What is the purpose of a landing page design? Give people aesthetic pleasure? Eleken is a design agency. We are made to design things that are aesthetically pleasing. But eye-catching design isn’t all your landing page has to offer. It must convert visitors into leads.
According to the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, the conversion rate of the SaaS landing pages is 10.46% lower than those in other industries. Making a high-converting SaaS landing page is indeed a challenging task, but we’ve figured how to solve it.
In this article, we’ll show you what a conversion-focused design looks like and how to implement it on your landing page. But before we show you some great SaaS landing page examples, let’s first clarify some essential terms to make sure we all mean one thing when we use the word “landing page.”
Landing page and conversion
A landing page is a single web page that is designed for a particular marketing campaign. That’s where the user is redirected to after clicking on a link on the web (an email link, ads from social networks, etc.).
Conversion, in turn, is a valuable action a visitor performs on your website. When creating a landing page you may expect the visitor to reach you via email or chat, try out the demo of your product, sign up for a webinar, subscribe to a newsletter, etc. These actions that your site visitors are supposed to take on your landing page can be considered as conversions. The more people take these actions, the higher the conversion rate.
According to your purposes, there are different types of landing pages.
The types of landing pages
Before creating a landing page you need to define what you want it to accomplish. Promote a demo? Gather user’s emails? Offer some additional content to the lead? Once you have the goal, you can decide what kind of a landing page you need to create.
There are four main types of SaaS landing pages:
- Click-through pages
- Lead capture pages
- Demo and sign up pages
- Thank you pages
Click-through page
A Click-through page is a type of start page without a form. Its purpose is to convey a message in simple words and make the lead click the call to action button and move to the place where the actual purchase begins. We try to show the best features of our SaaS product to move the prospect to our pricing pages. In short, we use a click-through page to warm up the reader before the purchase.
Let’s look at some SaaS click-through pages examples with great UI design.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a leading email marketing SaaS.
Let's look at the Marketing Campaign Segmentation page – a page on the MailChimp's website that talks about their segmentation tools.
This page gives the reader various options to learn more about the tool’s value. From this page, the user can get to:
- the options Mailchimp offers to filter the audience data.
- pre-built segments
- personalization tools
- a case study
- audience segmentation guides
All of these transitions help the user get to know the product better and move them further in their purchase journey.
Adobe
The next example we would like to highlight is Adobe, the computer software company, and its photography plan for photoshop and lightroom photographers page. It presents a beneficial offer for those who are interested in photo editing.
Apart from redirecting the prospect to pricing pages this SaaS landing helps to:
- learn more about photoshop and lightroom separately.
- check what is included in the plan and learn more about each app
- find answers to frequently asked questions
- read tips for photographers in related articles
The whole page was built for a specific audience - photographers. Each CTA on this page leads the visitor to the relevant and interesting information that prompts further investigation and finally leads to purchase.
To sum up, a click-through landing is a good choice if your goal is to prepare the reader for the next step in their purchase journey.
When you want to collect contact information about your SaaS websites’ visitors for your lead generation campaigns, it’s time to switch to the next SaaS landing page template.
Lead capture page
Everyone loves gifts, right? When somebody gives you a present, you feel grateful and want to give something back. This is how the Lead capture page works. The SaaS businesses can gather their reader’s emails in exchange for a free checklist, webinar, ebook, etc.
The prize you offer should be valuable enough to a visitor, that they would be willing to exchange their personal information for the reward.
Here is a couple of good lead capture page examples:
Website Grader by HubSpot
Hubspot is cloud software that provides help in marketing and sales. Its Website Grader tool is quite simple, but it perfectly fulfills the task: generates leads.
This form consists of only two fields. Short forms gather more leads, as people are more willing to provide less personal data.
One more key factor when creating a lead capture page is the Privacy Policy link. Due to the increase in cybercrime, users are a bit worried when giving their emails to some companies. Hubspot didn’t forget to add their Privacy Policy which helps them to gain more trust.
After submitting the name of the website and user’s email address the tool shows the performance of the site and offers to optimize it.
Here the visitor is supposed to “Start a free course” – this CTA on the right immediately attracts attention. Even if the visitor doesn't convert, HubSpot still has their emails so they can send them lead nurturing emails to turn them into customers.
The next example we want to provide is again from Hubspot, but it is a completely different one.
Hubspot
This time Hubspot is offering an ebook. The mechanism is not complicated. Once the visitor appears on the Hubspot's site they spot the title of the book with its picture. Hubspot uses white space and a CTA to keep the reader focused on their goal.
In case of hesitation, the landing page contains a short description of the book, pictures with a book preview, and frequently asked questions.
All the above helps to convert the right target audience.
At the bottom of the page, the prospect sees an opt-in form.
This form is longer and asks more details which means this SaaS company wants to collect high-quality leads.
In conclusion, the lead capture landing page is perfect for those who want to gather information about their visitors and convert them at any suitable time.
Demo and sign up page
The principal objective of the demo and sign up pages is very straightforward: to prompt the visitor to start a free trial or watch a demo.
Demo and sign up pages are better to offer to users at the decision stage of their buying journey. There is no need in adding more elements than a headline, opt-in, and the CTA.
The above principle is well shown in the following samples:
Dropbox Business
Dropbox for Business offers its demo with a very clean SaaS design.
The use of whitespace makes the content very straightforward and easy to perceive. There won’t be any problems to understand what to do next. The length of the form allows submitting it without scrolling. There are only essential fields not to cause users hesitation.
PublishXI
PublishXi is a cloud content making software. Its landing page was designed by Eleken’s experts.
The destruction-free whitespace design and a clearly visible button prompt the user to perform the desired action.
Then the click on the call to action lets the reader proceed with choosing a convenient day and time.
Demo and sign up landing page allows gathering high-quality leads who are willing to try out your service.
Thank you page
A thank you landing is a place the lead is redirected to after submitting a form. It gives more than just a chance to show your gratitude. It allows you to offer your users some additional information about the promoted service: read a related article, share something to social media, complete a survey, etc.
Check out these examples:
Kickresume
Kickresume is an online resume builder.
After downloading Kickresume’s ebook the user sees this thank you page. It offers to share the ebook with your friends on social networks. This way Kickresume can generate additional leads.
AWeber
AWeber helps companies with email marketing.
AWeber welcomes the customer and gives further instructions on where to find information about the email course. It also asks the participant to whitelist them by adding Aweber’s email to the customer's address book not to miss anything. Users clearly understand what they are supposed to do and can go further in their buyer’s journey.
To sum up, all four types landings can be effective when applying the right SaaS landing page practice and completing them with appropriate elements.
High-converting landing page elements
To make the customer reach the bottom of SaaS sales funnel, you need to put technical information about the software in easy-to-understand words, make all the visuals relevant and convincing and you have to look and sound trustworthy to your audience. Designing the right components on your landing page will contribute to achieving this goal. Let’s learn what are high-converting landing page elements.
Headline
A headline is the first impression the company makes on the visitor. Firstly, it should draw the prospect’s attention and motivate for further investigation.
An informative headline identifies the potential customer’s problem and offers a solution. It should be short (no more than 20 words) and attention-grabbing.
Here are some examples of clear headlines:
Slack
Slack is “where work happens”. This phrase is very straightforward in explaining the reader the main value proposition of the product.
Shopify
Shopify’s title describes the value proposition of the e-commerce platform in a simple manner using only one sentence. In addition, the font size perfectly matches the header and makes the whole page look appealing.
To sum up, a clear and informative headline is the first step in raising the conversion.
Let’s move on to the next point.
Call to action
The call to action button is an unavoidable landing page element. Every component on the landing should point at it. A properly designed CTA can work wonders with your conversion rates.
Proper CTA design includes a call to action button of an appropriate size (big enough to notice) and persuasive copy.
Look at the following examples for SaaS web design inspiration:
Wix
This example shows the result of using all tips above: contrast, size, and copy. The positioning of the CTA shows the logical transition from the headline to the “Get Started” button.
Gamaya
Gamaya’s homepage design for their SaaS product was created by our company. You can check its case study here.
Making the CTA green, in this case, helped to stand it out from the white background and made it difficult to ignore. Also, the copy “Our solutions” is very clear and the visitor knows exactly what information they are going to see after clicking on it.
High-converting CTAs are usually big, contrasting, and include a persuasive copy.
Testimonials
The best way to feel trustworthy is by showing real satisfied customers as social proof. People don't care about how good you think your product is, they want to see the results.
The trustworthy testimonials require using real full names of the clients, company names, and photos next to their success stories. Adding a video with dedicated customers or a small statistic of the rising number of clients will also help you prove that the company is trustworthy and prosperous.
Let’s see what dose of inspiration the next SaaS pages can give:
Zoom
Zoom gives readers an opportunity to watch a video and learn how their company is solving problems in different industries. They show us real people with their full names talking about the benefits they get using this platform.
But even the most persuasive testimonials won’t help convert your visitors if they don’t get what your service is about.
Clarity and transparency
You can’t hope that readers will accidentally try the product just to see whether it works for them or not. Clear and straightforward content on your page is vital and contributes to the conversion rates.
It is not only the text that should explain to the reader what your software does, the images or the headline should also convey the core of your product. Technical terms are usually too complicated for a regular user, combining them with appropriate images can help.
Look at how relevant visuals can add transparency to the product on a SaaS features page.
PieSync
The visitor chooses the case and PieSync provides them with a visualization of their platform. It leaves users with no questions about how the platform works.
SurveyMonkey
The headline is quite clear, but visitors can still wonder “why do I need to take surveys?” SurveyMonkey complemented the headline with a photo that shows the real case of using their surveys.
Note, clear explanations should be a top priority for all types of SaaS landing pages.
There isn’t one universal key to success
We hope that this article gave you proper insights on the topic of high-converting landing pages.
Of course, what works for one product doesn’t work for another. Making the SaaS landing page convert is a complex process that requires analysis, time, targeting the right audience, and many other resources. If you have any questions left, reach out to us for a consultation.
