Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Part 4 (of 5): Creating Highly Effective Forms

Yes, it’s that time again — time to continue our five-part Lead Generation series. With this fourth part of the series, we’re now on the homestretch. Just a little more time and effort and you’ll be scoring leads like nobody’s business. For this installment, we’ll be concentrating on Creating Highly Effective Forms on your landing pages. So without further adieu…

Part Four: Creating Highly Effective Forms

Gathering information about the visitors who come to your website is essential if you want to convert them into leads and, at a later date, customers. One of the easiest and most effective ways of doing this is by including a form on each of your landing pages. The information that you want to gather will vary, but the trick is to optimize these forms for maximum effect. Here are four ways that will help improve your conversation rate through the use of forms:

Choosing the Right Length

In a perfect world, we’d be able to ask every website visitor a hundred different questions so that we could create a full analysis of what they’re looking for and how to market to each person. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that perfect world. In the world we do live in, most people want to keep things simple. Although there are no specific guidelines to follow, it’s best to trust your instincts — such as, consider collecting only the most basic information that you require in order to attempt a further connection with each visitor. A great strategy is to make only a few fields required and leave the rest optional. But, of course, you must also consider that the more required fields you have, the higher quality each lead will be. Strike a good balance and you’re golden.

Avoid That Evil Word: “Submit”

It may be nothing more than a psychological effect, but when someone sees a button on a website that says “submit,” it can very off-putting. It can be construed as a commitment and no one likes to commit to anything if they can avoid it. Instead of using that particular word on your form, instead come up with something to reiterate your offer, such as a button that says “Get your free newsletter” or “Download your free ebook.” And make the button easy to see, whether it’s a larger font than the rest of the form, a different color, or whatever else might help it stand out.

Ensure a Visitor’s Trust

Although Internet security has improved over the years, many users are still weary when it comes to using websites they aren’t familiar with. They want to be sure that the information they provide will be safe once it’s released to you. They don’t want information to be compromised, nor do they want an influx of spam. One technique you can use to appease visitors is to add testimonials to your website, but a more effective way would be to use security seals such as “Norton Secured” or “TRUSTe Certified Privacy.” These will make your leads feel more comfortable.

Adjust the Form to Appear Shorter

If your form appears to be longer than it actually is, you should switch up the style a bit. For example, perhaps you need less space between the fields on your form. You’d be surprised at how much difference this optical illusion can make. It’s really all about perception. If a visitor thinks the form looks too long, he or she is less likely to fill it out. Luckily, this is easily fixed.

Collecting information from potential leads isn’t rocket science, but there’s definitely some skill and foresight involved. Creating highly effective forms will go a long way to locking in leads and converting them to customers. Next time, we’ll conclude our Lead Generation series with Using Multiple Channels to Your Advantage. See you then!