The story of one landing: attracted many customers and was copied under a hundred times
Hi, Habr! I am Ruslan Kokin, UX-designer in the company UXhot, and I have an unusual story about the landing, as well as the state of copyright in Russia.
Among the products we have created is a truly legendary landing page, which has become a donor for the emerging segment of the mechanized plaster on the Internet. For three years of work, he not only attracted many clients, but was also copied almost 100 times. Want to know what was so special about him?
Three years ago, we were approached by a client who wished to render services of machine plaster in Moscow. He had a small family contract and a newly purchased plaster station. After talking with the client and examining the situation on the market, we discovered a real “blue ocean” - the service was not formed, it was considered not self-sufficient, no one wanted to invest in it.
And those beginnings of competitors that were present, rather scared off customers, creating even more questions and fears about machine plaster.
Our client only planned to enter the market, but he already had an experienced construction team. For many years they carried out repair work, including plastering, with their hands. Once I found out about a mechanized plastering station, bought it, tried it - it worked out. The client was familiar with the topic, and during the in-depth interview he explained a lot of things related to plaster: both manual and machine.
Usually, the information received from the business is not enough to start working on the site, so we found several people who had recently completed repairs in the apartment without engaging the turnkey company, and asked in detail about their experience in rough work.
The main difficulty we encountered was that the service had not yet been finally formed as independent and there was no persistent demand for it, and in popular forums they still proved that there was nothing better than the good old hand plaster.
It was necessary in simple words to explain the essence and convince the effectiveness of the new service. With this we have begun to design the interface of the future product.
Why do some research and design something there, if you already have a million instructions on how to create a successful landing page? I answered this question 5 years ago in the article: Each for a Landing Page. Sore
Try to imagine a typical laborer-plasterer? And if in Moscow?
We wanted to break a stable association and show another image of plasterers - which are not afraid to let into our apartment and entrust the important stage of repair. The basis of the product became two characters, written off from the real founders of the company: Sergey Semenovich and Victor Sergeevich. Cute Muscovites with a kind smile.
We deprived the landing of classic timers, promotions, discounts and the list of arguments, why 99% of customers choose our company, and designed a simple and concise interface that explains the essence of the new service and removes objections. Large
version
We wanted the site to immediately explain the essence of the service. For this you need an image with a certain scene, but this simply did not exist. And then our designer blinded the collage.
The collage was so successful that it became a symbol of the whole topic, migrated to hundreds of other sites and even appeared on roadside billboards.
The project was ready by March and, despite fears of getting into the off-season, they decided to launch. The reaction struck: in the first week the client received orders much more than he could handle.
He began to work out the nuances of the service and develop the company, and we - to change the site to a point to increase conversion. And the first in the list of improvements was the master, which is now fashionable to call the "quiz".
“Quizs” were not yet popular and the best that the developers of the Landing Page could come up with - under any pretext, show the form by entering a phone number. We already actively used masters who showed good efficiency on real projects. After analyzing a dozen records of conversations with customers, they compiled a script for the application wizard.
So, having answered several questions on the case, visitors could immediately receive a preliminary calculation of the cost and leave a request on the site. After the introduction of the wizard, the conversion from forms has increased 2 times. But the season was coming to an end.
Traditionally, with the onset of cold weather, the topic of repair went into hibernation, since there was a widespread opinion that it was impossible to plaster in winter. But, despite a noticeable reduction in the number of applications, the volume of traffic and the cost of contextual advertising remained virtually unchanged: customers continued to search for the necessary services, but preferred to simply get acquainted and keep contacts in the spring.
We were faced with the task of explaining to visitors that plastering in the winter is possible, moreover, without long expectations and even with savings. This is how the winter version of the site appeared, clearly fulfilling fears and motivating to make contact not in the spring, but now.
Corporate cool blue color gave way to warm red. The thermometer reflected the real temperature in Moscow, and the inscription next reported that today you can plaster. Together with other point changes, this only changed the situation with the leads, but also allowed the client to continue to grow even in the low season.
Over time, the fear of plaster in the winter period has ceased to be significant for customers, and two seasons later we abandoned this version.
We have long been doing all projects by default adaptive, but, in truth, it was the basic adaptability of the principle "works everywhere, well, well, nice."
At the start of this project, such adaptability was sufficient, but over time the traffic from mobiles increased markedly, and the conversion did not. As a result, we decided to redesign the mobile version, reducing some of the extra information (taking into account the context of use) and replace all the buttons with a phone number with the ability to call just by tapping on it. With a number of other micro-improvements, this has increased the number of applications, aligning the conversion with the desktop performance.
By the way, this case forced us to reconsider the approach to adaptation and now we initially design two products: one for large screens, the second for mobile.
After the launch of the project, we began to receive a huge number of requests to create the same product. Everyone liked the site, but almost no one understood why to pay for developing a new solution, if you can just copy an existing one. We do not make copies, so orders for creating clones appeared on freelance exchanges. During the first two years, full copies appeared almost every week throughout the CIS. Many did not even hesitate to put their copyrights under the copied one-on-one work and add clones to their portfolio. After some time even clones on clones began to appear.
And generally, about 70% of sites on the subject of machine plaster somehow or other borrow content from us, including “expert” things that were simply taken from the head. For example, in order to confirm the expertise and show that company employees understand many of the repair processes, we introduced the “Where to Start” block. In reality, this question did not bother the customers much, but it was perfectly suited to achieve our goal.
You can find a similar block on a considerable part of the sites on machine plaster even now. In addition, our texts have been actively used as a basis for announcements on various bulletin boards throughout the CIS.
The constant struggle with clones forced us to engage in regular updates on the site - we rewrote texts, changed content and redesigned the page a bit. But a week or two later we were copied again.
Three years later, everything changed - the service became ordinary, the demand was finally formed, and the number of competitors increased significantly. The need to prove that mechanized plaster is better than manual, has lost its meaning, and the legend with the characters was discredited by many clones. The changed market required to change the site.
Having studied the strongly changed business, market and current trends, in the new interface we focused on confirmed expertise: the company's history and customer reviews broadcast from otzovikov sites.
Version in large size
With the new version, we not only lost, but even slightly improved conversion rates, despite the restart in the off-season. But less than a week, as it was again copied.
I cannot disclose any specific figures, but the approximate turnover of a successful company providing machine plaster services in Moscow can be calculated independently, with about 3000 applications a year and a little more than the market average check.
The result, in addition to the endless number of clones and sponsorship of content, was a significant increase in the company itself - at the moment it is 16 brigades of four people and nine plastering stations. They work throughout the year without a “seasonal” idle time. It all started with one brigade, one plastering station and the question: “Do you think the topic will take off?”.
Among the products we have created is a truly legendary landing page, which has become a donor for the emerging segment of the mechanized plaster on the Internet. For three years of work, he not only attracted many clients, but was also copied almost 100 times. Want to know what was so special about him?
Three years ago, we were approached by a client who wished to render services of machine plaster in Moscow. He had a small family contract and a newly purchased plaster station. After talking with the client and examining the situation on the market, we discovered a real “blue ocean” - the service was not formed, it was considered not self-sufficient, no one wanted to invest in it.
And those beginnings of competitors that were present, rather scared off customers, creating even more questions and fears about machine plaster.
Main difficulty
Our client only planned to enter the market, but he already had an experienced construction team. For many years they carried out repair work, including plastering, with their hands. Once I found out about a mechanized plastering station, bought it, tried it - it worked out. The client was familiar with the topic, and during the in-depth interview he explained a lot of things related to plaster: both manual and machine.
Usually, the information received from the business is not enough to start working on the site, so we found several people who had recently completed repairs in the apartment without engaging the turnkey company, and asked in detail about their experience in rough work.
The main difficulty we encountered was that the service had not yet been finally formed as independent and there was no persistent demand for it, and in popular forums they still proved that there was nothing better than the good old hand plaster.
It was necessary in simple words to explain the essence and convince the effectiveness of the new service. With this we have begun to design the interface of the future product.
Why do some research and design something there, if you already have a million instructions on how to create a successful landing page? I answered this question 5 years ago in the article: Each for a Landing Page. Sore
Heroes go to the rescue
Try to imagine a typical laborer-plasterer? And if in Moscow?
We wanted to break a stable association and show another image of plasterers - which are not afraid to let into our apartment and entrust the important stage of repair. The basis of the product became two characters, written off from the real founders of the company: Sergey Semenovich and Victor Sergeevich. Cute Muscovites with a kind smile.
We deprived the landing of classic timers, promotions, discounts and the list of arguments, why 99% of customers choose our company, and designed a simple and concise interface that explains the essence of the new service and removes objections. Large
version
That same picture
We wanted the site to immediately explain the essence of the service. For this you need an image with a certain scene, but this simply did not exist. And then our designer blinded the collage.
The collage was so successful that it became a symbol of the whole topic, migrated to hundreds of other sites and even appeared on roadside billboards.
Run in low season
The project was ready by March and, despite fears of getting into the off-season, they decided to launch. The reaction struck: in the first week the client received orders much more than he could handle.
He began to work out the nuances of the service and develop the company, and we - to change the site to a point to increase conversion. And the first in the list of improvements was the master, which is now fashionable to call the "quiz".
Good old master
“Quizs” were not yet popular and the best that the developers of the Landing Page could come up with - under any pretext, show the form by entering a phone number. We already actively used masters who showed good efficiency on real projects. After analyzing a dozen records of conversations with customers, they compiled a script for the application wizard.
So, having answered several questions on the case, visitors could immediately receive a preliminary calculation of the cost and leave a request on the site. After the introduction of the wizard, the conversion from forms has increased 2 times. But the season was coming to an end.
Fight low season
Traditionally, with the onset of cold weather, the topic of repair went into hibernation, since there was a widespread opinion that it was impossible to plaster in winter. But, despite a noticeable reduction in the number of applications, the volume of traffic and the cost of contextual advertising remained virtually unchanged: customers continued to search for the necessary services, but preferred to simply get acquainted and keep contacts in the spring.
We were faced with the task of explaining to visitors that plastering in the winter is possible, moreover, without long expectations and even with savings. This is how the winter version of the site appeared, clearly fulfilling fears and motivating to make contact not in the spring, but now.
Corporate cool blue color gave way to warm red. The thermometer reflected the real temperature in Moscow, and the inscription next reported that today you can plaster. Together with other point changes, this only changed the situation with the leads, but also allowed the client to continue to grow even in the low season.
Over time, the fear of plaster in the winter period has ceased to be significant for customers, and two seasons later we abandoned this version.
Adapt adaptability
We have long been doing all projects by default adaptive, but, in truth, it was the basic adaptability of the principle "works everywhere, well, well, nice."
At the start of this project, such adaptability was sufficient, but over time the traffic from mobiles increased markedly, and the conversion did not. As a result, we decided to redesign the mobile version, reducing some of the extra information (taking into account the context of use) and replace all the buttons with a phone number with the ability to call just by tapping on it. With a number of other micro-improvements, this has increased the number of applications, aligning the conversion with the desktop performance.
By the way, this case forced us to reconsider the approach to adaptation and now we initially design two products: one for large screens, the second for mobile.
Attack of the Clones
After the launch of the project, we began to receive a huge number of requests to create the same product. Everyone liked the site, but almost no one understood why to pay for developing a new solution, if you can just copy an existing one. We do not make copies, so orders for creating clones appeared on freelance exchanges. During the first two years, full copies appeared almost every week throughout the CIS. Many did not even hesitate to put their copyrights under the copied one-on-one work and add clones to their portfolio. After some time even clones on clones began to appear.
Ten clones found in a few minutes search
And generally, about 70% of sites on the subject of machine plaster somehow or other borrow content from us, including “expert” things that were simply taken from the head. For example, in order to confirm the expertise and show that company employees understand many of the repair processes, we introduced the “Where to Start” block. In reality, this question did not bother the customers much, but it was perfectly suited to achieve our goal.
You can find a similar block on a considerable part of the sites on machine plaster even now. In addition, our texts have been actively used as a basis for announcements on various bulletin boards throughout the CIS.
The constant struggle with clones forced us to engage in regular updates on the site - we rewrote texts, changed content and redesigned the page a bit. But a week or two later we were copied again.
Goodbye legend
Three years later, everything changed - the service became ordinary, the demand was finally formed, and the number of competitors increased significantly. The need to prove that mechanized plaster is better than manual, has lost its meaning, and the legend with the characters was discredited by many clones. The changed market required to change the site.
Having studied the strongly changed business, market and current trends, in the new interface we focused on confirmed expertise: the company's history and customer reviews broadcast from otzovikov sites.
Version in large size
With the new version, we not only lost, but even slightly improved conversion rates, despite the restart in the off-season. But less than a week, as it was again copied.
Result instead of numbers
I cannot disclose any specific figures, but the approximate turnover of a successful company providing machine plaster services in Moscow can be calculated independently, with about 3000 applications a year and a little more than the market average check.
The result, in addition to the endless number of clones and sponsorship of content, was a significant increase in the company itself - at the moment it is 16 brigades of four people and nine plastering stations. They work throughout the year without a “seasonal” idle time. It all started with one brigade, one plastering station and the question: “Do you think the topic will take off?”.