Struggle to shorten text on my landing page
I need help with shortening (and improving) my landing page: https://pointr.app. I'm mostly focusing now on the text and not so much on graphics.
Particular questions I struggle with:
– Capturing my promise into a short headline.
– Creating an analogy to traditional version control systems like Git. I'm afraid that many non-technical folks will be scared away by it. Or even should I try to piggyback on something existing, since I custom built a VCS myself? Should I press harder on wikis, since everyone knows what it is? Is it only me or wikis have a bad vibe among developers?
– I believe a key to success is to convince people that "hours of planning may save years of patching", but I'm blank on how to connect this shift in mindset to a tool. Not everyone is so fond of it as I am :)
Any help, ideas, or feedback will be greatly appreciated.
Update: The main page was significantly updated, to tell a story and focus on a single point that pretty much everyone can relate to. But it is still wordy.
Hi @sergey_shvets, congratulations on creating your page.
In my view, the site is not too wordy. Actually, there are so few words on the page that it's hard to tell what the main benefit of your product is, and who it's for.
I suggest the formula: "Pointr helps ____ do _____ so that ___." For example:
"Pointr helps fast-moving companies retain internal knowledge so that other employees can easily find important information."
Another suggestion is to contrast yourself against competitors. It's not obvious to me how you are different from other solutions like Notion or Google Docs. Google Docs has version control built in. Notion and Google Docs allow you to create short documents. I suggest the "unlike ____" formula.
"Unlike Google Docs, Pointr allows you to _____."
Another good formula is the "better/faster/easier to use" formula. For example:
"Pointr is easier to use than Notion because _____."
@sergey_shvets, if this was helpful, then check out my website, SplashPad (https://getsplashpad.com). SplashPad helps you promote your product more effectively by suggesting marketing language that attracts attention and sells. In fact, these tips came straight from SplashPad. Good luck!
Ryan, this is amazing! Thank you so much for your time and advice. I actually used "Unlike" formula in my newer version of the landing page.
SplashPad is cool! I'll follow it and will give it a try once it is out! It might be a lifesaver for people with English as a second (or third for me) language. Thanks
Awesome, glad to hear it.
Hi Sergey,
You said this:
non-technical folks will be scared away
I'm thinking this:
Yes, I don't really understand what your product does? I may not be your target market but ya it was difficult for me. Can you say it again in one sentence please?
Bill
Hey Bill,
Thanks for the reply! My project in a sentence is in between "Github for Product Requirements" and "Very advanced wiki for internal use". It targets to replace Notion or Confluence for Software teams, but as I said, I struggle to catch in a nice sentence that will be digestible by a typical user.
I see, I understand the confluence for software teams. So it's like a knowledge base where people share knowledge and learn knowledge. Is that right?
Do your users get it now? How's feedback been so far?
That's really great feedback! Thanks, Bill! I now see that I'm not really translating what I want to say. The product is very specific for creating and managing product requirements, but it does it in a specific way where the requirements can be reused in the future to answer any questions "how things work"/"why this decision was made". It is a version control system (like Git, and heavily inspired by it, but tailored for this use case, as git felt short on some things and is dependent on file-system) but tailored to the use case of building Product Requirements Documents.
I did demos and validation for my fellow PMs and have a couple of big fans. A good half was not willing to jump from their existing tools. As for users, I'm the only user now but soon will migrate my teams for 3 projects I manage to it as well. There are some features that are a must for a team environment that are still in progress.
Thanks again for the honest feedback and your time. I'm going back to the drawing board.
Cool, glad it helped some, and all the best!
Document Everything: For you, your users and your team
Thanks. I want to somehow differentiate myself. Nothing prevents people from documenting things now if they want to.
In addition to having a better headline, maybe you want to do something like what basecamp does, ie, what does your users life look like after they change to your product.
I recently got recommended to do comparisons of my product to others, so just throwing that idea out there.
That's a nice thing they do, except I don't have customers to back it up yet :) I can come up with a comparison to the main competitors though. Thanks for the idea!