Check ideas by fighting: fake landing page

The main problem of any startup idea is that no one knows if anyone needs it at all or not. Are people ready to change their behavior, their habits and start using a new product? And most importantly - are they ready to pay for it?

Tens-hundreds of thousands of startups are launched annually, without knowing the answer to this question. This is understandable - one can never be absolutely sure of the success of a new business. Nevertheless, there are several methods for testing ideas - and all of them, with varying degrees, can predict the future of a product. One of the most effective methods is developing a fake landing page .

Let's start "unwind" the term from the end. Landing page ("landing page") is the page of the site to which the user navigates by clicking on the advertising message. Usually this page briefly and fully describes the essence of the product, as well as the action button, for example, “Log in”, “Start”, “Find out more”. The purpose of the landing page is to “take into the hands of” a person who came from outside through advertising, quickly and clearly explain what is happening here, and show one way where to go next. The transition to the home page of the site, as many advertisers often make, is usually a serious mistake - a large amount of information that is already understandable to a regular user, frightens the beginner - and do not even hope that he will find the section "About Us" or "What's This?" .

With the advent of the fake prefix - fake, unreal - the sacred meaning of the whole idea of ​​testing a future startup on reality is manifested. We create a landing page for a product that does not exist yet, we “drive” traffic by means of an advertisement and check how our potential customers behave. The final result is a clear answer - how many of those who are basically interested in the proposed idea (clicked on an advertisement) are ready to become your customers (clicked on the “Log in” button on the fake landing page).

Just in case, I remind you that this is not an absolute measure of any idea. Moreover, this method is absolutely unsuitable for a revolutionary startup - people simply cannot understand what you are trying to sell, their thinking is not ready for it. Nevertheless, for most startups this is a valid and demonstrative test - try it yourself and see for yourself.

Well, now closer to "try." The following are a few steps that you must follow to implement the fake landing page. As part of each step, I will sometimes jump to the results and further steps - do not be alarmed, the system will soon be extremely clear.

0. Domain

Just register a domain. The only advice is that the domain name should be simply trustworthy.

1. Landing page

Let me remind you that this is a page with a brief and clear description of the product, a clinging picture on the subject and a single large button-action. Carefully consider the text on the page - this is your last chance to explain the essence of a potential client. The text on the bright and large button can be “Login”, or “Get Access”, or “Learn More” - depending on the product.

Here is an example of a bad landing page - a dim and inconspicuous button, too much unreadable text.

And here is an example of a good landing page (yes, this is already a real working service, but it is an excellent example as an example). Bright button, short text, thematic photos, immediately explaining the essence of the product. I specifically showed here the German site - to illustrate the importance of a general perception of information on the page. Even without understanding the text, just a couple of seconds is enough to understand the offer of the service.

When you click on the button, show the page where you ask the user to leave an email. Now, when you click on “OK”, it remains to show a message with “Thank you” and, depending on your honesty, a notice that the service has not yet been launched, but “as soon as so immediately!” :)

To build such a page, it is not necessary to pay millions of Lebedev Studio - it is enough to use services like this , which allow you to quickly and easily get a nice result.

Email is best sent to the mailchimp mailing service to immediately start maintaining a database of potential customers.

Your page is almost ready! Now we will prepare it for how we experiment with it.

2. Google Analytics

The next step is to embed Google Analytics code (or Yandex.Metrica) into the pages. You need to track all pages (initial, after clicking on the button-action and after entering the email) and all events - clicking on the button. Then build a funnel of the following type:

I went to the site -> Clicked the Next button -> Left an email

You can build a funnel using Google Analytics: Admin -> Goals -> register the final page (with the words Thank you), indicating Goal Type = Destination -> check Use funnel -> check all pages, starting with the first.

As a result, you will get something like this:

At each step, the number of users who entered this stage + those who left (closed the page) + those who passed to the next stages will be marked.

3. Advertising campaign.

So, you now have landing page and customized analytics. Your next task is to bring visitors to the site. To do this you need to conduct an advertising campaign.

I will not go into the features of advertising campaigns, since this is a topic for a separate article. However, the most important thing here is to make an advertisement (it should be interesting, but not be too general, so as not to get a “left” click) and to target correctly - who exactly should show the advertisement. Here you will need an understanding of the portrait of the target consumer - to whom to send your advertising messages.

Launch a promotional campaign and spend $ 100-200.

4. Analysis

The active part of the first cycle is over. Ideally, you received several dozen email addresses of your potential customers. Save them - with good luck, they will become your customers.

Well, now it's time to analyze all the data and draw the necessary conclusions. Let's start with the main thing - remember the funnels we built? Let's see the results. Pay attention to the conversion rates. How much do they suit you? Where is the weakest point (lowest coefficient)? Why?

How many people from the target audience will become your customers? ( p = everyone who left the email / everyone who came to the page * 100%) Does this size of the client base suit you?

And now the most interesting thing is to calculate the cost of attracting a single client (cost per click / p ). Compare this value with the expected revenue from one buyer. Are you staying in profit per client?

If the answers to all these questions do not suit you, it's time to go to the next step.

5. Testing, including A / B

Having a real audience is a significant plus, allowing you to get the opportunity not only to see how it evaluates your offer.

Start with your initial presentation - now, instead of one advertising campaign, launch 3-5 with different slogans, taglines, images. The winning option will help you greatly in the future to tell other people about the product - since you already know that they are “touched”.

The next step is A / B testing on the page. With the help of various tools, such as Google Web Optimizer (it is now embedded in Google Analytics and is called Google Analytics Content Experiments ), you can show different versions of the site to different users. For example, you can show a page with a detailed description and a chart for one half of users, and three or four words with a beautiful photo to the other half, then start testing (the final goal of testing is how many users from each half clicked on the action button and left their email) , wait 100-200 hits and get results. For example, in our case it may turn out that your users like the schedule, not the photo - this kind of information is extremely useful for future marketing.

Try to fix some of the weakest transitions in your funnel. If some testing has shown that a change in the product is necessary - it's time to think about it. If the test results only please you and confirm your predictions - congratulations. If not, then maybe you should think about seriously changing the product or finishing the work right now.

As a result, let's see what we just did. We made a clear and separable from you (you do not need to come and tell yourself) a proposal for the consumer, we tested the offer on a real audience - we learned how your potential user accepts the product. We also tested several versions of the proposal - and now we have to stabilize the final form of the product - as well as actually made up sketches for further marketing activities.

The fake landing page development method is very useful in order to try and sell your offer to customers at minimal cost — and to change the product with imaginary losses if the test results did not suit you.