Writing landing pages

Hey hey, welcome back to the 2nd part of this 3-part email series where I share what I learned from my first-ever launch.

You can read part 1 here, in it we went over how to build your course and more.

Before The Modern Creator, I wrote a few landing pages (that sucked), but none that were as in-depth and “professional”.

And let me tell you something, writing high-quality landing pages is freaking hard.

Spending hours staring at a blinding white Google Docs page before you know where to start writing.

If you don’t want to go through the pain of writing landing pages, make sure you have an offer that nobody can resist.

But if for some reason, you want to go through the pain and agony of writing a high-converting landing page, you’ll need to nail 3 elements (they helped me reach an 8% conversion rate).

1) The Transformation

People don’t buy products, they buy transformations.

How can your product help reduce pain (solve a problem) or make them happy (fulfill a desire)?

Everything we do is based on these 2 basic emotions.

People buy designer clothes because it gives them status (fulfilling a desire of wanting to feel like they’re important).

It’s the same when writing a landing page.

You need to show them the transformation that they can achieve from your product.

Because I knew I didn’t have testimonials or a lot of authority (compared to bigger creators), I had to nail my story and focus on the transformation.

A transformation that my reader wants to make.

If you read the landing page, my story takes up 26.5% of it (yes I did calculate it).

That’s because I used myself as a case study and testimonial.

And I attribute most of the conversations to the story itself.

2) The Unique Mechanism

Everyone is selling writing, how to build an audience, and monetize your brand courses.

And 99% of them contain the same high-quality information as what you’re about to sell.

So why should people buy your product?

If you say “I’ll make mine cheaper than theirs” then you already lost.

Competing with price is a battle you’ll never win.

Because there will come another creator who will build a similar product to yours, sell it cheaper than you, and steal your customers.

Which will force you to lower your prices to stay competitive. Then it becomes a race to 0 and your product becomes free.

Now you might feel anxious, scared, and a little uneasy because you thought people would buy from you just because you’re selling a low-ticket product.

The reason why people buy your product over someone else’s (even if they are promising the same transformation as you) is your unique mechanism.

But before I tell you how to spot your unique mechanism I need to address a common misconception:

Your unique mechanism isn’t the name of your product.

Yes, it helps, but it’s not a unique mechanism.

I see many creators swap build an audience with “forge your guild”.

Stfu you World Of Warcraft nerd. Nobody cares about it.

So how do you spot your unique mechanism?

There are 2 ways to go about this:

1. What is something you do that most people don’t?

2. What is your “skip the line” method?

I’ll be using The Modern Creator as an example because I have the most knowledge about it (and definitely not because I’m narcissistic).

I went for the first option. Mainly because I didn’t want to make a wild claim like “gain 3,000 followers and monetize to $5k/mo in 30 days or less”, it unrealistic and it makes me look desperate.

…back to the unique mechanism.

I am selling a writing course. But what made it unique was the mechanism.

The typical advice you hear on X is, that if you want to grow an audience, you need to niche down.

Which I find complete BS.

I tried both, niching down and going broad. The results I got? They were the same.

So what did I do?

I decided to mix them both together.

I talked about writing but added different concepts from unrelated niches to writing.

When you do this, it makes your brand unique.

And in the course, I teach you how to do just that.

Leveraging your other interests to create unique perspectives and attract an audience, but also be able to monetize through writing.

3) Stacking Proof

Online, skepticism is high, trust is low, and proof is king.

Throughout the landing page, I had baked-in proof that I could deliver on the promises I made.

But I didn’t have any testimonials so how did I add proof?

This is related to the first point I made. The transformation I made is a form of proof.

Here are some of the proofs I had baked in:

• “CEO of an orchestra here in Dubai reached out to me and wanted me to do their marketing. He discovered me through social media and loved the newsletter I wrote about marketing.”

• “I've also coached 15+ creators on how to write online and attract fans, prospects, and opportunities.”

• “Last month I made over $5,000 helping people learn how to write online.”

Other more in-direct forms of proof were there, but I’ll let you try to find them yourself.

(Take a look at the landing page and let me know the proofs you found on X.)

Proof removes uncertainty — put it everywhere.

Hell, I’ll even bet my life that if you compared 2 landing pages

1. Only had proof (testimonials and case studies), but didn’t talk about the problem or solution.

2. Another landing page that only talked about the problem and solution and had no proof.

The one with proof will perform better.

That’s because humans are social creatures.

We buy things just because other people are buying them (if we don’t need them).

It makes us feel safe.

Do you remember when you were in school and got a bad grade?

You felt terrible, right?

But when you know that everyone else also got a bad grade, how did you feel?

I’m guessing you felt good. Because you’re not the only one who got a bad grade.

It’s the same with proof (especially social proof).

There is no such thing as ‘too much proof’.

On Thursday, we’ll go over the launch strategy.

Speak soon,

Hussain