Lead generation ranks among the top goals for most websites, and that means that somewhere along the way you’ll be creating a form to capture customer information.
It’s not simply a matter of putting together a bunch of fields and waiting for the leads to come rolling in. In order to maximize your lead generation conversion rate, you’ll have to understand what makes your customers tick.
What Factors Stand in the Way of Getting More Leads?
Before we dive into our list of design tips, let’s take a look at why your visitors might not be coughing up their information in the first place.
People tend to be hesitant about sharing information online, so you’ll need to do a good job of persuading them that:
1. Are you trustworthy? Dealing with an small, unfamiliar business online can be perceived as risky by your potential prospects. Trust is absolutely essential, and it’s an element that must be pervasive throughout your whole website. Here are some ways to reduce the risk and increase the trust:
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- Reversing the risk with a guarantee
- Endorsements by recognized industry leaders
- Trust symbols like your BBB rating and industry awards
- List of recognizable clients
- Independent reviews, testimonials and case studies
2. Can you solve your prospect’s problem? Don’t skip first base when it comes to presenting your offer. Be clear about the problem your product or service will solve for your customers. Without agreement on the problem, your solution will not resonate.
3. Does the give to get ratio favors your prospect? Prospects must be sufficiently motivated to complete a form. It takes time and they are giving you valuable information. Unless you overcome your prospect’s natural resistance, you will not get as many leads as you could. Make sure that your visitors believe that your offer gives them more than they are giving up and you will increase your lead flow.
Design Tips for Flawless Forms
Now that your visitor is primed for conversion, you’ll need to make sure the form itself is designed to maximize your leads:
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1. Get the information you need, no more and no less – If you want increase the quality of your leads, ask for more information. If you want to maximize the number of leads, ask for the least amount of information
possible. Long forms and short forms can both work – but the goals are very different. Understand your goal before you design your form.
2. Streamline Format— Even short forms can appear long and intimidating if they are not designed correctly. Reduce white space between fields, use two columns instead of one. Place field labels to the left of the field or inside the field itself. The goal is to keep your form looking compact.
3. Not to fast, not to slow, but just right – Your contact form needs to come at the right point in the conversation. If it comes before you’ve reached agreement on the problem and your unique value, you’re presenting it too soon. If it’s buried in the sidebar with a lot of competing information it may be missed or come to late in the process. The form needs to be right at the point that your visitor is thinking, “Ok, how do I get started?”
4. Reinforce offer in call to action button – Don’t waste your call to action button with the word “submit” instead describe what your prospect will be getting if they complete the form.
5. Test, test, test—If you’re still not getting satisfactory results, start testing various changes for your current lead generation form. Everything on your form can be tested. Here’s some of the things we’ve tested on forms:
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Different color combinations for your form header and call to action button. It sounds strange but green instead of orange may be the color combination that clicks with your prospects. - Rewriting form’s headline and copy and test to see which gives you more sign-ups.
- Add a design element that directs the eye to the form. Arrows, triangles off shaped call to action buttons can all draw the eye. Direct your prospect’s eyes to the form at the perfect point in the conversation and you’ll increase your lead flow.
- If your form is competing with several other offers, try removing all the competing offers from the page and give people a single choice. Sounds risky, but too many choices may be leading to confusion and confusion leads to inaction.
- Add a testimonial right by your call to action button so that visitors are reassured that your solution is just what they need.
- Add a live chat button right by your call to action button. Live chat makes talking to you easy and anonymous. You get the opportunity to personalize your solution and start building a relationship.
Your lead generation conversion rate is essential to your online success. By designing forms that cater to web user psychology and make the process as easy and streamlined as possible, you can persuade more users to complete the form in its entirety.
The post Is Your Contact Us Form Costing You Leads, written by Marty Diamond appeared first on Diamond Website Conversion.