How to approach designing a landing page for a wholesale retailer without eCommerce? [closed]

Question

I'm trying to sketch the look of a website for my parent's retailer. We sell disposables/restaurant supplies like plastic cups/napkins/paper bags, etc. Very old school, local, small and personal. Technically it's a B2B Wholesale Retailer

Thing is, there's no global price for a product, it is always discussed per costumer. And all orders are made by phone/personally, for now we can't just accept online orders.

I have browsed pages and pages of stock photos and couldn't find a single one to make those cool giant picture websites with just a contact form. For me this would be the easiest as there would be no need to fill the landing page with information.

I also can't think what kind of info should be on the landing page, a product demo? But we sell products from other companies, I can't see how that can't be attractive without looking like a super technical "square" website. Our products aren't attractive, I can't visualize this approach.

In my view it can't have too much info as it will be just a landing page for existing clients to login or prospecting client to contact, but it needs to be seductive somehow for the latter.

The website will have a staff/client login with a dashboard app, but that's easy to visualize for me, not a problem.

If someone could link to some website that does this right, or any inspirational material it would be really helpfull.

Answer 1

It sounds like you're thinking about this backwards, or aren't using a landing page correctly. Either is possible.

The first thing you want to do is come up with a Design Brief. This question What questions should be included in a design brief? has some good points that can help you get started on that.

Now armed with your design brief since this is a Landing Page you are likely doing what is sometimes referred to as Integrated Marketing. Rather than start on the Landing Page you should start on the outer layers first.

Let's say you're going to run ads in three different publications, as well as CPC on Google and LinkedIn.

Armed with the company's visual identity, existing branding, and the brief you now have; start designing those smaller outer layers. What will those single page ads be visually communicating to get people to visit this landing page?

Once you have that designed the landing page should really be a direct follow-up. People should see exactly what they expect based on the design and proposition established within the ad. If you design a flyer to mail local restaurants using red, white, and blue and images of a specific product line such as Plastic Cups then the landing page you design should reinforce those colors and that product.

As far as the "what" such as product demos, that's definitely outside the scope of GDSE. If you'd like you can come into Ink Spot and I can offer some advice also consider following the Area 51 - Business Development proposal where topics like that will be accepted.