How to Use Forms on Your Website
How to Use Forms on Your Website
When it comes to lead generation and developing an omnichannel digital marketing strategy, it’s no secret that forms can be of great use. Whether you’re using your web content management system to build them out across your site or on landing pages or including them in email marketing and lead nurturing campaigns, you need to be sure that the forms on your site accomplish exactly what you want them to. Otherwise, you run the risk of missing out on potential new leads or even gaining unqualified leads.
We’ve put together five tips to help you avoid any foibles – read on to learn how to reach your audience, establish value, capture data and nurture leads with forms!
1. Keep it Simple
When creating a form, keep fields to an absolute minimum, asking for only the necessary information. Make sure to clearly communicate what the submitter will receive once they enter their information and offer to provide them more information with an opt-in feature before sending them any additional resources or marketing emails. Also provide a link to your privacy policy – this is important!
2. Employ Catchy, Creative Design
Every good form has an attention-grabbing call-to-action (CTA), and is thoughtfully designed to stand out across a website or in the body of an email. Use contrasting colors for CTA buttons, make the title bold and clever, and add imagery (such as photos, graphics or even videos) to truly make the form shine. Also, be sure that your forms are responsively designed and optimized for mobile – especially if your website analytics tool tells you your audience is more present on mobile devices!
3. Use Marketing Automation Tools
To keep your lead follow-up timely and accurate, it is best to stay away from manual processes. A marketing automation platform that integrates with your lead database or CRM will help you stay organized and create a more seamless and manageable experience for both the potential customer and your sales team. Who doesn’t want to save time? Marketing automation will allow you to “set it and forget it” – and often also provides data that will prove useful for personalization or lead generation optimization.
4. Don’t Neglect Your Leads
Don’t let the form submission be the end of the line for a lead! Even if you cannot get a salesperson or sales development representative to follow up right away, enter the lead into a nurture campaign that continuously provides them with helpful information to keep your brand top-of-mind.
5. Use Personalization to Your Advantage
Finally, it’s important to keep the customer experience first and foremost, and the best way to do this is by making them feel important at every point in their journey with your brand. Web content management and website analytics tools often collect demographic data that should not be overlooked once a lead comes into your purview. Make sure that any follow up from your sales team and your email marketing strategy include personalization based on their location, industry, interests and the like to provide them with highly tailored messaging. Want to share this with the person in charge of your website lead generation strategy? Download the fact sheet now!
