" can I expect this service to succeed on the long run... however, customers must also realize that the best landing page in the world wouldn't convert without targeted traffic ... and how targeted a traffic source really is, that is somewhat of a subjective matter. Further, it's easy to see how conversion goals can easily be tampered with. As such, none of the above is written in stone yet... especially since it raises another important issue, which I'm still trying to figure out the answer to, before officially introducing this service: "how will I (as the service provider) keep from being defrauded by ill-willed customers?" Any ideas?
I really don't know. But if you would provide such a service at that price... you have another customer for life.
Hello everyone. It's good to see there are actually some people who are expressing interest on this upcoming service. Even though I'm still thinking things through, I'll just keep brainstorming in public... it's working great so far. At this point, I'm considering offering an additional service to go with the landing page: tutoring on how to use it. In that sense, I might as well get down to it; What will it take to get a great ROI from a great landing page? Traffic, of course. Without traffic, even the best landing page in the world would be useless. And you don't need just any kind of garbage traffic, too: you need the good stuff; highly focalized traffic --- laser-targeted, if possible. And how do you get traffic, nothing but the good stuff? There are possibly hundreds of "channels" from which you can get our traffic, but it really just boils down to two main ways: you either need TIME or MONEY. (Preferably both). If you've got time, you do SEO. You develop niche websites or authority websites, or both, and follow all the best practices, learn the importance of link building, and learn how to raise free organic traffic. This is usually the most profitable route (since after a while you can effectively get a decent auto-pilot stream of revenue), but it's also the most time-consuming and unresponsive. Not recommended unless you're in it for the long haul, or unless you're looking for a pretty neat hobby (meaning you can afford to wait for serious results) Think of it as planting an orchard, where each website is a tree that you will have to tend regularly for some time, until you start getting lots of fruit. If you've got money to invest, you do media buys: Pay Per Click, Pay Per View, Banners... anything goes. The goal here is driving traffic very quickly to a landing page, and hopefully get a positive ROI. This usually takes a bit of experimenting, but you get instant results. You can just go to AdWords or similar service and bid for your desired keywords, and you get traffic right way - at the snap of a finger, provided you just pay for it! Careful, though, because many novices waste thousands of dollars out of greed, assuming that success with media buys can be as easy as trowing a bunch of mudballs against the wall and hoping some of them will stick. If you're wise and careful and you enjoy playing the game (so to speak), it shouldn't take more than a couple of hundred dollars before you find a campaign that delivers consistent profit. This is the holy grail of media buys; when you find such a campaign, it's genuinely an instant cash multiplier. So, do you get the picture by now? 1) a good landing page is devised to drive visitors through a pre-planned route, leading to an action 2) no matter how good the funnel, nothing will happen unless you drive traffic through it 3) Two main ways to drive traffic: TIME or MONEY. a) TIME: SEO, organic traffic, comparable to an orchard (auto-pilot income) b) MONEY: media buys, PPC/PPV, comparable to a machine that multiplies money Hope this helps you understand more clearly the service I'm offering. The landing page is a marketing instrument that can work real magic on conversions.... meaning that creating this funnel in a certain way can make the difference between 1 conversion/action per 200 visitors (0,05%) to something more impressive like 1 conversion in 40 (2,5%). And sometimes, changing the most trivial element in a landing page, or just wording a headline differently, can make a *dramatic* impact on conversions. There are best practices when it comes to landing page creation - that's for sure, but each case is different, and the truly creative marketer *always* gets the upper hand in the conversions game. It's never enough repeating how a landing page, this traffic funnel of sorts, is essentially a powerful marketing instrument. Any page in your website can be a landing page - or all its pages can be, depending on your strategy. You always decide your strategy before anything else, but it can be geared towards selling clickbank products, amazon products, your granma's exquisite handmade bracelets.... anything goes! Here's a real life example. I shouldn't even bring this up, but since most of the people who have read so far are likely potential customers, here goes: The past few months, I've been having great success generating leads to a local used cars dealership. Hundreds of leads per month actually, from a website that was basically a lifeless brochure before I stepped in and introduced this sales funnel -- aimed at making visitors want to send over their contacts. And boy, does it work like a charm! In fact, if some of the people reading this are selling cars or even real estate offline (this specific strategy I've developed will only work for high-ticket products) offline do call me ASAP, because there's a real chance I'll have you moping the proverbial FLOOR with your so-called competition. As you can see, a good landing page is an instrument that will help you get more results from the same amount of traffic. As such, it's a tool that potentially can save you lots of TIME, while simultaneously making sure you get the most MONEY out of your investments. Well... this turned out to be pretty long-winded. But you know what? I've written this post kind of like I would write a landing page for you... except this is just a crude draft by comparison. Now do tell me ... can you feel the magic? Copy that sells isn't just about words; it's the whys and wherefores of why you put them together.
there are a few people doing this already, here are some: launchsplash dot com launchsoon dot com sitestomp dot com
$100-$300 is too expensive when you consider that: - there are many similar product much cheaper - mostly newbies buy such services because those that make money already wownt waste their time and have better/cheaper means of creating landing pages - such services generally are not of any use (only to the owner to make a bunch of money maybe) because evryone would end with the same page- which will look cheap
hey smitten. always been a fan of your insightful comments so if you have examples of related work in my niches, I'd be more than willing to give it a shot. Though your scope of work in designing a premium landing page is sort of vague, I'd love to know what it encompasses as I'm a very interested potential client. cheers and good luck.
I would be more than happy to pay $100-$300 for a great landing page that converts! However, I do not think that someone can guarantee that it will convert well (unless you're an amazing copywriter)... and most of the amazing copywriters charge $1,000 - $20,000 to write one
I would personally be very interested in this. Writing high-converting landing pages isn't my strong suite. But its like others have pointed out, If I were going to pay even 100.00 for a page it would have to be highly unique, not appear cookie cutter (e.g. 99% of clickbank affiliate / vendor pages). And it would have to be good enough to convince me that the product is worth buying.
Before proceeding to the round of replies, there are some points which I feel need emphasizing: 1) a landing page is *any* page in your website that is devised to funnel visitors landing on that page towards a specific goal. 2) in any landing page, graphics and text should work together, but it's *always* the copy writing that gets the job done. 3) the service I'm proposing is essentially copy writing and integration of landing pages within your existing website. Now for some 1-on-1 replies: @henrtp18: those sites you mentioned are geared towards landing page design, whereas I'm offering a service that's mostly landing page copy writing. @web_18designer: I'm not in the graphic design business, and I'm not looking to educate novices on the importance on landing page writing; my goal is helping intermediate-advanced webmasters improve their conversions and refine their sales funnels. @SEOsharpshooter: exactly; graphic elements certainly have their place in a landing page, but it's *always* the copy that gets the conversion. @tonysanders: I'm still going over the technicalities that such a service would entail, but if you're interested in joining my group of "beta clients" (and getting a discounted deal in exchange for providing feedback that helps me set this up) just shoot me an e-mail or PM! @alexs464: you're right that I can't guarantee a landing page will convert... but at very least, I can guarantee I will keep revising it until conversion goals have been met. And the sooner this happens, the better for everyone involved! Right? @J_Data: most of the work in creating a landing page that performs well is stragetic in nature. Usually, the best way to get results is starting with the "best practices" (i.e. cookie cutter) and gradually refining the elements in the page (copy writing and graphics positioning), until the sweet spot has been reached, where the landing page looks fairly unique and delivers great performance. Final thoughts; after doing a bit of test driving with my group of beta clients (whom I'm offering discounted rates in exchange for insights that help me flesh out technical details that will make this work for everyone), I have reached a clearer vision of how this might work. It would be something along the lines of: a) I'd provide free landing page consulting based on costumer input b) interested customers would specify their conversion goals for LP's c) initial payment for the service would be symbolic, maybe just $100 d) escrow would be set up, further payments released upon completion of goals e) I'd keep revising the landing pages monthly until all goals have been met
@monnax: Well... I think you just absent-mindedly wrote that, in a notably uncommitted effort to raise your post count ;-)