How to Optimize Your Use of Online Forms

Forms are great marketing tools in your strategy to generate leads. They’re the foundation to strong business relationships because they pave the way for further communication with your potential clients and customers. By having potential clients use forms, it’s fairly easy to acquire leads. With enough info, you can understand how best to approach them. But setting a form up requires some strategy. You run the risk of chasing away potential submitters when you create a form blind to the essentials described below.

Strategizing Goes a Long Way

Not many people are willing to provide their personal information online. Buyers are more apt to keep vendors at arm’s length until they’re ready to finalize their purchases. Which is why it’s essential to form a strategy to your registration. Below is a list of things you need to know when creating an online form.

Offer incentives: Site visitors should have a clear reason to subscribe. If possible, offer incentives in the form of deals or free information. Such incentives attract more submitters.

Visibility: A form serves little to no purpose if potential leads can’t see it. Place it at the top of your website; that way readers can’t miss it. Use arrows pointing to your list and buttons with messages so that it attracts immediate attention. Visibility increases the chances that more people will click on it.

Liven up that form: Your form should showcase your brand with your logo, for example, and maybe a dash of color. Use images and a nice template design to demonstrate that your business is attentive to detail. Remember to include exciting headings and subheadings to break up the information.

Keep it short and simple: Your potential subscribers may lose focus going through a 10- to 20-page form. People are more apt to turn away from forms that ask for too much information. As a rule of thumb, keep it short and simple. Bombarding your potential subscribers with either questions they don’t know how to answer or they can’t answer doesn’t benefit your business in any way.

Use progressive profiling, if possible, to obtain information on each lead in increments during subsequent interactions. For example, you may ask for three pieces of information on the first site visit; then, ask for three more on the second, and so on. This method reduces the burden on your lead and promises more info to build the call to action.

Create a clear and concise call to action (CTA): Be clear about what you’re asking site visitors to do. Vague forms turn off and confuse readers.

Social media pages: A strategy that’s quickly gaining popularity is allowing site visitors to very quickly register with their existing social network accounts. Social login offers site visitors the incentive of a short registration time because all their information already exists.

Keep it secure: If you’re collecting electronic protected health information (ePHI), then you must have a secure form, hosted, transmitted, and stored following the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Test away: Ensure, through tests, that your form is accessible on mobile devices. More people access their emails through their cell phones and tablets. An inaccessible form alienates a significant number of potential leads.

Open your form on multiple browsers to ensure it works properly. Additionally, submit the form to test for any flaws. Aim to have a flawless form. Once that’s accomplished, then congrats—you’re ready to publish your form.

Follow up: Make contact with your leads within a maximum 24-hour time span. Anything longer runs the risk of losing your leads. Additionally, ensure that your subscribers receive whatever they were promised. This is your opportunity to establish their trust in you.

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By LuxSci founder Erik Kangas.