The strategies for writing a winning landing page bio
By Rachel Cai
Marketing Lead
Summary
Learn how to write your bio and show your credibility from Maven's top isntructors.
Instructor Intro
The instructor intro on your landing page is a short line (80 characters) about your credibility in the topic that you are teaching. Your instructor intro is your shot to impress your prospective student with your relevant achievements.
Because you have limited characters, you should be specific about what you've accomplished and include company names, titles, number of years of experience, number of people/clients you have, revenue numbers. Here are a few examples on how to go from vague to specific in your instructor intro:
- đźš« vague: ex-Google
- đź‘Ť specific: 5 years at Google leading global partnerships
- đźš« vague: Led growth teams
- đź‘Ť specific: Head of Growth at WhatsApp, built growth function from ground up
- đźš« vague: Startup advisor
- đź‘Ť specific: Advisor to 20+ startups that were acquired
- đźš« vague: Trainer/coach
- đź‘Ť specific: Trained hundreds of X role on how to get promoted
- đźš« vague: Product at X company
- đź‘Ť specific: Head of Product at X company with 5m users and $22m in funding
- đźš« vague: Excluding suffixes
- đź‘Ť specific: Include suffixes like Dr or PhD to convey your credibility in your field
Here are examples of effective instructor intros:
- Marily Nika's Breaking into AI Product Management
- Kate Mason's Communicating with Power
- Joe Portsmouth's Email Marketing 101
- Dave Wolovsky's How to Ask for a Raise
- Rob Lennon's Zero to 10k Twitter Accelerator
Instructor Bio
Your instructor bio is an opportunity to put your best foot forward. Don’t assume the reader will Google you—your landing page might be your only shot, so let your credibility shine.
We're often asked whether the bio should be in first-person or third-person. Either works, and it depends on which one you feel more comfortable with. Try switching to third-person if it's hard to talk about yourself, or try a storytelling approach in first-person if that is more natural. It's okay if your bio is on the longer side as long as it effectively conveys your credibility, results, and reason for building the course.
An effective bio should include these 4 components
- What you're currently doing
- Relevant professional experience in the field
- Results and outcomes (include numbers)
- Why you've built this course and who it's for
Here are two examples of effective bios—one is in first-person and the other in third-person. Notice how both bios convey the key components mentioned above.
- Emily Kramer's Building B2B Marketing
- Taylor Davidson's Cap Table and Exit Waterfall Masterclass
Show credibility by speaking intelligently about your target students' problems
Most people think credibility is about testimonials and recognizable brands. But what if you don’t have clients yet, or your work is locked behind NDAs?
Luckily, there are a few ways to show credibility (even if you haven’t launched your course yet):
This means speaking to your ideal students' day-to-day problems, sharing your spiky point of views, and using industry-specific language. You should sprinkle these stories throughout the page—in your testimonials, key outcomes, course overview, and bio.
1. Speak intelligently about your target students' problems
Most messaging is me-focused: “I worked at X company. I specialize in Y. I have these clients.” Your prospective student will read this and thinks, “How is any of this relevant to me?”
This is a missed opportunity.
Instead of rattling off your work history, talk about your target student and the specific problems they’re facing. When you speak with insight and detail, a magical thing happens: People assume you know how to solve the problem.
When you’re vague, prospective students will assume it’s because you’re not able to go any deeper.
Here are a few prompts to help you brainstorm:
- What are the real day-to-day problems that your ideal student struggles with?
- What are the mistakes you’ve seen others make (or you’ve made)?
- Share how you’ve solved those problems in your own work
- Share how you’ve helped a client or student transform their life or business
- What’s your unique approach to solving this problem?
- What projects did you work on and what were the results? Be specific and use metrics. Did this approach improve retention by 30%? Did these techniques to increase conversion by 20%?
Here's an example from Annie Duke's Make Better Decisions. In her Key Outcomes section, Annie teases her insights and research about decision-making. Framing your outcomes as insights builds trust with your target student that you're an expert in the field.
2. Share student transformation stories
In Zero to 10k Twitter Accelerator, Rob Lennon creatively uses the Schedule section to tell a story about how he helped a client "John" transform using his methodology. By the way, you can add custom sections by clicking "+ New Section" at the top left-panel of your landing page builder.
3. Share your spiky point of view
You might be wondering: "Why give free advice on LinkedIn, Twitter, or newsletter? Won’t that devalue my work?"
Ironically, the opposite is true. The more insights you share freely, the more your prospective students will think, “If they’re willing to tell me this for free, they must give even better advice if I pay for the course.”
This is where your spiky point of view comes in. A spiky point of view is a perspective others can disagree with. It’s a belief you feel strongly about and are willing to advocate for. It’s your thesis about topics in your realm of expertise.
Here are questions to inspire your spiky point of view:
- What do you wish more people understood about solving X problem?
- What are mistakes you’ve seen others in your industry make (or that you’ve made)?
- What’s a best practice that everyone seems to believe is right, but you disagree with based on your experience?
4. Use industry-specific language
Common wisdom says to avoid jargon. But sometimes jargon and industry-specific terms help show your credibility.
For example, Emily Kramer teaches a course on B2B marketing. On her landing page, she doesn’t shy away from jargon like PMM, OKR, KPI, funnel, positioning, or growth levers. She even mentions proprietary frameworks like the GACC framework, Pi-shaped, and Fuel-Engine.
This jargon demonstrates her credibility and expertise in these topics. And it narrows her target audience to marketers who “get it."
✍️ Action
Audit your landing page and bio. If you remove all the company and client names, do you still sound like an expert? If not, try the ideas above to show your credibility.
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