Forms are the Key to a Successful Landing Page

Without them, there is no way to “convert” a visitor into a lead. If you aren’t asking the right questions however, they can lead to poor-quality leads that aren’t actually interested in your company, services, or products. This leads to list deterioration and wasted time.

The following strategies will help you to gather high-quality leads by knowing what to ask and how to ask.

All Things are Relative

There is no hard and fast rule to follow concerning what questions to ask or how many questions to ask on your lead capture forms, but there is research to point you in the right direction. In addition to research you should also rely heavily on your own experience and knowledge of what your sales team needs from you as a marketer to meet their goals.

Is it a question of volume? If so keep friction down by keeping forms very short (3 or less fields) to increase the number of prospects completing the form.

Is it a question of quality? If so increase the barrier of entry by including more specific information to weed out prospects that aren’t really interested in what you have to offer. Keep your questions relevant to the offer they are gatekeeping.

What to Consider When Setting up Your Forms

  • Length — the length of the form should reflect the value of the offer or your goals. You don’t want to give away valuable content without getting something valuable in return. Longer forms may attract more quality leads whereas shorter forms may attract more lead volume.
  • Positioning — the location of your form on your landing page is critical. Draw the attention to the form immediately by ensuring it is above the fold (towards the top of the page, so users don’t have to scroll to find it); don’t make your visitors look for it.
  • Fields — ask for general contact information, but also ask qualifying questions. Keep in mind the length of your form when determining what fields to include.

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Short Forms versus Long Forms

How do you get more leads to fill out your landing page? The short answer is that it depends on the type of business in question and the type of customers you are dealing with. In general, short forms which ask for the bare minimum details works, almost always.

On the contrary, if your team is struggling to find high quality leads among a pile of junk, it makes sense to use long forms. When you are using long forms on a landing page, only those leads will fill it out who are really interested in your product. The advantage here is that you will have to spend less time and resources on processing those leads later. This is because your leads will be already filtered at the outset and only those leads will fill it who are convinced that your product is their sole need.

It also makes sense to split test your example forms and see what works and what doesn’t. Experimentation is a must; you have to re-position your form, design it, remove some fields and track the performance under similar conditions. Only then, you will be able to conclude whether short forms or large forms are ideally suited for your landing page.

And last but not least: it’s important to remember that the web form should be easy to understand and speedy to complete, especially when it comes to brand new leads. Current customers may tolerate a longer form, but new leads who aren’t in the sales funnel yet may not want to complete a long and complicated form. Make the form long enough to gather data that is meaningful, but as short as possible so it is in the top portion of your website, i.e. above the fold. This allows you to capture a lead’s information straight away, without being too daunting or damaging the relationship.

This was just one of many facets to powerful lead generation. Want to learn more? Click here to download our 15 Powerful Lead Generation white paper.