March 17, 2025 • 19 mins
Should I Still Be Using a SaaS Landing Page Service?
The episode dives into the pros and cons of using SaaS landing page services like Leadpages and Unbounce, highlighting their ease of use and high conversion rates against long-term costs and branding limitations.
• Discusses the popularity and benefits of SaaS landing page services
• Analyzes the monthly costs and long-term implications of SaaS subscriptions
• Examines customization limitations linked to template-based services
• Explores the advantages of transitioning to custom-built landing pages
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Should I still be using a software as a service?
Landing page service.
Welcome to Legal Marketing 101.
I'm Toby Rosen.
Today we are once again talkingabout landing pages.
We've talked about landingpages a few times before and
while I'm going to repeat someof that in this episode, make
sure you go back and check outour previous landing page
episodes so that you're up tospeed.
Some of these are subscribersonly, so go ahead and subscribe
(00:27):
so you get access to thoseepisodes, and you're going to
get access to the new subscriberonly episode on the first
Monday of every month.
But if you're like any of theother attorneys listening,
you've probably asked yourselfis that monthly subscription to
lead pages or Unbounce, Is itworth it?
Is it really still worth itonce we've been testing for two
years?
Let's get into it.
(00:49):
So first we're going to startwith why these SaaS landing page
services.
Oh, and I'm going to call theseSaaS from now on, instead of
saying software as a service 14times in a row.
Let's start with why theseservices like Leadpages became
so popular in the first place.
It's really not hard to see theappeal and if I breeze through
some of the names of theseproducts kind of quickly, I'm
(01:09):
going to try and put links toall of them in the show notes,
but again, I suggest runningthis through something like
MacWhisper and having it do somenotes for you.
But these platforms things likeLeadpages, Unbounce, HubSpot's
landing page system they werebuilt to make creating high
converting landing pages easyand fast, even if you don't have
(01:30):
a tech or developmentbackground.
First there's the drag and dropfunctionality.
This is key.
This is a lifesaver fornon-technical users, like,
really in a lot of ways, myselfeven.
It makes it easy to moveelements around the page, tweak
designs and preview mobilelayouts without writing a single
line of code.
Sure, I can code, but it's justway easier to do it this way.
(01:52):
And for legal professionals orjust busy people in general,
fiddling with HTML is not whatwe want to be doing.
So this drag and drop stuff ishuge.
And then we have the pre-builttemplates.
Forget drag and drop, it'salready ready to go.
And these aren't just anytemplates.
When we're talking about leadpages, we know that they're
(02:12):
optimized for conversionsbecause you can sort them by the
conversion data that's going tothose pages Lead pages.
Lets us use that information todecide what's going to work for
us.
And when we look at thesetemplates, we're going to find
layouts that are designed tospecifically capture leads, do
consultation bookings, dodownloads of eBooks or guides.
These ready-made tools havealready been tested and
(02:35):
fine-tuned and they're ready forus to pick up and then use that
easy drag and drop thing tomake them our own.
And then there are the built inanalytics and AB testing tools.
Different platforms havedifferent versions of this, but
they all have something, andmost of them allow you to build
something on top of them.
And these features let youtrack performance, experiment
with different things likedifferent headlines, images,
(02:56):
calls to action, and usuallywith just a couple of clicks we
can see different variations ofour page and which one resonates
the best with potential clients.
And this is all importantbecause for us, even in an
industry like law, where it'sreally not that critical to be
fast a lot of the time, we dowant to be fast enough to stay
ahead of our competition.
(03:17):
When we're launching somethingthat's time sensitive too,
that's really important to movequickly on, and these platforms
allow us to hit the groundrunning, and we don't need to
wait for a web developer orsomeone more experienced than us
to just okay, let's put ourtext together and get going.
And there are a couple of otherbenefits, like the integrations
with things like Clio, Grow,CRM systems, Zapier.
(03:39):
All of these things make itreally easy for our landing
pages to flow directly into ourpipeline, saving all the manual
data entry hassle, making surewe don't have anybody slipping
through the cracks.
But the main thing here is thatthese integrations because
they're being used by all theusers of these platforms they're
ready to go for us and theseservices can be really
beneficial for, basically,businesses like ours, because
(04:03):
they're fast, they're flexibleand they're built with
conversions in mind.
These are the main things thatwe care about when we're trying
to get started with ourmarketing.
But there's a serious question,especially if you have moved
beyond that stage of startingout with your marketing, If
you're getting a little bitbeyond that, and really even if
(04:23):
you aren't getting beyond that,there are some disadvantages,
some little drawbacks, andespecially for established firms
that are looking to scalemarketing efforts.
Look, let's just take a closerlook at the potential pitfalls.
The subscription model isconvenient at first glance, but
it can become a prettysignificant expense over time.
Most landing page services werecharging somewhere between $35
(04:47):
and maybe $150 a month, and thatdoes sound pretty reasonable,
but we have to think about thelong-term picture.
After two years, at $100 amonth, we've spent probably
enough to build a custom-builtsolution, even if it's just HTML
and JavaScript, that is exactlytailored to our needs.
That doesn't come with theongoing fees.
With certain elements ofcampaigns, it can become really
(05:10):
obvious where these recurringcosts can start feeling more
like a drain than a worthwhileinvestment, especially when the
platform's capabilities can youknow.
In some cases they can feel alittle bit limiting, and that's
because sometimes, when it comesto customization, it's a little
bit of a sticking point.
Saas platforms offer templatesthat are designed for general
use.
They might be, you know,something that's designed for a
(05:31):
fitness e-book and we'rerepurposing, you know, to align
a little bit more with ourbrand's tone and identity, but
it's not exactly perfect.
So we might be trying to forcefit our firm's messaging into a
one-size-fits-all mold and aftera little bit of testing we
could figure out.
Like you know, we know acertain amount of information
about what we want to do and,okay, I think we're ready to go
(05:53):
for for something custom.
And some of the platforms I'mnot going to name names, but
while they do promise ease ofuse.
Sometimes, when you're trying todo something more advanced or
do something that's a little bitbreaking the platform, let's
say, that requires sometechnical skill.
And if we want to add a uniquefeature, integrate with a niche
tool that isn't directlyintegrated with the platform,
(06:14):
that could mean hiring adeveloper, defeating the whole
purpose of what we're arguing isa user-friendly service, and I
don't want to scare you on thatpoint, but it is a real concern
that at a certain point in ourdevelopment do we have to hire
someone, who's more expensivethan if we had done this in a
custom variation on our website.
But look, this really isn't thebiggest issue here.
(06:35):
One of the biggest issues whenit comes to SaaS products is
ownership.
This is a big downside.
With SaaS, we are renting ourlanding pages.
If the platform shuts down ordecides to raise their prices or
we decide to switch providers,we could lose access to
everything.
Migrating our content it'spossible, and migrating it from
(06:56):
a platform to HTML can usuallybe a little bit easier, but the
reality is it's cumbersome mostof the time and in a lot of
cases it just requires startingfrom scratch or, at the very
most, copying and pasting a lotof content over and this just
disrupts momentum and it'sfrustrating when it comes to
controlling the assets and themarketing strategy.
(07:16):
Long-term, the ownership of theplatform and the ownership of
your pages is something to thinkabout.
Don't get me wrong.
These SaaS services are a greatstarting point.
They're really good forbrainstorming, they're really
good for getting a project going.
But when you get a little bitmore established, when you get a
little bit more into a rhythm,they might be tough to align
(07:36):
with your long-term goals.
But if these SaaS platforms likeLeadpages, Unbounce which again
I think are fantastic and I dolike using, but there are just
downsides and we need to beaware of them and if they aren't
meeting your needs, look, don'tworry.
There are a lot of alternativesthat offer really good
flexibility, control and solvemost of the issues we have here
(07:57):
when it comes to long-term value.
So here are some of my topoptions to consider Some of the
things I really like doing.
Number one if you've talked tome before, you know I like
WordPress and WordPress is greatA custom solution.
It's one of the most popularalternative because WordPress is
a totally custom solution.
Obviously, we've talked aboutthe drama in the WordPress
(08:18):
community and there's a lot ofstuff going on with WordPress,
but the reality is it is aself-hosted platform and whether
you're working with a host oryou're hosting it yourself, you
are not constrained by thelimitations of a SaaS platform
and you own those pages outright.
And that scalability is a majoradvantage.
Whether you need a single pageor a dozen, WordPress can handle
(08:39):
all of it without requiring alarger subscription tier.
You can do a million pages ifyou want to.
The only recurring costs arefor the hosting and maybe a
premium theme or plugins and alot of the time.
Those are actually one-timefees, so they end up being a lot
less expensive than a SaaSplatform.
Over time and plugins likeElementor, Beaver, Builder, WP
(09:00):
Bakery, which is my personalfavorite, they bring that drag
and drop functionality toWordPress, making it a little
bit more user-friendly even fornon-technical users, and I would
love to say that these toolsare going to allow you to create
these highly customizedprofessional pages that fully
align with your firm's branding,without the ongoing fees of
SaaS service, without anystrings attached.
(09:22):
But there is a string attachedhere, and while we can get a lot
of things done with WordPressfairly easily, you will find
very quickly that it's hard tomake things look perfect on
WordPress without having adeveloper fine tune things.
But there are a lot moreoptions for that because
WordPress is such a hugecommunity.
And that brings us to our nexttactic, which is hiring a
(09:43):
freelancer or an agency.
Because, look, most of us asfirms we really don't have the
in-house resources to hire aperson to create this.
So hiring a freelancer off ofsomething like Upwork is a
really great option.
Or hiring an agency While it'sa little bit more expensive, you
usually get a little bit morehand-holding and you don't need
to lead the project as muchyourself.
(10:04):
These professionals can designand build pages that are exactly
tailored either to what you sayyou want to the freelancer or
to your actual needs.
Often when an agency isinvolved Not knocking
freelancers, but they just takemore management and sometimes in
marketing, it's good to haveprofessionals involved and this
ensures that every element, fromthe visuals to the calls to
(10:25):
action, that just the entirecontent of the page it's all
supporting your marketing goalor whatever it is you're trying
to do with that page.
This approach is going to havea higher upfront cost than just
going straight to WordPressyourself, but the results look I
don't want to get into a wholediscussion about ROI, but
long-term, compared to a SaaSsubscription, especially when
(10:48):
the pages are built forlong-term use.
I really like this strategy andto support it we can even use
AI tools, so things like JasperWritesonic, even just ChatGPT
itself.
We can use AI to streamlinecopywriting and these design
processes and they can help usgenerate compelling headlines,
calls to action, all thatmarketing jargon and even
sometimes page layouts,depending on the product, and it
(11:10):
takes a fraction of the time itwould take manually and you can
just clean it up, make sureit's what you want and send it
off.
These tools are particularlyuseful for firms that are
launching new campaignsfrequently, or even just for
small firms, because they're afast, cost-effective way to
generate fresh, optimizedlanding pages without having to
do a lot of thinking about it.
(11:31):
You can just get an idea, cleanup the idea and see if it works
.
And lastly, I want to talk aboutthe hybrid model.
This is really what I recommend.
I tried to say this at the topof the alternatives, but what we
want to do is start with a SaaSlanding page.
This is either for anythingtime sensitive or where we're
still experimenting and once wetransition to a rhythm or
(11:54):
something a little bit morestable.
Then we can rely on the custombuilt pages for the long-term or
the higher traffic initiatives.
Higher traffic initiatives aregood because the SaaS pages may
have a traffic limitation.
This allows us to have the bestof both worlds we get the speed
when we need it and we get thecontrol when it matters.
But that hybrid approach thereality is that's sort of the
(12:15):
best option.
There isn't a really good,one-size-fits-all option for
this, and whether you'resticking with a service or
moving to a different service ormoving to a service alternative
, it totally depends on yourfirm's needs and resources.
So I've asked Chad GPT to helpput together a decision-making
framework for this.
A couple of questions that wecan ask ourselves to decide
(12:39):
whether or not we should switchor we should move, and I think
what it's put together is prettygood.
Obviously, your mileage mayvary with this, but let's start
here.
How frequently are you launchingnew campaigns?
If your firm runs multiplecampaigns each month, the
cumulative cost of SaaSsubscriptions might outweigh
their convenience.
Alternatively, infrequentcampaigns might make SaaS a
(13:01):
practical, low-maintenancechoice.
So that's a pretty easy answer.
If we're launching reallyfrequently and we have tons of
different stuff going on, thenSaaS might not be a good idea
because it's too expensive.
But I can also say on the flipside of that that if we are
launching really frequently andwe have the resources to move
things to a longer term solution, then SaaS is a good place to
(13:23):
get that started and ourdevelopers can recreate that in
a long term solution onWordPress or on our other
website provider.
So I might disagree with that alittle bit, but I do think that
the question is the rightquestion to be asking.
Number two is do you needadvanced features like A-B
testing or rapid deployment?
Number two is do you needadvanced features like A-B
testing or rapid deployment Ifthese tools are central to your
strategy?
Saas platforms can save timeand provide robust analytics
(13:45):
that would otherwise requireadditional plugins or
development.
And here's one of ChatGPT'slittle hallucinations.
Again, I absolutely agree withthis question Do you need
advanced features like A-Btesting or rapid deployment?
If so, SaaS landing pages couldbe a good option for you.
Yes, that's absolutely true.
As far as robust analytics, Idefinitely think that varies
(14:06):
from platform to platform.
I would absolutely urgeinstalling some global analytics
so that you can get informationfrom all of your traffic
everywhere and see the wholepicture rather than pockets of
the picture.
But I do agree with thequestion and I think SaaS pages
this is exactly.
The cool thing about them isthat the A-B testing software is
usually built in, because we'velost access to things like
(14:28):
Google's Optimize.
There's been changes andthere's still cool tools out for
A-B testing there, but when itcomes to doing it for a landing
page, just having it all builtinto the software really is the
easiest way to do it in myopinion, and it doesn't require
a whole bunch of other stuff.
When it comes to actuallybuilding the pages long-term,
different story.
But for A-B testing and quicklysetting up pages so we can test
(14:51):
ideas, absolutely, SaaS pagesare great for that.
Number three does your firm'sbranding suffer due to template
limitations?
If your pages look generic orfail to reflect your firm's
unique identity, it might betime to explore a custom
solution.
Consistent and professionalbranding can set your firm apart
in a competitive market.
Yeah, I guess I agree with this.
(15:11):
I don't know if I would putthis number three.
I think there are a lot ofthings that could be limitations
.
Is your firm suffering due tolimitations of SaaS in general
Because this could be a trafficlimitation.
It could be that you need morepages for different objectives.
But, yeah, it's definitelycommon that the customization
(15:32):
just doesn't really stretch tothe point.
We need to reflect the firmaccurately and in a lot of cases
, I do think it's more of anissue of, okay, let's just fit
what we can into it and usecolors that people trust,
because that's really what wewant to go with on landing pages
anyways.
But at the same time, there aredefinitely design things and
more and more firms are beingvery design conscious.
(15:54):
But there are things that wewant to do on landing pages that
the landing page services justdon't really support.
So, yeah, if it's suffering dueto template limitations, well,
you may be investing a littlebit too much in paid advertising
or whatever you're usinglanding pages for.
But I do think this is a goodquestion to consider.
But I would broaden it a littlebit.
Are you having a challengerelated to the limitations of
(16:16):
the platform more broadly,whether that is flexibility,
cost testing, lots of differentthings?
I've had issues with particularplatforms about tracking, where
they weren't tracking thingsthrough to providers accurately,
and that's a big issue as well.
Let's move on to the lastquestion, number four how much
are you willing to invest inlong term solutions?
(16:36):
Custom built landing pages andWordPress sites require a higher
initial investment, buteliminate ongoing subscription
fees.
Consider the total cost ofownership over time and I would
agree with this.
I don't know if we really needthis question, but it is a good
one.
You do need to think about thecost of the SaaS service versus
the cost of creating those pageslong-term.
(16:57):
Ultimately, with a SaaS service, if you use it long enough, it
is going to be more expensivethan the custom solution.
But the ways to fall into thattrap really kind of only require
negligence, so we just won'teven go there at the moment.
But yeah, it's something tothink about.
For sure, If you are reallyrapidly trying to scale things,
then getting that rhythm goingwith creating the long-term
(17:19):
solutions is probably worthwhile.
It will bring costs down, butlong-term it's just a
cost-benefit analysis here, orreally a cost analysis.
How do we determine whether ornot the landing page solution is
going to cost more than justgoing ahead and building it
ourselves?
And a lot of the time it'sgoing to be that hybrid
(17:41):
situation where, hey, we do needto test quickly.
We want these features, but ata certain point we're going to
know, hey, this is whatbasically works and we just need
to adjust a few things everynow and then, and we don't need
to be paying X number of dollarsper page for that, when we
could be paying X number ofcents per page for that.
So for some firms I will saySaaS platforms look, they remain
(18:01):
a really smart choice,especially if you're a small
firm.
You don't have tech support,your resources are really
limited.
$50 a month for a few pages isgreat.
And the simplicity, theaccessibility of these tools can
help us focus on what we'reactually trying to do, whether
it's deliver legal services orsome other marketing, while
keeping this element of themarketing manageable and quick,
(18:22):
Because we really don't want tospend too much time screwing
around with the technology oflanding pages when we could be
focusing on what the content ofthe page is itself.
And SaaS also works really wellfor the short-term campaign kind
of stuff, whether it's aholiday campaign or something
related to a disaster.
In the unfortunate situationwhere that occurs, we can get a
(18:44):
page spun up quickly, reviewed,check out the content and then
deploy it Wherever it is.
We need to deploy it withoutthe significant setup costs or
the time or all the kinds ofthings that come with going to
developers and having to try tospeak their language.
So, whether you're building amarketing team that is built to
(19:07):
be nimble or you're building amarketing team that is built to
be a behemoth of clientacquisition, these platforms are
a really great tool, and Idon't actually want to say you
should or shouldn't be usingthem.
Actually, you probably justshould and then you need to
evaluate when it's time to moveon, and those questions that
ChatGPT generated for me willhopefully help create a
(19:27):
framework for when it's time tomove out of the SaaS platform.
Lead pages, unbounce, whateverit may be, but ultimately that
decision's up to you.
I'm going to keep using theseplatforms and I'm going to keep
transitioning people into HTMLlanding pages, but for today,
that's it for Legal Marketing101.
Check out RosenAdvertisingcomfor more Thanks.
Should I still be using a software as a service?
Landing page service.
Welcome to Legal Marketing 101.
I'm Toby Rosen.
Today we are once again talkingabout landing pages.
We've talked about landingpages a few times before and
while I'm going to repeat someof that in this episode, make
sure you go back and check outour previous landing page
episodes so that you're up tospeed.
Some of these are subscribersonly, so go ahead and subscribe
(00:27):
so you get access to thoseepisodes, and you're going to
get access to the new subscriberonly episode on the first
Monday of every month.
But if you're like any of theother attorneys listening,
you've probably asked yourselfis that monthly subscription to
lead pages or Unbounce, Is itworth it?
Is it really still worth itonce we've been testing for two
years?
Let's get into it.
(00:49):
So first we're going to startwith why these SaaS landing page
services.
Oh, and I'm going to call theseSaaS from now on, instead of
saying software as a service 14times in a row.
Let's start with why theseservices like Leadpages became
so popular in the first place.
It's really not hard to see theappeal and if I breeze through
some of the names of theseproducts kind of quickly, I'm
(01:09):
going to try and put links toall of them in the show notes,
but again, I suggest runningthis through something like
MacWhisper and having it do somenotes for you.
But these platforms things likeLeadpages, Unbounce, HubSpot's
landing page system they werebuilt to make creating high
converting landing pages easyand fast, even if you don't have
(01:30):
a tech or developmentbackground.
First there's the drag and dropfunctionality.
This is key.
This is a lifesaver fornon-technical users, like,
really in a lot of ways, myselfeven.
It makes it easy to moveelements around the page, tweak
designs and preview mobilelayouts without writing a single
line of code.
Sure, I can code, but it's justway easier to do it this way.
(01:52):
And for legal professionals orjust busy people in general,
fiddling with HTML is not whatwe want to be doing.
So this drag and drop stuff ishuge.
And then we have the pre-builttemplates.
Forget drag and drop, it'salready ready to go.
And these aren't just anytemplates.
When we're talking about leadpages, we know that they're
(02:12):
optimized for conversionsbecause you can sort them by the
conversion data that's going tothose pages Lead pages.
Lets us use that information todecide what's going to work for
us.
And when we look at thesetemplates, we're going to find
layouts that are designed tospecifically capture leads, do
consultation bookings, dodownloads of eBooks or guides.
These ready-made tools havealready been tested and
(02:35):
fine-tuned and they're ready forus to pick up and then use that
easy drag and drop thing tomake them our own.
And then there are the built inanalytics and AB testing tools.
Different platforms havedifferent versions of this, but
they all have something, andmost of them allow you to build
something on top of them.
And these features let youtrack performance, experiment
with different things likedifferent headlines, images,
(02:56):
calls to action, and usuallywith just a couple of clicks we
can see different variations ofour page and which one resonates
the best with potential clients.
And this is all importantbecause for us, even in an
industry like law, where it'sreally not that critical to be
fast a lot of the time, we dowant to be fast enough to stay
ahead of our competition.
(03:17):
When we're launching somethingthat's time sensitive too,
that's really important to movequickly on, and these platforms
allow us to hit the groundrunning, and we don't need to
wait for a web developer orsomeone more experienced than us
to just okay, let's put ourtext together and get going.
And there are a couple of otherbenefits, like the integrations
with things like Clio, Grow,CRM systems, Zapier.
(03:39):
All of these things make itreally easy for our landing
pages to flow directly into ourpipeline, saving all the manual
data entry hassle, making surewe don't have anybody slipping
through the cracks.
But the main thing here is thatthese integrations because
they're being used by all theusers of these platforms they're
ready to go for us and theseservices can be really
beneficial for, basically,businesses like ours, because
(04:03):
they're fast, they're flexibleand they're built with
conversions in mind.
These are the main things thatwe care about when we're trying
to get started with ourmarketing.
But there's a serious question,especially if you have moved
beyond that stage of startingout with your marketing, If
you're getting a little bitbeyond that, and really even if
(04:23):
you aren't getting beyond that,there are some disadvantages,
some little drawbacks, andespecially for established firms
that are looking to scalemarketing efforts.
Look, let's just take a closerlook at the potential pitfalls.
The subscription model isconvenient at first glance, but
it can become a prettysignificant expense over time.
Most landing page services werecharging somewhere between $35
(04:47):
and maybe $150 a month, and thatdoes sound pretty reasonable,
but we have to think about thelong-term picture.
After two years, at $100 amonth, we've spent probably
enough to build a custom-builtsolution, even if it's just HTML
and JavaScript, that is exactlytailored to our needs.
That doesn't come with theongoing fees.
With certain elements ofcampaigns, it can become really
(05:10):
obvious where these recurringcosts can start feeling more
like a drain than a worthwhileinvestment, especially when the
platform's capabilities can youknow.
In some cases they can feel alittle bit limiting, and that's
because sometimes, when it comesto customization, it's a little
bit of a sticking point.
Saas platforms offer templatesthat are designed for general
use.
They might be, you know,something that's designed for a
(05:31):
fitness e-book and we'rerepurposing, you know, to align
a little bit more with ourbrand's tone and identity, but
it's not exactly perfect.
So we might be trying to forcefit our firm's messaging into a
one-size-fits-all mold and aftera little bit of testing we
could figure out.
Like you know, we know acertain amount of information
about what we want to do and,okay, I think we're ready to go
(05:53):
for for something custom.
And some of the platforms I'mnot going to name names, but
while they do promise ease ofuse.
Sometimes, when you're trying todo something more advanced or
do something that's a little bitbreaking the platform, let's
say, that requires sometechnical skill.
And if we want to add a uniquefeature, integrate with a niche
tool that isn't directlyintegrated with the platform,
(06:14):
that could mean hiring adeveloper, defeating the whole
purpose of what we're arguing isa user-friendly service, and I
don't want to scare you on thatpoint, but it is a real concern
that at a certain point in ourdevelopment do we have to hire
someone, who's more expensivethan if we had done this in a
custom variation on our website.
But look, this really isn't thebiggest issue here.
(06:35):
One of the biggest issues whenit comes to SaaS products is
ownership.
This is a big downside.
With SaaS, we are renting ourlanding pages.
If the platform shuts down ordecides to raise their prices or
we decide to switch providers,we could lose access to
everything.
Migrating our content it'spossible, and migrating it from
(06:56):
a platform to HTML can usuallybe a little bit easier, but the
reality is it's cumbersome mostof the time and in a lot of
cases it just requires startingfrom scratch or, at the very
most, copying and pasting a lotof content over and this just
disrupts momentum and it'sfrustrating when it comes to
controlling the assets and themarketing strategy.
(07:16):
Long-term, the ownership of theplatform and the ownership of
your pages is something to thinkabout.
Don't get me wrong.
These SaaS services are a greatstarting point.
They're really good forbrainstorming, they're really
good for getting a project going.
But when you get a little bitmore established, when you get a
little bit more into a rhythm,they might be tough to align
(07:36):
with your long-term goals.
But if these SaaS platforms likeLeadpages, Unbounce which again
I think are fantastic and I dolike using, but there are just
downsides and we need to beaware of them and if they aren't
meeting your needs, look, don'tworry.
There are a lot of alternativesthat offer really good
flexibility, control and solvemost of the issues we have here
(07:57):
when it comes to long-term value.
So here are some of my topoptions to consider Some of the
things I really like doing.
Number one if you've talked tome before, you know I like
WordPress and WordPress is greatA custom solution.
It's one of the most popularalternative because WordPress is
a totally custom solution.
Obviously, we've talked aboutthe drama in the WordPress
(08:18):
community and there's a lot ofstuff going on with WordPress,
but the reality is it is aself-hosted platform and whether
you're working with a host oryou're hosting it yourself, you
are not constrained by thelimitations of a SaaS platform
and you own those pages outright.
And that scalability is a majoradvantage.
Whether you need a single pageor a dozen, WordPress can handle
(08:39):
all of it without requiring alarger subscription tier.
You can do a million pages ifyou want to.
The only recurring costs arefor the hosting and maybe a
premium theme or plugins and alot of the time.
Those are actually one-timefees, so they end up being a lot
less expensive than a SaaSplatform.
Over time and plugins likeElementor, Beaver, Builder, WP
(09:00):
Bakery, which is my personalfavorite, they bring that drag
and drop functionality toWordPress, making it a little
bit more user-friendly even fornon-technical users, and I would
love to say that these toolsare going to allow you to create
these highly customizedprofessional pages that fully
align with your firm's branding,without the ongoing fees of
SaaS service, without anystrings attached.
(09:22):
But there is a string attachedhere, and while we can get a lot
of things done with WordPressfairly easily, you will find
very quickly that it's hard tomake things look perfect on
WordPress without having adeveloper fine tune things.
But there are a lot moreoptions for that because
WordPress is such a hugecommunity.
And that brings us to our nexttactic, which is hiring a
(09:43):
freelancer or an agency.
Because, look, most of us asfirms we really don't have the
in-house resources to hire aperson to create this.
So hiring a freelancer off ofsomething like Upwork is a
really great option.
Or hiring an agency While it'sa little bit more expensive, you
usually get a little bit morehand-holding and you don't need
to lead the project as muchyourself.
(10:04):
These professionals can designand build pages that are exactly
tailored either to what you sayyou want to the freelancer or
to your actual needs.
Often when an agency isinvolved Not knocking
freelancers, but they just takemore management and sometimes in
marketing, it's good to haveprofessionals involved and this
ensures that every element, fromthe visuals to the calls to
(10:25):
action, that just the entirecontent of the page it's all
supporting your marketing goalor whatever it is you're trying
to do with that page.
This approach is going to havea higher upfront cost than just
going straight to WordPressyourself, but the results look I
don't want to get into a wholediscussion about ROI, but
long-term, compared to a SaaSsubscription, especially when
(10:48):
the pages are built forlong-term use.
I really like this strategy andto support it we can even use
AI tools, so things like JasperWritesonic, even just ChatGPT
itself.
We can use AI to streamlinecopywriting and these design
processes and they can help usgenerate compelling headlines,
calls to action, all thatmarketing jargon and even
sometimes page layouts,depending on the product, and it
(11:10):
takes a fraction of the time itwould take manually and you can
just clean it up, make sureit's what you want and send it
off.
These tools are particularlyuseful for firms that are
launching new campaignsfrequently, or even just for
small firms, because they're afast, cost-effective way to
generate fresh, optimizedlanding pages without having to
do a lot of thinking about it.
(11:31):
You can just get an idea, cleanup the idea and see if it works
.
And lastly, I want to talk aboutthe hybrid model.
This is really what I recommend.
I tried to say this at the topof the alternatives, but what we
want to do is start with a SaaSlanding page.
This is either for anythingtime sensitive or where we're
still experimenting and once wetransition to a rhythm or
(11:54):
something a little bit morestable.
Then we can rely on the custombuilt pages for the long-term or
the higher traffic initiatives.
Higher traffic initiatives aregood because the SaaS pages may
have a traffic limitation.
This allows us to have the bestof both worlds we get the speed
when we need it and we get thecontrol when it matters.
But that hybrid approach thereality is that's sort of the
(12:15):
best option.
There isn't a really good,one-size-fits-all option for
this, and whether you'resticking with a service or
moving to a different service ormoving to a service alternative
, it totally depends on yourfirm's needs and resources.
So I've asked Chad GPT to helpput together a decision-making
framework for this.
A couple of questions that wecan ask ourselves to decide
(12:39):
whether or not we should switchor we should move, and I think
what it's put together is prettygood.
Obviously, your mileage mayvary with this, but let's start
here.
How frequently are you launchingnew campaigns?
If your firm runs multiplecampaigns each month, the
cumulative cost of SaaSsubscriptions might outweigh
their convenience.
Alternatively, infrequentcampaigns might make SaaS a
(13:01):
practical, low-maintenancechoice.
So that's a pretty easy answer.
If we're launching reallyfrequently and we have tons of
different stuff going on, thenSaaS might not be a good idea
because it's too expensive.
But I can also say on the flipside of that that if we are
launching really frequently andwe have the resources to move
things to a longer term solution, then SaaS is a good place to
(13:23):
get that started and ourdevelopers can recreate that in
a long term solution onWordPress or on our other
website provider.
So I might disagree with that alittle bit, but I do think that
the question is the rightquestion to be asking.
Number two is do you needadvanced features like A-B
testing or rapid deployment?
Number two is do you needadvanced features like A-B
testing or rapid deployment Ifthese tools are central to your
strategy?
Saas platforms can save timeand provide robust analytics
(13:45):
that would otherwise requireadditional plugins or
development.
And here's one of ChatGPT'slittle hallucinations.
Again, I absolutely agree withthis question Do you need
advanced features like A-Btesting or rapid deployment?
If so, SaaS landing pages couldbe a good option for you.
Yes, that's absolutely true.
As far as robust analytics, Idefinitely think that varies
(14:06):
from platform to platform.
I would absolutely urgeinstalling some global analytics
so that you can get informationfrom all of your traffic
everywhere and see the wholepicture rather than pockets of
the picture.
But I do agree with thequestion and I think SaaS pages
this is exactly.
The cool thing about them isthat the A-B testing software is
usually built in, because we'velost access to things like
(14:28):
Google's Optimize.
There's been changes andthere's still cool tools out for
A-B testing there, but when itcomes to doing it for a landing
page, just having it all builtinto the software really is the
easiest way to do it in myopinion, and it doesn't require
a whole bunch of other stuff.
When it comes to actuallybuilding the pages long-term,
different story.
But for A-B testing and quicklysetting up pages so we can test
(14:51):
ideas, absolutely, SaaS pagesare great for that.
Number three does your firm'sbranding suffer due to template
limitations?
If your pages look generic orfail to reflect your firm's
unique identity, it might betime to explore a custom
solution.
Consistent and professionalbranding can set your firm apart
in a competitive market.
Yeah, I guess I agree with this.
(15:11):
I don't know if I would putthis number three.
I think there are a lot ofthings that could be limitations
.
Is your firm suffering due tolimitations of SaaS in general
Because this could be a trafficlimitation.
It could be that you need morepages for different objectives.
But, yeah, it's definitelycommon that the customization
(15:32):
just doesn't really stretch tothe point.
We need to reflect the firmaccurately and in a lot of cases
, I do think it's more of anissue of, okay, let's just fit
what we can into it and usecolors that people trust,
because that's really what wewant to go with on landing pages
anyways.
But at the same time, there aredefinitely design things and
more and more firms are beingvery design conscious.
(15:54):
But there are things that wewant to do on landing pages that
the landing page services justdon't really support.
So, yeah, if it's suffering dueto template limitations, well,
you may be investing a littlebit too much in paid advertising
or whatever you're usinglanding pages for.
But I do think this is a goodquestion to consider.
But I would broaden it a littlebit.
Are you having a challengerelated to the limitations of
(16:16):
the platform more broadly,whether that is flexibility,
cost testing, lots of differentthings?
I've had issues with particularplatforms about tracking, where
they weren't tracking thingsthrough to providers accurately,
and that's a big issue as well.
Let's move on to the lastquestion, number four how much
are you willing to invest inlong term solutions?
(16:36):
Custom built landing pages andWordPress sites require a higher
initial investment, buteliminate ongoing subscription
fees.
Consider the total cost ofownership over time and I would
agree with this.
I don't know if we really needthis question, but it is a good
one.
You do need to think about thecost of the SaaS service versus
the cost of creating those pageslong-term.
(16:57):
Ultimately, with a SaaS service, if you use it long enough, it
is going to be more expensivethan the custom solution.
But the ways to fall into thattrap really kind of only require
negligence, so we just won'teven go there at the moment.
But yeah, it's something tothink about.
For sure, If you are reallyrapidly trying to scale things,
then getting that rhythm goingwith creating the long-term
(17:19):
solutions is probably worthwhile.
It will bring costs down, butlong-term it's just a
cost-benefit analysis here, orreally a cost analysis.
How do we determine whether ornot the landing page solution is
going to cost more than justgoing ahead and building it
ourselves?
And a lot of the time it'sgoing to be that hybrid
(17:41):
situation where, hey, we do needto test quickly.
We want these features, but ata certain point we're going to
know, hey, this is whatbasically works and we just need
to adjust a few things everynow and then, and we don't need
to be paying X number of dollarsper page for that, when we
could be paying X number ofcents per page for that.
So for some firms I will saySaaS platforms look, they remain
(18:01):
a really smart choice,especially if you're a small
firm.
You don't have tech support,your resources are really
limited.
$50 a month for a few pages isgreat.
And the simplicity, theaccessibility of these tools can
help us focus on what we'reactually trying to do, whether
it's deliver legal services orsome other marketing, while
keeping this element of themarketing manageable and quick,
(18:22):
Because we really don't want tospend too much time screwing
around with the technology oflanding pages when we could be
focusing on what the content ofthe page is itself.
And SaaS also works really wellfor the short-term campaign kind
of stuff, whether it's aholiday campaign or something
related to a disaster.
In the unfortunate situationwhere that occurs, we can get a
(18:44):
page spun up quickly, reviewed,check out the content and then
deploy it Wherever it is.
We need to deploy it withoutthe significant setup costs or
the time or all the kinds ofthings that come with going to
developers and having to try tospeak their language.
So, whether you're building amarketing team that is built to
(19:07):
be nimble or you're building amarketing team that is built to
be a behemoth of clientacquisition, these platforms are
a really great tool, and Idon't actually want to say you
should or shouldn't be usingthem.
Actually, you probably justshould and then you need to
evaluate when it's time to moveon, and those questions that
ChatGPT generated for me willhopefully help create a
(19:27):
framework for when it's time tomove out of the SaaS platform.
Lead pages, unbounce, whateverit may be, but ultimately that
decision's up to you.
I'm going to keep using theseplatforms and I'm going to keep
transitioning people into HTMLlanding pages, but for today,
that's it for Legal Marketing101.
Check out RosenAdvertisingcomfor more Thanks.
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