Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. They’ve finally located a solution online. They arrive at your website and are interested in your offer. They click on your call-to-action (CTA) which sends them to your lead capture form. Except, your form is too long, asks too many questions, it’s too cumbersome and far too time-consuming. Immediately, your customer abandons pursuit and leaves. They rationalize that if it’s this difficult to fill out a form, then getting an answer in a timely manner is likely next to impossible.
Your lead capture form isn’t getting the job done. Your digital marketing strategies are working. You have a high click-through rate (CTR) on your CTA, but your conversion rates are nowhere near acceptable. You’re driving traffic to your landing pages, and customers are spending enough time on those pages, but your lead capture forms are the problem. So, what can you do to fix this?
Accept That Digital Marketing is Changing
There was a time when the only viable means of generating leads online was through a contact form. Customers were more than willing to fill out all their information and understood that an eventual follow-up email would answer their questions. However, that’s no longer the case.
Customers have too many options now. In a world where customers are more likely to communicate with the brands they love through messaging, it’s time to rethink the age-old contact form.
Don’t Ditch Your Contact Form – Upgrade it!
So, does this mean that contact forms should be abandoned altogether. No, it doesn’t. Contact forms still have a place. However, elongated contact forms don’t. Your inbound marketing strategy still needs a contact form – but it must be tweaked to today’s audience.
Here are some approaches that can improve the performance of your forms, while also adding an additional buffer to ensure that the leads you generate are yours for the taking.
1. Eliminate the Confusion – Use Icons
It’s well known that today's customers have short attention spans. It’s the by-product of a world driven by instant gratification. Customers want solutions and they want them now. They don’t want to be inundated with what they perceive to be intrusive questions. So, eliminate the confusion. Ditch the questions and keep it simple.
A great strategy is to eliminate the drop-down menus so often avoided by customers and replace them with clickable images and icon buttons. These are visual prompts that get customers clicking. Domino’s approach to Gen Z/Centennials (born 1996 and after) epitomizes this approach in its simplest form. Customers can now use emojis to order pizzas. Granted, emojis may not be the solution for your customers, but it does show how a simple solution can lead to a substantial increase in demand.
2. Get Visual
It’s not uncommon for companies to have a fantastic layout on their website with vivid images, bright infographics, and eye-catching visuals, only to ask their customers to fill out a dull, colorless and unimaginative contact form. Don’t make this mistake. Customers respond to visual prompts so make your contact form stand out.
Use the colors on your website and don’t be afraid to experiment with different color combinations. Like any inbound marketing strategy, your contact forms will perform best when you’ve taken the time to research the best layout. A/B split testing is a solution companies use on multiple digital approaches and it can easily be used to identify the best performing lead capture form.
3. Upgrade Your Inbound Marketing Strategy with Live Chat
Yes, customers have short attention spans, but that doesn’t mean they don’t gravitate to companies that are able to chat with them in real-time. Live chat has morphed from a customer service tool into a customer engagement and lead generation strategy. Your customers have questions and they want to communicate with someone right now. Give them that option.
Live chat works because it empowers your people to ask the questions that lead to winning business. Customers feel in control of the situation because they initiate the contact. It’s the digital equivalent of an inbound call and companies know that managing inbound calls is much simpler than the outdated cold-calling strategies of the past.
Live chat isn’t a replacement for your lead capture form. It’s a complement. Companies that benefit from live chat typically have it appear alongside their capture form so that customers can get instant answers. You may not have a messaging app for your customers, but live chat is the next best thing.
4. Understand Your Customer’s Motivation
Focus on the outcome your customer is looking for. What do they need from your company and what will they get in return for using the contact form? Embrace the free economy mindset. Business-to-business (B2B) enterprises often use the promise of a free business whitepaper or case study to prompt customers to click on their forms. That information is linked to their landing page and the promise of a problem solved. Ultimately, your conversion rates on your contact form often have less to do with the form itself and more to do with what awaits your customer once they’ve completed it. Show your customer what they can expect on the other side.
5. Use a Marketing Mindset
Think about how paid traffic works. Customers click on your pay-per-click (PPC) campaign and are driven to your landing page. They see something they like and they want to proceed. If they’ve consumed your content, then they’re not interested in reading too much into your offer. You’ve convinced them of your solution but you need to convert them. Sometimes that involves nothing more than a simple step, one where your customer isn’t overwhelmed with the complexity of your capture form.
A simple approach is to ask a simple question like “What can we do for you”. This followed up with simple options defined by icons or images is a great way to move a customer forward. Those options are tied to your landing page and offers. Customers now have a choice about which icon to click on and a simple one-step process to getting converted. They’ve made up their minds, but it’s not the time to inundate them with a redundant process.
Upgrading your contact form doesn't have to be difficult. Experimenting is key. Understanding what your customers want is essential to moving them past your form and onto a new relationship. This is not a "one or the other" list. Use all of these together and your conversion rates will improve.
Contact us if you need our guidance on upgrading your contact form to increase your conversions.
Written By: David Carpenter
