Disclaimer: This company does not sell soap. Or boxes.
Disclaimer II (because my lawyers told me I needed to add this if I planned on staying in business): No intent to hate on Soapbox or its website, because I LOVE their product and the site looks lovely.
My purpose is to show how good websites can be made great. How there's always scope for improvement.
How amazing products need websites that are equally amazing to truly reach their full potential!
And this is why I decided to tear down the Soapbox website and reinvent it: Sumit-stylez.
Soapbox has an impressive list of clientele, including names such as Netflix and Hubspot and Intercom and FREAKING Coca Cola—which shows that even top-notch, successful products are prone to copywriting and design errors.
Soapbox is a meeting tool that helps track the goals of a meeting, allows managers to set agendas for meetings, keep meeting notes and overall, stop meetings from being pointless wastes of time where everyone talks and nothing emerges out of it.
Soapbox prevents exactly that—and this is such a real, annoying problem that we ALL wish there was solution to, right?
Now compare that very real pain to Soapbox's header:
Communicate better and save time are great benefits, no doubt—but this is your header, the most important part of your website.
It decides whether the visitor is going to continue further or not!
A generic headline does not connect with anyone, because it is spread too thin. The problem that Soapbox solves is bigger than communication, or time-saving: and these two pain points that the header tackles are limiting.
It decides whether the visitor is going to continue further or not!
A generic headline does not connect with anyone, because it is spread too thin. The problem that Soapbox solves is bigger than communication, or time-saving: and these two pain points that the header tackles are limiting.
We need concrete, outcome-oriented, customer-centric headlines that provoke emotion...and subsequently ACTION.
I always love question headlines because they force the visitor's brains to answer, almost unconsciously.
It's like when you can't resist when they ask: Who you gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!
I'd prefer a headline that went something like:
'Do you want to save 50% of your team's time just by changing how meetings happen?'
'Do you want to save 50% of your team's time just by changing how meetings happen?'
Or
'Unstructured meetings are killing your team's productivity and wasting 30% of everyone's workday'
'Unstructured meetings are killing your team's productivity and wasting 30% of everyone's workday'
Ya know, something spicy.
The Subhead:
'The agenda tool that fuels your one-on-one and team meetings' gives us some context to the product, but still does not entirely explain what the product does.
In what way does it fuel meetings? And again, we need some concrete measurable stuff in there.
Here's a quick, unedited revision I offer:
'More than 8,000 businesses use Soapbox to plan and carry out meetings that make a difference.'
'More than 8,000 businesses use Soapbox to plan and carry out meetings that make a difference.'
or
'Soapbox makes meetings 100% more effective for over 8,000 businesses through shared agendas and goal tracking'
'Soapbox makes meetings 100% more effective for over 8,000 businesses through shared agendas and goal tracking'
You immediately understand more about the product and get social proof. Double BLAM!
Your visitors should not struggle to understand these four things:
- What your product does?
- What the outcome of using your product is.
- What the next step is.
- Is it credible?
The Totality of the Header:
The overall header of Soapbox looks sweet, but the thing is: you should always design for the most ignorant of your website visitors.
People who don't know what agenda tools are. People who don't have any clue about what Soapbox does.
And that is why we follow the 5 second rule. Yep, the same rule I use everytime I drop a tasty treat on the floor. Whaat, the germs wait. It's scientific!
The design-version of the 5-second rule is slightly different. It means you have to answer the four questions mentioned above...all in 5 seconds. In the header. Fast.
That's my grievance against the Soapbox header!
I get a vague idea that it has something to do with meetings: but I'm not sure about the 'why' and 'how'.
Moving on...The Pain Points:
To put it very gently...these don't exist on the main page.
But that's okay: most SaaS websites do not include these, but I've found that actually pinpointing the problem that your customers are facing makes them feel heard.
Visitors are more likely to trust a product that knows the problem it is solving, in depth.
Mentioning the pain points improves the credibility of your product and shows the customers you care.
How will you solve their problem if you don't even know it? What if my meetings seem okay already: what does Soapbox bring to the table?
Which is why I propose a section for Soapbox users and their problems!
Some cool headline ideas I scrawled out are:
- Do all the grandiose plans you make in your team meetings NEVER materialize?
- Have you been attending pointless meetings that never reach any conclusions?
- Do your team meetings always stray away from the topics you REALLY need to discuss?
- Tired of ineffective meetings and zero follow-throughs?
This connects to your customers. This makes them go:
Soapbox does more than FUEL meetings. And the main page of their website just doesn't do it justice.
The Benef...features:
Soapbox has SO MANY cool benefits—here's some I crafted that make it super irresistible (and add some personality!):
- Rate your meetings to track how effective they are (yes Kathy, the meeting didn't achieve anything except complaints about your weak knees)
- Share the meeting agendas so that your team knows the goals of the meeting and why they're there (we all have been clueless at one point, let's not lie)
- Note down all the game-changing ideas with collective meeting minutes (so we don't forget)
- Set up action items with deadlines so your big ideas get executed and bring results (not executed, like dying)
- Ask the right questions to lead the team to a Eureka moment (and you sound intelligent)
The list is never-ending!
The list is never-ending!
And isn't that more convincing that just a list of features such as...
The difference is: Features tell you what the product does. Benefits tell you what your customer can do with your product
And your website needs to be ALL about your visitors. Not about you
Benefits guide the customer about the usage of the feature: people understand 'agendas' or 'meeting notes' by their function. Without the context of what a product helps customers do, why would they buy it?
Your customers come to you to find a better version of their business.
A way to make their job smoother, their profits higher, their time more productive.
And meeting agendas might be the route to it. But they sure as hell are not the destination.
Another thing: Objections.
People have objections to your product.
Is it worth my time? Will it really improve my meetings? Will it be just another product that no one on the team really uses? Is it difficult to use? Are there any actual results to it?
I'd love to see Soapbox easing hesitant visitors into converting by tackling the questions they have!
Something like:
'Soapbox is an easy-to-use product that merges into your business to make it a more productive, less time-consuming space. More than 20,000 managers use it DAILY to streamline their meetings and save upto 2 hours every day!'
'Soapbox is an easy-to-use product that merges into your business to make it a more productive, less time-consuming space. More than 20,000 managers use it DAILY to streamline their meetings and save upto 2 hours every day!'
The Agenda Template Thingy:
My problems with this:
I've currently been setting up meetings by texting my teammates on Slack and sending a Zoom link.
For a visitor like that...what the f*ck is an agenda template? The work involved in setting up a meeting, for me is a TEXT. So when Soapbox offers to do the work for me by adding a starter agenda: I am confused.
What's a starter agenda, and why would I need a template?
What Soapbox could do instead is connect it to use cases, and the pain points they're tackling.
Here's how I'd reframe this:
'Getting on that super important meeting but don't know where to start?
Introducing Agenda Templates!
For times when you need to get on a customer feedback interview or a salary review meeting and wish you had someone to prompt you questions and set up goals: we've got your back!
For your meetings to be effective, you need the basics sorted. So we've made templates for all your typical business meetings: by pre-adding meeting review questions, agendas that give your meeting a direction and so much more!
So what are you waiting for? Change the way you meet now!'
The Cost of Turning Away:
'Inefficient meetings are stopping you from doubling your productivity.'
'You're not growing at double the speed because your team is working at half its potential.'
These headlines I've written make the customer actually analyse the long-term cost of NOT solving the problem. On Soapbox's site, this section is absent—but it could add so much more steam to their product!
It shows the customer what they are missing out on by not using Soapbox, and having pointless meetings. The cost of not using the product.
You target the customer's true concerns by showing them:
- What they can achieve with your product
- What they lose by not using your product
Les Testimonials!
I've got a simple rule:
If you got it, flaunt it.
And Soapbox GOT it.
These guys are being used by Coca Cola. By Netflix. By Hubspot. Intercom. Wayfair. Adobe. Getty Images. Go Daddy.
And this information is only revealed to us on the features page??
Look if I so much as got a TWEET from Hubspot, it'd go in my header. Like if they just said 'Bruh', it'd be up there.
Why the heck are these logos not on the main page, right below the header?
I urge you, Soapbox, if you're listening....show us all you got. We'll LOVE you for it.
But apart from that, the testimonials are great. I'd love if they were more concrete, and went into particulars, but that's just the critique-finder in me speaking!
The testimonials rock!
One more teeny tiny (v.v. important) thing: Stats!
Here's what I would add to the main page:
- The number of teams using Soapbox: 'Loved by over 8,000 amazing teams around the world
- 'Logos of the companies using it: As mentioned above, the approval stamp of Netflix carries weight!
- Number of total work hours saved
- Number of goals reached via efficient meetings
This is all social proof, which allows visitors to trust the results your business says it brings. It makes your product look valuable and reliable!
Also in what I love:
Soapbox has different pages for different features—and they are so gooood!
I mean...
This one's for their one-on-one improvement!
If we could have a small section for each major feature and its benefits on the main page, it would be SO badass!
If you're afraid of long pages, just litter them with CTAs at regular intervals—don't cut short the conversation, because your website is a sales message.
Cold visitors, who make up most of your traffic, want to know all about you before they commit. Even if you're a free product. So give the audience what they want!
The other thing I also love is the integrations section: clean, well-organised and great copy!
Lastly:
Give me an alternate CTA.
Give me value, sans the big commitment!
For all the visitors who are still hesitant to sign up for Soapbox, what if they received a quick guide to making meetings better?
Or an E-book about productivity?
Something that keeps them in your emailing list...in case they change their mind and cannot find you in their browser history!
The Conclusion:
Before Soapbox sues me (or hires me? Please, @Soapbox,❤️ your product!), I want to say that this website might work for Soapbox, but all businesses are not the same.
Soapbox has made a name for itself, with big brands supporting the product, which is why they don't need to be ultra-calculating.
Soapbox's website can be refined to target their customers in a more emotionally-driven way: with sharper analyses of the pain points, desires and outcomes of their users.
The alternate copy I've written is not perfect.
But it is copy written with the aim to understand the customer, put oneself in their shoes and then sell to them. It is copy written to empathize with their customer, evoke an emotional response and then convert them.
Not only does this process allow you to convert more customers, but also points you to improving your product in a way that helps your customers.
It's a process based on showing your customers the true value of your product: by deeply connecting with your customer!
So there!
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