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I’m Nicolas Mérouze and you’re receiving this email because you’ve subscribed to my newsletter either on my website, on Twitter, LinkedIn, or on Customer Fitted.

Today, I’m writing about hero images and at the end I have some indie marketing wins to share.

There’s a lot of advice recommending a “product visual” in the hero but putting a random screenshot serves no real purpose.

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I wrote this newsletter with lots of examples to answer these questions:

• If random product screenshot is not enough, what makes a good product visual?
• What other visuals can you have in your hero?
• What are the latest trends?

I have a database of 50 indie SaaS and 50 funded SaaS. I’m very slowly analyzing their websites and this time, I’m going through hero visuals.

I have multiple categories and even in these categories I could have sub-categories but it would be too complicated.

Let’s go through all of them and see what’s good and bad about them.

1. Stock photos

Indie SaaS → 0%

Funded SaaS → 0%

We can all collectively agree that stock photos are the worst.

Showing people and faces originally made software less obscure. But the overuse of the same kind of photos made this trend die a long time ago.

And in my analysis, nobody were using stock photos. But I did find a SaaS with a stock photo and their product visual photoshopped into it.

I have another example that is in my database though but I wouldn’t consider it a stock photo because the background feels warmer, the woman doesn’t have a fake smile, and the product visual is also there afterwards.

2. Abstract illustrations

Indie SaaS → 2%

Funded SaaS → 8%

I remember 10-15 years ago when they were all the rage. We were paying designers a lot for illustrations of disformed people and objects.

At the time, it was a good evolution from stock photos, but now it’s almost extinct.

Why?

In practical terms, it doesn’t help visitors to understand what the product is, how to use it, or why they’d use it.

3. Product illustrations

Indie SaaS → 8%

Funded SaaS → 10%

It’s a mix between the abstract illustration and the product screenshot.

It generally shows what the product is and the benefits, so it’s good but in most cases a visual closer to what the product really looks like would be a better choice.

Sometimes, companies feel like the product is too complex and requires an illustration of the style below, but it's usually not easy to understand.

4. Product visuals

Indie SaaS → 44%

Funded SaaS → 28%

I put in the same categories product screenshots, illustrations that are very close to the product, and also product animations (but not videos).

It’s the most widely used pattern.

Here’s what I would consider a product visual that isn’t a screenshot but looks enough like the product (BTW, I’m the designer of this visual).

A product visual with an animation really distracts from the message you want to convey so I would generally not recommend it.

On this example from Collect, the animation also takes way too long (maybe 10s or more). I didn’t make it a gif to keep the email light.

There’s a lot of advice to have a “product visual” for the hero but putting a random screenshot serves no real purpose.

The best you can do is show the before-after state. The pain the customer was having before and the transformation and results the customer has with the product.

5. Interactive demos

Indie SaaS → 14%

Funded SaaS → 6%

Of course, showing this state with just a picture is often really hard.

That’s why interactive demos are on the rise. Videos are usually too long, too often not skippable, and visitors just skip them.

Interactive demos work better. The trap is to make them with too many possible interactions.

​Tggl.io has a product visual you can interact with. It’s simple, not too distracting and you can understand what the product is better.

But more and more products are coming up to make it easy to create interactive demos with hotspots and other features like that.

I would have thought it was more widely used by funded SaaS by now but it’s still just a small part. And I have an idea why below.

6. Videos

Indie SaaS → 12%

Funded SaaS → 28%

Like I said earlier, there are so many problems with videos:

• Autoplay
• Unskippable
• Too long
• Badly scripted
• Not easily navigable
• etc

And they’re more complex and expensive to create that’s why more funded SaaS have them compared to indies.

But what I’ve seen on the rise recently — and only for funded SaaS — are short videos almost like animated visuals with multiple tabs you can click on for different parts of the product.

Most of the videos from funded SaaS were coming in this format.

So why?

First, it removes a lot of the problems with videos. It’s not too long, you can navigate easily, there’s no sound, and no unnecessary narrative.

And I would say when a product visual isn’t enough and an interactive demo is too complex, then that’s the best format.

And for funded SaaS with a lot of features, it becomes obvious why that’s the best format.

In this example, there’s an animation of the product in the section right after the homepage, so the difference between that and something in the hero doesn’t change much.

With more and more websites having the visual below the CTA instead of on the right, skipping the visual in the hero entirely is a possibility, but there’s usually a better alternative.

7. No visuals

Indie SaaS → 20%

Funded SaaS → 20%

I didn’t expect it to be so high but 20% of heroes don’t have visuals.

I see 2 reasons:

1. The product category they’re in is obvious enough and they prefer to use the hero to show more social proof before showing the product in more details.
2. Big enough funded SaaS have enough awareness they don’t have to show the product straight away.

Indie marketing wins: follow-up perseverance, and blog CRO

I know I should follow up for longer periods of time and don’t do anything.

If the value is there, you should probably try to perserve more.

Mike Heap @mike_heap_ This is why you follow up (and yes, each one was handwritten) People have busy lives Overflowing inboxes Other priorities They go on holiday Projects get moved Assessments get wrapped in red tape Approvals take time But if they've shown interest before* and now don't… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1810707979995385873 6:9 PM • Jul 9, 2024 2 Retweets 7 Likes Read 1 replies

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Now, here’s a good CRO tip for blogs.

Better Legal has AI articles getting some traffic but people didn’t read until the end to see the CTA.

They changed that and conversion is now much higher.

Chad Sakonchick @csakon We had some success converting people to try our tool. But after adding that little CTA towards the top, you can see how conversions quickly jumped. Chad Sakonchick @csakon Now that @BetterLegal's SEO is performing, it's time to convert these eyeballs to users. A couple months ago we had an AI write articles on two keywords we knew we could rank for, NDAs and Severance Agreements. These pages received over 1k clicks in June and rank in position… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1810737234548773302 https://twitter.com/csakon/status/1806058209376899543 8:6 PM • Jul 9, 2024 0 Retweets 0 Likes Read 1 replies

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