The massive increase in ebooks, Infographics, on-demand webinars, white papers, and other “gated” content in the last couple of years, has also led to the skyrocketing growth of what might be the most widely misunderstood – and error-filled – element in the entire Inbound Marketing world: contact forms.
Contact forms are what customers are asked to complete in order to get something in return (such as the content noted above). Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well, it is – and it isn’t.
Yes, it’s simple in the sense that, today, businesses typically don’t need advanced programming skills to create contact forms, and then publish them on their website. A few years ago this was the case. But now, most websites are integrated with Content Management Systems that have some contact form capabilities. Creating and publishing a contact form can often be done in a matter of minutes. That’s the easy part.
The hard part is determining what the contact form should contain and how long it should be – and this is indeed the aspect that an overwhelming number of businesses are getting wrong. Why? Because they’re focusing on the wrong factor.
That is, businesses typically focus on the content itself when determining what their contact forms should look like. For example, they can decide that their ebook is quite valuable and impressive, and therefore “worth more” than just a customer’s name and email. As such, they create a contact form that asks for plenty of information, such as job title, buying intentions (i.e. when they plan on making a purchase), and so on.
Or, they may decide that the one page datasheet they created is pretty simple, and therefore a smaller, shorter contact form makes more sense and is more in alignment with what is being offered.
Unfortunately, both of these approaches are usually wrong! And the reason is, again, that businesses are focusing on the wrong factor. They’re looking at their content. What they really should be looking at is what kind of LEADS they want to generate.
The length of a contact form – both in the time it takes to fill out, and in the kind of identifying information it asks for – must be directly related to whether the business wants to generate NEW leads, or whether they want to generate more HIGH QUALITY leads.
Essentially, shorter forms are suitable when engaging prospects at the beginning of the customer journey, and where the goal is to establish thought leadership and build a relationship. In many cases, these forms should ask for nothing other than a name and email – because asking for anything else, while helpful, would create friction and repel rather than attract these leads.
Longer forms are suitable for touch points further along the customer journey, when a relationship (to some degree) has been built, and it’s possible to ask for more information on who customers are, what they’re looking for, when they plan on making a buying decision, and so on. With this being said, it’s important to keep in mind that “longer forms” doesn’t mean “census.” More than ever before, today’s customers are very guarded when it comes to both their time and the information they share. Asking for too much at any touch point is a mistake, and can cause customers to exit the relationship altogether.
And under no circumstances should a business simply give away valuable content without getting something in return – even if it’s just a customer’s email address.
The Bottom Line
If your business has created great content and isn’t sure how to strategically create and deploy your contact forms, then give the experts at Leap Clixx a call today. We’ll provide you with focused, practical advice on how to move forward.
Furthermore, we can work with you to create new offerings and map out your customer journey, so that you’re working towards building strong, robust customers relationships that translate into a healthy ROI.
Topics: Inbound Marketing
