There is no such thing as a perfect homepage template

Why?

💥 Because your growth model dictates your website strategy.

Remember, your website is just another GTM asset.

It should have a specific purpose

↳ especially for awareness and acquisition motions.

Too many startups use it as a company wiki trying to explain everything they do and how they do it.

❌ This is a BIG mistakes.

It puts prospects into evaluation mode and forces them to make a decision on everything right away.

Instead, startups should meet prospects with the smallest message to get potential users to the next step.

There is plenty more time to communicate everything else.

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Here are the 3 acquisition models

↳ And the corresponding messaging strategy

🟢🟢🟢 Sales-Led Growth

The primary motion here is to reach out to prospects directly via:

→ emails & LinkedIn

→ cold calls

→ events

The purpose of the website?

✅ To establish credibility

Running an outbound motion doesn’t even require a website.

But it can be useful when a prospect starts to engage with your outbound message, and goes to your site to see if you are legit.

The website messaging strategy?

💪 Tout your most impressive progress that highlights your credibility — and indicates that you could be valuable to a target customer.

Include things like:

→ Big customer logos

→ Case studies

→ Funding announcements

🟣🟣🟣 Marketing-Led Growth

In this motion, startups are engaging with prospects indirectly through content to drive them to your site:

→ Social media posts

→ blog articles

→ webinars & communities

The purpose of the website?

🫱Convert a target persona on the CTA

↳ Either book a demo or start a trial

In this model, your website is CRITICAL for acquisition.

The website messaging strategy?

🎯 Be as clear as possible about what the product does.

To do this, emphasize your most compelling capability that you enable for a user.

And save all the extra capabilities and features for your sales demo or in-product messaging.

🔵🔵🔵 Product-Led Growth

For PLG startups, your website strategy will be very similar to those taking a marketing-led approach.

Especially for early stage companies.

Why?

👥 Because you’ll need a lot of users to get PLG acquisition working.

(Not to mention finding product-market fit)

👉 You can’t rely on product-led acquisition in the early days.

Because your are starting at zero users.

The purpose of the website?

🤠 Get a potential user to try the product.

The website messaging strategy?

🔨 Focus on the most compelling capability AND the feature that powers it.

→ Think of the page almost as a buy now for the single feature

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Consider the company examples for Salesforce, HubSpot, and Calendly (see image).

→ They all had drastically different growth models in the early days.

And very different website strategies!

Does your website support your go-to-market motions?