The year 2020 is experiencing a large shutdown throughout the cities due to the coronavirus outbreak. During this uncertain period, some of the marketers are trying to localize their outreach. But as the crisis drags on, the need for an apt online marketing tool has arisen for the steady growth of businesses. According to the HubSpot marketing statistics report of 2020, 61% of marketers consider Lead Generation as a top challenge. What is a Lead? A potential customer who is willing to buy your business’ product or service. Generating sales leads needs more attention as it is a top challenge faced by most of the marketers.
As reported by the ultimate list of marketing statistics for 2020 (HubSpot), 70% of marketers are investing in content marketing, approximately 80% of marketers stated an increase in email engagement. When it comes to delivering your content digitally, online forms play a significant role. It can generate meaningful insights for your brand by communicating with your potential customers via online forms, whether it may be a survey or registration form.
What are Online Forms?
An online form is an interactive web page that allows user input. We all encounter online forms while surfing on the web, signing up for an email list, providing feedback, or making any online purchase. There are so many types of online forms that marketing teams use to collect and enrich data. Whereas, lead generation forms simply include contact forms, registration forms, or signup forms, designed artistically considering the brand’s value and fun animations that restrict users for any distraction while filling the form. Lead generation forms are crucial for businesses that attract visitors to your website and convert into quality leads.
Call-to-action is an integral part of online forms, as it drives traffic to your webpage. Beyond call-to-action, an online form should be visually engaging and easy to fill out. Once visitors end up filling your form, they should be updated with further significant information. Marketing teams need to follow-up with their leads, build a good relationship, and convert them into customers for the steady growth of their businesses. Most of the companies use AI to help their marketing teams built lead follow up systems. It drastically reduces the time consumed in following up on your leads. Global Database, Sumo, OptinMontser, Chatbots, and Process Analytics are some of the AI-based software used for lead generation and to follow up generated leads.
Challenges that Come Up with Online Forms
An online form is a gracious way to collect information from your viewers. The structure of your web form speaks about your brand, where the need for an error-free online form arises. You might create a great online form, but users can face some errors at their end. Some of the challenges that come up with an online form are listed below.
1. While filling any online form, the user may get anxious if you ask for too much information at the beginning. Asking any sensitive information before gaining visitors’ trust may divert them from your web form. An online form split into a lot of steps may lose visitors’ interest. Your form shouldn’t take too long for a visitor to complete it.
2. For any type of business, gaining credibility in the market is crucial. Disregarding your visitors’ privacy or providing inadequate information may end up distracting them. The online forms hosted by your company for lead generation should be able to build trust and credibility.
3. Fields incorporated in online forms and their size may mislead visitors’ attention, if not defined properly. The use of inadequate form elements leads to the woeful view of your form. The form elements should be managed carefully to gain visitors’ attention.
4. If your form is failing to reinforce the benefits of your product or service, the user may sidetrack their interest in your form. Hosting an online form itself comes up with marketing challenges.
Is Online Form Creation the Last Step of The Lead Generation Process?
Absolutely not! Creating a unique and engaging online form can work well for lead generation. But it comes with challenges for marketers. So for developing an online lead generation form for steady growth in your business, marketers need to consider a few points listed below.
1. Fundamental Paper Framework
After the initial design, a paper prototype is drawn on a rough paper to test the performance of your form. Developers use prototyping software to simulate the form’s design over the web, in which designs can be easily copied and adapted. But not all the forms that work on a paper should necessarily work online. So while creating an online form, determine the goal behind it, based on the information that needs to be collected. Your form should provide the information; a visitor is looking for. It is highly recommended to ask for visitor’s information, to provide them with further updates of the product or service they’re interested in.
The visitor would never prefer to refill the same information in different ways; you should keep your form compact that will ask only for vital information. Your online lead generation form should represent your brand’s value through its theme. It’s necessary to select the style, layout, use of widgets, field labels, and other integral elements of a form wisely. Co-relate the form’s elements such as radio buttons, drop-down boxes, checkboxes, or text boxes with the information you need from your visitors, which will essentially avoid further complications.
2. Usability Test
Anticipating a successful performance of your online form can only be possible if you find out the errors in it and resolve the issue. Once done with the initial form creation, marketers should perform the usability test to provide an excellent customer experience. Eventually leads to convert the visitors into quality leads. With the usability test, marketers can find out the errors that visitors face while filling an online form or finding any linked database on the website. Understand the nature of your prospective customer; try to relate form information with customers’ needs to provide them with a seamless experience. Observe the user comments and actions during the performance test, and try to implement the essential changes.
Ensure you have used all the form elements artistically. All the questions that you want to ask should be clearly worded and in a simple and understandable way. Lead Generation online forms should provide a coherent experience to your prospective customers.
3. Hosting Web Forms
Marketers look for form builders that can be used on any platform. Based on the requirements of your online lead generation form, you can use the form builders available out there. Form builders use simple drag-drop editors and themes. These are flexible enough to convert a simple contact form to a detailed customer survey. If you want to collect your form responses in Excel, Microsoft Forms works the best. Marketers can also use Google Forms, Wufoo, JotForm, Formstack, Cognito Forms, and many other apps for a successful online form hosting. These are easy to use and customizable, as per your marketing needs.
Improve Lead Generation through Analyzing the Performance of Online Forms
Instead of bombarding your prospective customers with digital ads campaigns, the use of online forms can be an efficient way to generate leads. Online forms bring potential customers to your website and gain their attention,
rather than asking for attention through ads. Once you succeed in bringing the user to your website, all you need is a tool to collect their essential information and keep a follow-up. Online forms can work as a reliable tool for your business’ marketing funnel. Through testing and analyzing the customer data, you can precisely target your particular audience. Use of powerful online forms can fill your CRM with quality leads through your website.
After successfully hosting an online form apt for your marketing strategy, track the form performance. Be active with your company’s social media channels, to observe user behavior. Carry out a quick survey through online forms, to check the users’ interest. Receiving a piece of adequate information, consistent follow-up and good relationships with your prospects can effectively convert them into a sales lead, essential for the steady growth of your business.
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