How to make a Lead Generation Landing Page for Startup

10 min readMay 22, 2024

When you get a business idea, what do you do with it? Start developing the product right away… Or do you find a way to test the idea first?

When you have a digital business that isn’t exactly taking off, what do you do? Start improving your product blindfolded… Or do you test which improvement will work?

Before you commit to any serious investment of time and money, it is a good idea to test the possible financial outcomes. Also, to form a potential client base along the way. Or to simply to launch a marketing campaign to connect with your clients. You probably already guessed that we are talking about making a lead-generation landing page for your startup.

In this post, we’ll talk about the what, the why, and the how of lead generation landing page making.

What is a Lead Generation Landing Page and Its Purposes?

A Lead Generation Landing Page is a single web page to which users land from outside sources and on which users perform their ‘converting’ action.

Outside sources can differ. Users can get to this landing page from:

Social media posts
Search engines
Email campaigns
Advertising
Video links, etc.

Converting is different for each product and business. Mainly, conversion means turning user interest into user action that your startup targets. The lead-generation is the contact information of your potential client.

Why would a client leave their contact information? The lead generation page always offers something in exchange for that. It can be:

Registering for a free webinar
A free book or pdf
Signing up for newsletters
Filling out a form
Registering for an event
Requesting a demo of a product or service
Following a promo or one-time offer

Lead-generation landing pages can be developed in different ways. They also serve different purposes. For example, a lead generation landing page can be:

– the only single stand-alone page you develop to test product ideas;

– one of the pages of your MVP tailored to achieve current lead generation goals;

– a single page developed separately from your MVP for a particular marketing campaign.

Lead Generation Landing Page vs Homepage of Your MVP

Even if a lead generation landing page is present within an MVP, it would be different than simply a homepage.

A homepage is

an overall view of the web application.
presents comprehensive information about the business.
includes navigation.

Overall, a homepage has a broader scope: even if it offers to sign up for a newsletter or register, it is not the focus of the homepage.

In contrast, a lead generation page:

includes limited information so that a user knows enough to complete the target action;
the target action is the main goal is the centerpiece of this page;
is a primary marketing tool for your startup.

To sum up, a lead generation landing page has a clear target user in mind. It is focused on target action, often in exchange for some kind of offer.

Why Do You Need to Make a Lead Generation Landing Page for Your Startup?

The main goal of any MVP or startup for that matter is to find a target audience matching their offering. For that reason, you define several different types of users and match them with your value proposition. So how do you measure that you’ve found that niche? How do you know if your product resonates with the target user?

So, this is why you need to make a lead generation landing page. And, most likely, several of them. Especially, at the first stages of developing your business idea. It is a main tool when you just try to test the waters.

These are 3 main reasons why you need a lead generation landing page.

Reason 1 — Consider Your Landing Page an Experimentation Lab

Does your product work? It is not a question of the application functionality. Here, it is the question: does the product idea work for your audience? Then,

how well does your product work?
When people learn about your offer, do they want to ‘convert’?
Is there an audience big enough for your product?
What if you make a certain improvement to your offering, will more people be interested in it?

Launching your landing page gives you a platform to answer these questions. It allows you to test the Idea of the product against the user’s Interest and Action.

Reason 2 Tailor Your Product to User Personas

Not only do you have the opportunity to tweak your offer, but you can also tailor it to different users. Remember we made the distinction that the landing page is not a homepage. It is not generic. So, it should only be for some types of users you target. You should customize everything from the information to the type of target action.

One type of user will be drawn by a free offer.
Another user category will be able to pay for a promotional offer.
With one category, you expect only a sign-up for newsletters.
With others, you might schedule a one-to-one sales meeting.

Plus, when you use forms and questionnaires, you make sure you get the most relevant data for your business. You can even include questions that test whether your campaign and product attract the right type of user.

Reason 3 Quality Data Collection

The comparison with a homepage will help to make the point clear. Homepage accepts users landing from all kinds of sources.

Those who saw a post and jumped to your page.
Those who searched for related keywords on Google and came from organic search.
Those who saw an ad and clicked a link.

Then they were given a comprehensive overview of your product and did some different actions.

Some stayed for a while on a homepage.
Some jumped through navigation links.
Some browsed catalogues.
Some got stuck on the product info page.

This all gives a lot of data, but it is generic. It is hard to trace the journey of a particular user and the effectiveness of certain types of product information.

With a lead-generation landing page, you can

Target a user coming from a particular source,
or certain user types,
test specific product information, and
aim for an exact valuable action.

For instance, a landing page can be developed for Instagram. A target user is offered a tailored recommendation based on the filled-out questionnaire. As a bonus step, you can offer users to pay for some plans based on the same questionnaire.

How Do You Make an Effective Lead Generation Landing Page?

Let’s start with the statistics. Lead generation pages are built for conversions. The image below presents landing page conversion data across different industries. The difference between the Average and the Mean indicates that:

many companies are getting it wrong and failing their landing pages.
there are a few outliers whose landing pages immensely outperform all others.

One doesn’t cancel the other.

For instance, landing pages for education services convert on average at 14.2%. But based on the number of campaigns, the mean is 5.8%. So the majority of pages are rather performing below the average.

Real estate is a competitive field and its average conversion is 7.4%. Twice as low. Yet, the majority performs even worse with the mean of 2.6%.

So, keep on reading about elements to include on your landing page to be in the best-performing category. Also, you can trust professionals to guide you with expert Startup Services.

Lead generation landing pages are meant to be very targeted. So there are only a few things you put there. Especially, if you want them to be effective. Simplicity is the key. It is not like you want the user to spend time on your page or measure engagement time. Your goal is to present information so that the user can quickly grasp it and perform a target action. So, here are the essential things.

Impactful Title

It must grab the attention of the kind of user you’re targeting.

Let’s imagine a landing page for a product: gear for professional climbers.

The landing page aims to get user info in exchange for pdf with equipment suggestions (basically, a product catalog). The title can be: “Pro Gear: Elite Climbers Equipment Advice”.
If the target is first-time climbers, they need basic advice. The title can be: “Start Strong: Equipment Essentials for Beginners”
If you target occasional climbers, the title can be: “Climb in Style: Must-Haves for Your Next Climbing Adventure”

You can also play around with titles. Some suggest that including numbers in titles is more efficient. For instance, “Gear that is 25% more durable” or “Get 2x results with our professional advice”.

And another piece of advice. Don’t be afraid to make a long title if you work with specialized and niche offerings. Knowledgeable users might be turned away by a simplified title. So consider balancing clarity with specialized keywords.

Compelling Copy

Right after the title, you should provide the benefits of your offer. The best strategy is to answer the question “What will our offer do for you (our target user)?”. And the answer should be in bullet points.

CTA (Call-To-Action)

What is it you want your users to do to get that benefit they came for?

You might want them to fill out a form, leave contact details, sign up for an event, etc. It should be loud and clear on the page. There literally should be nothing else for user to do but to complete this action.

Trust Signals or Social Proofs

Since a lead generation landing page targets non-customers of your product, building trust is critical.

You can include reviews, testimonials, or social media comments in a way of social proof.
Relevant statistics, experts’ advice, or facts should be present as well as other signs of quality.

Visuals

Here, you should consider images, videos, or graphics. We mentioned here either … or. Visuals should be used purposefully and not overwhelm visitors.

Quality graphics can replace or work side-by-side with the benefits you are listing for your offer.
Video of the product or service can replace signs of quality as you actively demonstrate the ‘real thing’.
Images are a debated topic. Some would go for professionally designed product images. Some would suggest using photos from real people using the product. It depends on the target audience and product. Some would say that images are irrelevant in the presence of graphics or video.

For an efficient lead generation landing page, you will include either images, or graphics, or videos. Simplicity is key.

Summing Up

The above elements and the statistics below are just the toolkit. It doesn’t mean that if you include all on the list, you will get the maximum result. Videos, pictures, graphics, reviews — all of that adds value when it is used purposefully. If one element can replace all of them — it is a way to go. The cases below will prove our point.

Product Lead Generation Landing Page

You’ve already seen some conversion averages. This marketing campaign with its landing page is an example of great results. Condair landing page achieved an 83% conversion rate gathering a total of 2,800 leads.

This case is an example that simplicity is key. It demonstrates that the best strategy is carefully to tailor your message for the specific target audience. Some companies just try to put everything on that page: images, videos, reviews, stats, and more. And the users just leave overwhelmed by this barrage of information. Instead, focus on carefully crafted messages. Remember about tailoring and doing minimum first. Even if the first result isn’t great, iterating over something simple is must easier for achieving better results.

Subscription Lead Generation Landing Page

The landing page for this campaign is the opposite of simplicity compared to the previous example. CKBK included everything:

Catchy title
Offer
Multiple visuals (images and product, graphics),
Testimonials,
Compelling copy.

Yet, they kept the focus on the key action.

And you see that they included images but not videos.

Plus, there are only a few very simple graphics.

The Legendary Dropbox’s MVP/Landing Page (SaaS Lead Generation)

As we’ve mentioned a good landing page is a way to test product hypothesis. In the early stages, it is probably all your MVP will have. 2.8 million leads over 30 days — that was an astonishing result. It is the epitome of simplicity: a short explainer video and a CTA. However, the page itself also included a registration/login at the top and the footer at the bottom.