Launching a website, app, or digital product online will require some upfront work.

One of the things that need to be done is to set up a pre-launch landing page that helps people learn about your upcoming product and allow them to subscribe to updates about your launch.

An Ineffective Way to Launch

Let’s say you get a brilliant idea for a new product.

You believe in the idea so much that you can’t wait to build it. You dive in headfirst into wireframes, mockups, UI design and code.

You spend months putting in long days and nights, doing everything you can to perfect the core value proposition of the product and getting ready to ship it.

Finally, launch day arrives.

You push it live, activate your payment system, perhaps you email a few friends and bloggers about it, share it on social media, etc.

Now you’re just waiting patiently for people to come, hoping that all that hard work will pay off.

And then… *Crickets*.

A sale here, an account sign-up there, but certainly not the big launch you had hoped for, the type of launch you always see on Hacker News or TechCrunch.

Taking out the possibility that you built bad product — that it was poorly designed or the functionality was off — the problem probably comes from the lack of building anticipation and excitement prior to the launch date.

I certainly made this mistake in my earlier product launches, and now I’d like to share the lessons I learned from them.

Tip 1: It’s Never Too Early

First things first: Creating your pre-launch landing page should be one of the very first things you do. Do it even before writing one line of code!

The earlier you get your pre-launch page up and running, the better.

Use your pre-launch landing page to spark conversations with potential customers and to begin gathering feedback.

Your pre-launch landing page will also get you started on building your mailing list, as well as social media network.

When I decided to write and release my book, I designed and launched the landing page before I wrote the first chapter!

My pre-launch page provided a destination where I can begin promoting the book, building my mailing list, and creating some buzz.

More importantly, the pre-launch page allowed me to develop my "sales pitch" — the value proposition of my book. It helped me refine my ideas as well as pinpoint ways to make it connect with my intended audience better.

After writing the initial copy for that pre-launch landing page, and hearing feedback from people interested in the topic of the book, I had a much better footing as I began outlining and writing it.

I designed this landing page from scratch and hooked it up with MailChimp to manage the email sign-ups:

Getting Your Pre-launch Page Set Up Quickly

You don’t want to take away too much time from building your product. And often, a simple approach is the most effective one.

There are a lot of pre-launch apps that will help you develop your launch strategy. Here are a few of them:

LaunchRock provides a complete launching platform:

Launch Effect Lite is a free WordPress theme for pre-launch events; the premium version has additional features and tech support:

LaunchGator helps you create a free "coming soon" page:

KickoffLabs helps you develop your landing pages to increase lead generation:

Unbounce is a web app designed for online marketers to help them create optimized landing pages:

Tip 2: Provide as Much Detail as Possible

We’ve all seen pre-launch landing pages for startups that consist only of a logo, one sentence, and an email opt-in form to "get notified when the product launches".

Get notified when you launch what exactly?

Simple and vague landing pages might get some people signed up to your mailing list, but they won’t be pre-qualified potential users of your product because they don’t have an idea about what it actually is, or how it will benefit them. They might have just signed up to determine what it is you’re going to be launching, which is something that should have already been provided in the pre-launch landing page.

A better approach would be to include as much information as you can about your soon-to-launch product.

It’s okay that your product doesn’t actually exist yet. Be transparent about that.

But do explain the pain point and the solution you plan to offer, and how your customer will benefit from your proposed solution when it’s released. Express your value proposition clearly. Articulate your vision and plans.

Those who read through those details and subscribe to your mailing list are much more likely to become customers later because they know what you’re hoping to provide them.

Here’s an example of a good pre-launch landing page for the beta version of Updately:

It does a great job of providing lots of details about the app using a mix of visuals and great copy to communicate all of the key benefits to their audience. At the end of the page, there’s a call to action to subscribe to their mailing list.

Tip 3: Provide Useful Information

Your landing page shouldn’t just be about selling. You can also use it as an opportunity to educate your audience and give them something to think and care about.

Go beyond just the pain point and your solution. Teach them about a key concept that drives everything you do.

For example, let’s say you plan to release a help desk app. You could include a section about customer satisfaction statistics related to companies having a help desk system versus those that don’t.

Anything that can be taken as a nugget of value can help build trust in your product. This type of thing can give your pre-launch page visitors just the nudge they need to go and enter their email address, and hopefully buy from you later.

Nathan Barry does a great job of educating his visitors on his product landing pages. His sales page for Authority, a book about writing books, not only gives people plenty of detail about what’s in it, but also dives deep into the first lesson (setting a strict writing schedule to complete your book).

The book is already on sale, so this would be considered a "post-launch" landing page, but the pre-launch version wasn’t much different conceptually from what you see today. It contained loads of information, detail and lessons — all providing value before any transaction is ever made.

Tip 4: Give Something of Value Now

As a potential email list subscriber, I need to receive some sort of value that I can sink my teeth into if I was ever going to be compelled to sign-up.

For example, if you’re going to launch a premium icon set, you could consider giving a subset of it away for free to those who sign up to your mailing list. If you’re writing an ebook, you could email your mailing list subscribers the first two chapters to give them a taste of what’s coming.

Put real thought and research into these resources, and keep them focused around the topic that your target customers really care about. If it’s something that really matters to them, they’ll want to get their hands on it.

Tip 5: Touch Base Regularly

I come across a pre-launch landing page for a product, and it looks great! It’s perfect. Just what I’m looking for.

It looks like something I’d be willing to pay for. So I enter my email address to be notified when it’s released.

4, 6, 8 months go by, and I don’t hear a word from them. Finally, 9 months later, I get an email from a name I don’t recognize, with the subject line, "We’ve launched!"

There’s no way I remember who this company or person is, or what this product was about. At this point, I don’t remember ever signing up for this list. It must be spam. Delete.

If that company had stayed in touch with me throughout their pre-launch period, with weekly or monthly emails to give me new information on the developments of their product, it would have led to a much better outcome.

Come launch day, I would have recognized the name of the person emailing me, I would have known what this launch was all about (because I had been expecting it), and I’d be much more likely to buy the thing if I was still an email subscriber at this point. And if I don’t end up buying it, at the very least I’d probably be more inclined to tweet about the launch because I’ve been tracking it for 9 months.

Conclusion

The pre-launch period is all about building up anticipation, priming your audience, and staying top-of-mind so that that when the day comes, they’re ready to buy and help you build buzz for your product.

I hope you find these tips helpful as you prepare to launch your next great product!

Share your tips and post your questions in the comments.

Related Content

• 10 Simple Tips for Launching a Website
• Things You Should Do Immediately After Launching a Website
• 25 Beautiful Examples of "Coming Soon" Pages
• Launching a Blog Successfully in 15 Days
• Related categories: Business and Project Management

About the Author

Brian Casel is a web designer and the author of Design For Conversions, a book to help startups design a better marketing site. Check out Brian’s personal site, casjam.com and connect with him on Twitter @CasJam.

The post 5 Tips for Pre-Launch Landing Pages appeared first on Six Revisions.

It’s often described as the CMS from hell; ugly and a total memory hog, to the novice the learning curve is often far too steep and the documentation sometimes scarce. Why is this behemoth of a CMS even used anymore?

Its name is Drupal, and it’s very powerful when tamed. From the glorified Views module to the great SEO features to the loyal and enthusiastic community, Drupal certainly begs attention. It can be used to make some very beautiful and user-friendly websites.

Drupal started out as a PHP-based message-board project, made by Dries Buytaert, and first gained popularity in 2003. Since then, it has quickly grown a community of devoted developers whose Drupal-based sites now account for 2.1% of all websites worldwide.

Traditionally, Drupal has been adopted because of its fantastic organization and powerful customization tools, making it a great content management system for anything from blogs to collaborative corporate websites.

Some features that come straight out of the box are polls, comments, blogs, OpenID support, RSS feeds, user profiles, user roles, advanced search, and caching for faster speed. It’s easy to see why Drupal has been used for community-based websites. 

Is Drupal designer-oriented?

One of the most common criticisms I hear about the Drupal CMS is that it’s just plain ugly.

The truth of the matter is that Drupal is marketed to more technical developers. Sure, it lacks WordPress’ pretty interface and easy media management, but with the proper dose of CSS, Drupal can be made to compete with the best of the best. Think I’m bluffing? Have a look at some Drupal-based sites.

To make styling your site easier, Drupal features themes, which can be downloaded and applied to your site. Drupal 7 alone has around 450 downloadable themes that range from responsive themes to e-commerce themes and everything in between! You’re sure to find a good theme to make your site look chic (or whatever you’re looking for). Most are free, too!

Speaking of free, there are now over 20,000 free add-ons (called “modules,” not widgets), which can be used to customize Drupal in any way you like.

Is Drupal SEO-friendly?

Certainly! Drupal has many features that make it stand out from the crowd.

A built-in taxonomy system

The taxonomy allows you to tag content with relevant and keyword-rich tags, an invaluable tool for anyone who’s SEO-oriented. You can even have multilevel, hierarchical category organization and content-type-specific “vocabularies” (for example, your products could have a different vocabulary than your blog). Way cool!

Custom content types

Define your own content types: articles, products, podcasts and more. The best part? No programming knowledge required.

Page titles

Let Drupal set automatic page titles using its smart page-titling features, or take the reins and take SEO to a whole new level. Either way, it’s completely user-friendly, coding-free and painless.

SEO checklist module

This module is a total must-have! While it doesn’t really do anything, it will help you make your site score higher in search engine results.

SEO-optimized URLS

Unlike WordPress, Drupal gives you complete control over URLS right from the get-go. Additionally, you can install the Pathauto module, which generates custom URL structures for each content type.

Who uses Drupal anyway?

Not only does Drupal account for over 2% of websites worldwide, but Drupal developers boast some very high-profile clients. Here’s a peek at some of the better-known clients who Drupal developers do business with.

Scientists

NASA, MIT, Popular Science, Harvard Science and Engineering, Stanford Humanities Center.

Technology companies

AOL, Yahoo Research, Ubuntu, Eclipse, Java Technologies Collaborative.

Organizations

Amnesty International, Greenpeace UK, multiple UN sites, the White House, Data.gov.uk, Investor.gov, sba.gov, The World Economic Forum, the US House of Representatives.

Celebrities

Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Eric Clapton, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock; personally, not minions. (OK, probably minions.)

Others

The Louvre, the Grammys, Zynga, IKEA, ING, Tesla Motors, Fast Company, The Onion.

I thought Drupal sucked?

The growing number of converts speaks for itself. Between 2007 and 2008, downloads of Drupal core increased by 125%, and the growth trend is still going strong.

Isn’t Drupal slow?

While it certainly wasn’t born a race horse, Drupal is by no means slow when configured properly. Drupal’s caching mechanism stores data from multiple levels of a page, and it can increase site speed by as much as 500%. With improvements in every update, Drupal is headed down a good path. 

Isn’t Drupal confusing?

If we were still in the era of Drupal 5, I would have to agree. But we’re not. That was six years ago (which is, like, 30 tech years). Contrary to the hype, Drupal is surprisingly easy to master, and while you might not get your hands dirty with PHP on the first day, you’ll find yourself being pretty darn good at Drupal after a couple of months. 

Updating Drupal is a pain

This is probably one of the only legitimate criticisms of Drupal. Updates suck. Backwards compatibility is not really there. It’s a package deal, though, and for many, Drupal is still worth the update headaches.

My clients won’t be able to use it

Actually, Drupal offers a pretty simple administrative overlay for making basic changes to a site. Managing articles, blog posts, custom content types and products has never been easier. “Views” is also a great and (fairly) user-friendly way to edit content. Spending 30 minutes tutoring your client on how to use Drupal for basic tasks will not only save them trouble, but will make you look more knowledgeable about your product!

Is Drupal worth the learning curve?

Getting past your fears and learning Drupal is generally considered a good career move. Many big corporations use Drupal, and if you know your stuff, they will pay top dollar for their sites. While becoming completely comfortable with Drupal’s insides could take up to a year, there is a lot of demand, and with demand comes money.

Cool! How do I learn Drupal?

First, download the latest release of Drupal core and play around with it. Get used to the interface. Don’t worry, it won’t bite. Poke around the technical documentation as well. But I recommend watching some Drupal how-to videos, reading some articles and, most importantly, getting your hands dirty. The Drupal forums are also a good place to ask questions, but the Drupal community on Google+ tends to be a bit faster in responding to questions. Being involved in the community is very important to Drupalers because it could lead to job offers, extra work and Drupal know-how. As you advance, contribute back by sharing any modules you have developed. Good luck, and welcome to the club!

Drupal rocks!

Whether you’ve been scared off by old Drupal’s intimidating appearance or bad reputation, it might be time to give it a new look. Perhaps you’ll find this behemoth version 7 to be as tame as a bunny rabbit, yet powerful as ever.

With a clear advantage over similar CMS’, Drupal is the way of the future. If you are looking for a CMS that can do just about anything and look good in the process, then seriously consider Drupal.

Have you tried Drupal? What benefits do you feel it brings to the table? Let us know in the comments.

Featured image/thumbnail, rock image via Shutterstock.

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The company behind the Bittorrent protocol is working on software that can replicate most features of file-synching services without handing your data to cloud servers.

The debate over how much we should trust cloud companies with our data (see “NSA Spying Is Making Us Less Safe”) was reawakened last year after revelations that the National Security Agency routinely harvests data from Internet companies including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook.

Appirio Adds New Capabilities to the Leading Platform and Community for Crowdsourced Development, Lays Out 2014 Roadmap, and Moves Topcoder Open to San Francisco in 2014.

Intel’s XDK (XML-Development Kit) gets an update with plans to "end-of-life" the original Intel XDK aka, appMobi XDK, by the end of February 2014.

AARP Maryland is seeking an undergraduate student for a paid legislative advocacy internship.  The intern must have completed at least 60 credit hours and have a GPA of 3.5 or above.

 

The Ideal candidate should have:

A working knowledge of the legislative process and an interest in learning government relations/affairs;

The ability to interact with legislators and grassroots groups to promote the AARP MD agenda; and

Be personable, organized, and capable of mastering details of public policy issues.

 

The AARP Maryland Legislative Advocacy Intern will:

Track and monitor legislation;

Prepare and edit testimony and help with distribution;

Contact and interact with volunteers on legislative issues AARP is supporting;

Contact and interact with legislators and legislative staff;

Conduct research  about legislation;  and

Prepare agendas for lobby days and assist with coordinating the activities during lobby day.

 

Applicants should send a resume and cover letter to Christy Page (cpage@aarp.org).