Someone on r/design asked this question, and while answering, I felt the comment could be an interesting post to share on this subreddit and trigger a discussion.

Here’s what I thought,

The way I look at it is,

“lead gen” landing pages (B2B) vs “direct purchase” (B2C) landing pages.

Instead of B2B vs B2C Landing Pages.

For example, Basecamp is a B2B company that has a B2C funnel (direct purchase)

While a local plumbing business is a B2C company that has a B2B funnel (lead gen)

In my experience, B2B landing pages are way easier because the commitment is much lower. You are not expecting your visitors to take out their credit card.

B2C (direct purchase ) is entirely different. And so the kind of objections they have are also completely different.

Your content on a B2C (direct purchase) landing pages is highly focused on overcoming objections. Because quiet often, the product itself is simple and self explanatory.

From content stand point, for B2C, expect 20% content about the product and 80% content about objection handling.

B2B products and services are more complicated than a B2C product.

For B2B (lead gen) that ratio is almost opposite. There is more weightage to explaining the product/services and less to objection handling. Because objection handling is left to the sales team.

With a B2B landing page you can afford to get a “maybe” reaction from the visitors and still capture the lead.

With B2C (purchase) landing pages, it better be hell yes or hell no!

B2B folks are more concerned with understanding the process involved even if the outcome is ambiguous (Imagine marketing and design services).

But with B2C, the outcome must be concrete even when the process of getting that outcome is ambiguous (an online course).

Apart from this high level distinction that I have learnt over the years between these two, here are a few best practices for B2C landing page,

  1. Using conversational language instead of professional sounding language

  2. Having a single clear call to action

  3. Handle objections in following categories: payment method and options; shipping charges, method & duration; time investment expected from customer, clear unambiguous pricing, expected physical efforts, expected mental efforts, a clear expected outcome after purchase.

  4. The sequence in which you counter the objections is more important just countering them randomly.

  5. Use different types of design patterns like badges, steps, progress bar to convey different types of information.

About a few best practices for B2B landing pages,

  1. Always, if possible, show a step by step process of how the client can get the outcome. B2B folks hate ambiguity in the process. You’ll lose a lot of folks even of you have all the social proof to show.

  2. Case studies work better than testimonials. And they also a signal that you are serious, because you took efforts in doing the work for clients and then documenting it. Most don’t even read it, but it’s a trust building signal.

  3. The most common question is, “have you worked for our industry?” Just mentioning the industries you can deliver for can increase their confidence. Have a section for that.

I have seen B2B businesses pay premium just because their industry was mentioned.

  1. Depending on the product you are selling either the problem is high stakes or the outcome is high stakes. Identify which one it is and use that in the hero section, you have done 80% of the job.

Majority of your traffic is never going to scroll beyond the first 30% of your landing page.

For example, a tax compliance software solves for a “high stakes problem”. But a marketing automation solves for an “high stakes outcome”.

Know where the stakes lie and position yourself accordingly.

  1. The text you write on the CTA button & it’s position is the second most important thing after your Hero section.

Make the button visible almost all the time.

The textcon button has to clearly tell you what they get after they click on it? “Book A Call” or “Get Free Consulting”, “Get A Quote”, “Download A Report” or something else?

The text you use depends on the ambiguity of the problem, process and outcome you are delivering.

If it is high ambiguity, “Get Free Consulting” low ambiguity “Get A Quote”.

Quiet often the CTA text itself is how you can understand the funnel of a business.

What do y’all think?