[VIDEOS] What we can learn from Drift and Toggle's home pages
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Over the past little while, I've been creating weekly video home page reviews. (I'm using them to promote a paid home page review service - I'll outline that more later).
Each video is picture-in-picture of me going through a company's home page and highlighting areas where it can improve, along with the broader lessons the viewer can take from that feedback.
Stuff you've probably heard me say before - like "be specific," "target the right stage of awareness," and so on and so forth.
Take a look at two of them (5-ish minutes long) and my summary (if you can't be bothered watching a video - I never can):
#1 - Drift can get away with vague benefits - but you can't
Chatbot provider Drift is a leader by pretty much every definition. Their brand is top of their buyers' minds, people know what they do - they've worked hard for that over the years, and now they're reaping the rewards.
The flow-on effect of this is that they can get away with a very vague website headline and subhead. Their home page doesn't say much of anything at all. Take a look:
Pretty vague. Reading this, it is not clear to me what Drift does, who they work for or why those people work with them.
Here's the thing to remember: Drift can get away with this. But you are not Drift.
I see lots of companies look at the leader in their space, figure "they must know what they're doing," and emulate their approach. But leaders can get away with vague messaging because they're leaders! They don't need to explain who they are and what they do because their strong brand has done that for them.
If you don't have a #1 brand, or even #2 brand, then you need to be a lot more concrete on your home page.
Take a look at the video review to get into more detail on this:
#2: Toggl focuses on the wrong stage of awareness
When people are not thinking about your product or service (IE, they're browsing social media, they're watching TV, they're walking past a billboard), they often need more aspirational copy that grabs their attention. Rather than talk about the specific benefits of your product, you can talk about wider benefits - the deeper need you solve rather than the specific pain point you alleviate.
But people on a website home page are not in this situation. They have, one way or the other, made their way to your home page. Maybe they clicked an ad, maybe they saw your founder speak, maybe they did a search for your category name.
Either way, the fact that they are on your home page indicates that they are at least vaguely aware of the problem you solve, and the category you are in.
Which brings me to time tracking software provider Toggl's home page. Take a look:
The mistake Toggl has made here is to position their home page copy as if their audience is in that less-aware stage, with "Time tracking for better work, not overwork." That is a broad, aspirational benefit. It's sure to get someone's attention, but it doesn't tell the reader why they should care about Toggl specifically.
In the video, I compare them to competitor Clockify, who I reckon did a much better job of positioning their copy in relation to their audience's relatively high stage of awareness. Tune in:
Why do these videos exist?
I'm always berating companies for committing random acts of marketing, so I should share with you the plan for these videos.
I've just created a new packaged service -a home page review for $799. This is basically a longer, more in-depth version of one of these videos, but for your home page specifically. It's also accompanied by a one-pager with the three highest-impact, lowest effort changes you can make to improve your home page today.
I figured that if someone is going to spend $799 on some video feedback, they will probably want at least an idea of what that feedback might look like. Plus, I need to get better at making them, and the best way to do that is to . . . just do it.
I'm promoting these through Facebook ads at the moment, and I'll be doing some fancy remarketing to promote a more pointed offer to people who watched the videos when they happened upon them in their feeds.
On top of that, and probably most importantly, they're just fun to do.
Anyway, hope you got some value out of them. See you in a couple weeks.
Sam
PS: If you can't get enough of these videos, check out a third one, where I work through ActiveCampaign's home page, and why it's a great example of a company using specific benefit statements to write more persuasive copy.
PPS: Like I said above, this is all around a new service I'm launching - a review of your home page for $799. That's USD if you're overseas, NZD+GST if you're here in NZ. Find out more and book one here.
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