Companies often spend tens or hundreds of hours designing their websites, tweaking navigation, and creating content. But they often ignore the importance of their online forms until the last minute. Online forms are the differentiator between gaining information from your site's visitors or not knowing anything about the people who check out your business. Forms are often the first step in creating the ever-elusive long-term relationship with potential customers.
For many companies, generating new leads is a critical online objective, and contact forms are one of the best ways to begin gathering information from site visitors. However, forms are not simply a means for someone to send contact information to your inbox. In order to get the most out of online forms, it's imperative to consider them as a lead generation source and a dialog starter. Creating a form that not only works but works well can go a long way in engaging customers and collecting valuable information to help ignite marketing efforts.
When creating a contact or lead generation form, it's important to consider what questions are the proper ones to ask, how best to ask them, and how to do it while making the process inviting and easy for visitors. The first set of information gathered is the lead-in to every engagement with customers or potential customers moving forward.
It's not rocket science nor does it need to be. Below are five tips on building a better, more effective online form.
Don't make forms intimidating.
Many people try to gather too much information right off the bat. Only collect the real valuable stuff (i.e. name, email, phone number, etc.). When a form appears to be lengthy or time consuming, site visitors tend to feel frustrated and are more likely to ignore optional fields. Another option is functionality such as conditional logic, which shows or hides information based on how someone answers a specific question. That way, visitors can only see the information intended just for them and no longer have to search for answers.
Make sure the form works.
This sounds easy enough, but it is amazing how many times a form will break when trying to submit information. Make sure the form validates any information in a timely fashion (i.e. via emails, CAPTCHA, etc.) and works like it should. Just like websites and other online tools, sometimes things don't work like they should. Test forms on a regular basis to make sure they are working properly. Don't depend on site visitors to notify the webmaster that a form is broken. If it isn't working, they will move on!
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