My experience with landing pages is that your deepest assumptions of what is better can be proven wrong by your visitors.
It is amazing how much more I A/B test now that it is one line to do. Previously, I'd go back and forth with myself about whether I should add a feature or not, worried whether the marginal utility would offset marginal complexity. I don't worry about these things anymore -- I just implement it and, toggle it with an A/B test (1 line of code), then track conversions at the next step in the funnel (1 line of code), and wait a week.
Concrete example: Next up on the development roadmap is a color selector. I've put it off for three years out of the fear that color selectors will befuddle my core user, but every few months someone asks for it. Why worry when you can implement it, wait for data, and rollback (almost) instantly if it doesn't pan out?
Writing a landing page? Write two calls to action. Takes essentially as much time as writing one since you mentally brainstormed six anyhow. No problem, chuck Mr. Second Best in there. It only takes a line. Customers will humble you with how many times Mr. Second Best trounces your best writing. (Customers will humble you with how many times Mr. Total Garbage trounces your best writing, too.)
My big point is, let people trust in and rely on a video as their first experience, make that experience priority, if it makes sense for your business.
ECM and Zumbox both offer very new strategies to dealing with a problem most people don't really conceptualize immediately.
What I can attest to is a video can really help get blogger coverage. Bloggers love to be able to embed a 1-2min demo of what your site is about. I believe it was a big part of what got us top coverage(on TechCrunch/digg etc.) when we launched few years ago.
Moreover, video helps you control the precise message in a world where bloggers can do a 5min writeup on your site that totally misses the point.
For example for me it's the opposite than this author: I don't like video too much; I'd rather read and a sign-up page is more intimidating than some text explaining the service.
* Lady is facing away from the signup form which focuses visitor attention away from the form. Signup conversions can probably increase if she were facing towards the form
* More details on how the service works below the fold can actually help. I think the page doesn't do a good job in convincing people who are there to learn about the service. It stresses too much on conversions.
* Having "Totally secure" and "Privacy Protected" in bold large font just next to convert button can help.
They ask personal and potentially sensitive info right on the homepage, better convince visitor that it is worth it and his data is safe.
Of course, all my suggestions can be split test :)
The author doesn't like "distracting nav links". Maybe. If I was an expert, I'd be rich. But after struggling with this stuff for awhile, it's my opinion that when the user's trigger finger starts getting itchy, he's going to click that mouse. On Zumbox, there's almost nowhere to click but away from Zumbox. Seems like it would be better to let him stay on your site at least.
Zumbox was notable for me, in that I actually had a negative opinion of it's landing page, where usually I'm neutral or I find things to admire about almost any established companies page.
