teardown
Trends.co premium newsletter landing page teardown
Newsletter trends.co is worth millions of dollars and was acquired by Hubspot.
The landing page is optimized to convert visitors into paying subscribers. The community has over 15k members.
Let’s take a look what they do differently to convert user to paying customers with this landing page.
Overview
Preview whole page before scrolling to insights.
Above the fold
Hierarchy
Due to the animation delay, users would see the headline first and then attention grab animation.
Insight: Check the hierarchy to determine in what order elements will be displayed above the fold. Big headlines get a lot of attention, but if animation appears it grabs that attention instantly.
Header
What matters most to entrepreneurs and investors? Finding BIG ideas worth pursuing. It’s hard to find those kinds of ideas, but Trends.co provides a solution.
Insight: find what matters most to your audience. Write down the best solution that your product could offer. Use that. Make it short 7 words max. Strive for clarity.
Subeader
- Support claim on the header.
- Add urgency: Nobody wants to wait too long to launch something.
- Assurance – starting a new business is hard. However, what if the community could help? Sounds much easier because you are not alone.
Email field + Call-to-Action
“Join our community” works as social proof and as a benefit combo that adds up to subheader text.
Insight: Don’t use generic CTA’s. Think of it as a part of the conversion that started with the previous paragraphs.
Social Proof
Being specific about your target customers can help to craft laser focus social proof. How many entrepreneurs and investors do they really have? Certainly not 15k+, more than half just WANT to be.
Insight: If you have a clear target audience use social proof specific to that audience.
Visual + animation
Give a taste of what your product actually looks like inside.
Insight: Abstract visuals rarely perform well. Actual product images give clarity to users on what to expect.
Caution: Using animation above the fold distracts the user from copy. Make sure it’s worth having and adds something of value.
Explain the product
Introduced product main value and what now? Explain the product benefits.
Buying digital products is always unsure what you will be getting. Having a clear and compelling explanation could remove any uncertainty users might have.
3 Section to explain what’s behind the paywall.
Ideas
Benefit: Finding well-researched ideas before they become wildly successful.
Pain: it’s expensive to research and takes a lot of time. No one likes to feel regret for missing an opportunity.
Insight: Simple formula: Benefit + pain. Describe your product benefit, as well as the pain points without it.
Community
Social proof – community. Animation draws attention and gives an impression of activity.
Insight: Let your clients explain the value of your product. Few short sentences max per review.
Events
There are plenty of courses you can take online. But it’s lonely. This looks and feels alive, it looks like it involves a community that tries to learn from experts. Zoom call animation is relatable and adds trust.
Insight: Repeat high-value benefits in different contexts they are involved.
Does trends work
Success stories are like the cherry on top of the cake, but it’s an important piece. A successful product must have many success stories. Trends show 3 different cases explaining how they helped.
Headlines point to what happened to the business. Bolded parts in copy are the main benefits.
Testimonials
It’s easy to fake testimonials from random people. Actual too many companies do that. But having social proof from people that works in a companies and has some influence online is higher leverage.
Our lecture series
It’s expansion of event’s. This gives addition to events more details and
Guest images has unique illustrations, and guests are known experts.
Insight: Explain your product benefit in relatable way (Netflix for X; Uber for X; Tesla for X)
Final section
It’s the last push to convince users to join.
It uses similar logic as above the fold section, social proof changed to objection handling.
- Header – reminds of the main benefit plus adds some urgency.
- Subheader – Trends can help them transform and they gently push to give it a shot.
- CTA – if the user is convinced he wants to get in. “Try it” could work even better in this case.
- Objection handling – no price is mentioned, and it doesn’t say it’s free. What’s the catch? Last sentence tries to convince that there is nothing to worry about.
- Visuals – show how the product actually looks.
Insight: Last section should be more aggressive and urgent.
Main takeaways
- Short headlines, short paragraphs of copy. No fluff.
- Use animation to grab attention and show important pieces of information. And it adds a feeling of “live” in the context of social proof.
- If the user doesn’t read anything, he should see the main benefits in a few words. Bold only the most critical parts, but don’t overdo it.
- Show actual images of the product. Trends uses mockups to show inside screenshots.
- If a product has a community, use it to create social proof and describe it as a benefit.
- The benefit can be explained in more than one section. Trends.co are showing the same benefit in a different context.
- This landing page has one goal – new users to join Trends. There are no other distracting links from the goal.
- Success stories illustrate how they helped customers to achieve business goals.
- The last section should have some urgency and should be pushier.
- Explain your product and add only relevant visuals.
