How do I test my idea with a landing page?

How do I test my idea with a landing page?

When it comes to launching a new product or innovative service, I always ask: “How many customers have you shown your idea to?” That's because it's now easier than ever to test an idea with potential customers. Testing may sound like a big investment of time, money and other resources, but the opposite is true!

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Why use a landing page?

With a landing page, you can test a product without much effort before it even exists. If the idea is a direct hit, perfect! But sometimes we realize that a product idea still needs to be adapted to survive in the market. Or we realize that the value proposition is good, but appeals to a different target group than we had assumed. This early customer feedback then allows you to develop your products in a customer-centric way. This saves time and reduces the risk of bringing something to market that no one wants to buy.

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What do I need to consider for the landing page?

A landing page is a simple, digital website that explains your value proposition with a call-to-action (CTA). There are many good tips and tricks on the internet for building a landing page. But if your goal is to validate a product idea, there are a few points you should pay special attention to when building the landing page.

1. Value proposition
2. Heading
3. Images
4. CTA
   
5. pretest
6. traffic
7. analytics
8. the small print
   

Value proposition

The ultimate goal of the landing page is to validate your value proposition. That is, to find out who is interested in the idea and for what reasons. Consequently, the value proposition is the most important element of the landing page.

Before you start building a landing page, you need to get to the heart of your value proposition. Alexander Osterwalder's Value Proposition Canvas helps with this. What does the target group look like? What jobs are customers trying to do? What customer benefit does the product provide? What problems does the service solve?

It's worth formulating the value proposition in a team. The book Value Proposition Design has excellent workshop instructions.

The purpose of a landing page is to spark the interest of potential customers and encourage them to learn more about your idea. Ultimately, customers need to understand the value proposition.

If you want a conversion, you need to make sure that your value proposition matches your customers' problem. You should focus on the benefits that the customer receives through your solution. What is really important from your customers' point of view?

Heading

Good texts are extremely important! The easier it is for visitors to understand the idea, the more likely they are to stay on the page. Remember that many visitors may not scroll down. Neil Patel says: “8 out of 10 people only read the headline. 2 out of 10 will look at the rest of your page.” So it's worth investing some time in the headline.

The headline should...

• ...be fully readable without visitors having to scroll.
• ...refer to the value proposition.
• ...show how your idea solves a big problem for customers.

And the whole thing has to be formulated simply enough for customers to understand quickly. No easy task.

You can find some tips here: How to Write Copy That Converts | 5 Things You Need to Know About Writing GREAT Marketing Copy

Images

To test a new product idea, you need convincing images on the landing page. Strong visual elements help to convey the value and attractiveness of the products. “Seeing is believing” is the name of the game. A striking image or a 3D rendering to show people what this product will look like in the future helps to get your vision across. Such virtual prototypes make it possible to gauge customer interest before anything physical goes into production. So it's worth having compelling images and renderings produced for the landing page. You can find some examples from us here.

Clear call to action

If you want to validate your idea with a landing page, the call to action (CTA) is usually an invitation to complete a short survey. You want to learn more about your visitors and find out why they are interested in your idea. Online surveys are ideal for testing your assumptions. However, the CTA must also offer visitors to the landing page added value. After all, what do visitors get out of filling out your survey? This is where you need to get creative. How about a raffle? Or a waiting list? Is there anything to download?

Pre-test

Test your landing page with someone who hasn't seen it before you put it online. It seems obvious that a landing page should be easy to understand. Unfortunately, however, many landing pages are written by experts for experts. That's the curse of knowledge. It means that you already know too much about your idea. This can lead to your customers not understanding what you're trying to offer. It's best to show your landing page to two or three people who don't work in your company first. The aim is to ensure that the headline, images and CTA are easy for potential customers to understand. We call this a usability test or simply a pre-test.

Traffic

A great landing page is useless if no one sees it. Websites need traffic! In other words, visitors. These come from a variety of sources. They may see your online ads, your posts on social networks, your email campaigns, your guerrilla marketing with QR codes, or they may be part of a consumer panel. Whatever the source, it's worth using channels that are used particularly often by your target group.

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Analytics

It is very important to know how users behave on your landing page. Ultimately, you want to validate your value proposition. It is therefore a good idea to measure the behavior of your visitors as they move through the site. The most popular tracking tool is Google Analytics. It is free and relatively easy to set up. You can easily view various user statistics, such as how many visitors come to the site, what they click on, and what sources the traffic comes from. However, you have to remember the small print.

The small print

Ok, so you've now created a landing page. Congratulations! But before you can go live, you still need to comply with the legal requirements. A landing page for a product that doesn't yet exist is perfectly legal. But you need to consider a few things. These include:

• a note about cookies (“cookie banner”),
• a privacy policy (reviewed by a lawyer),
• contact information for the company and a contact person.

If you have thought of everything, you can now go live.

Conclusion

Building a landing page is easier than ever. But in the end, it is only a means to an end. The ultimate goal is to test your product idea and validate your value proposition.