Widgetised template homepage

Got a gr8 looking theme. I set up the homepage as per their demo, as follows:

• admin: Settings > Reading Settings > Front page displays= Your latest posts
• Page area is content added via Appearance > Widget areas

I like this homepage so much I want to replicate it for other “promo/landing” pages. But there’s no option to do so in admin.

I think I might need to create custom widget areas and a template(s) to pull them in.

I’m not sure how the homepage I set up works, to guess I would say it’s index.php pulling in widgets that were registered via functions.php.

So would I need to make an individual template for each required promo/landing page by copying & modifying the theme’s index.php & register respective widget areas?

Many thanks in advance for pointing me in the right direction for my most audacious WordPress modification yet