How to Optimize Your Lead Forms

Lead forms are a valuable part of any landing page design and overall marketing strategy. Lead forms are designed to enable your company to generate leads from customers researching your brands and interested in making an informal first contact. There are a lot of ways that lead forms can be designed and implemented. However your brand goes about it, there are proven ways to optimize your lead forms for better performance. Here are four tips you can use to optimize your lead forms now.

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Keep the Layout Simple

If you want to generate leads with optimized lead forms, visitors to your landing pages should never be confused about what they need to do to complete the forms. Avoid putting your forms on separate pages that require multiple clicks or offering layouts that require prospects to skip a field or feel confused. For example, Expedia increased annual profits by $12 million with a cleaner lead form that removed one field. “Company name” was removed because it created confusion and had a massive impact on conversions as a result.

Keep the design of your lead forms to a single column on your site. This makes navigation through the fields easier and helps ensure they don’t miss fields.

Opt for Checkboxes, not Dropdowns

Dropdown menus are popular in the design of lead forms because they reduce the size of the form on the page while still allowing your brand to ask the customers for more information. However, dropdown menus have shown to reduce conversion rates because some information is kept hidden. This requires visitors to take a certain action to reveal the hidden choices, at which point they can select a response. If you can, use checkboxes instead. This ensures that everything is visible immediately and reduce the anxiety of customers have to make selections without all the relevant information visible.

Make Your Call-to-Action Clear

The call-to-action button is a critical part of an optimized lead form. Most forms use the word “Send” or “Submit.” Research has shown that “Submit” can lower conversion rates by up to 3%. Alternative call-to-action buttons include “Go” or “Click Here.” Both have been shown to increase form completions and submissions by 30%. The best approach for your call to action is the one that best describes the outcome of submission. It should also feel non-intimidating to the visit. One such example of a clear CTA is “Contact Sales.” Rather than connecting you directly to a salesperson, it indicates that the lead form will be submitted to a salesperson who will review and make contact.

Tell Customers What Happens Next

One of the biggest problems with lead forms is uncertainty. Consumers know that submitting a lead form sends a signal that they’re interested in more information, setting an appointment, or receiving a phone call from your brand. However, there is a great deal of anxiety regarding what the next step actually is. If customers don’t know what will become of their inquiry, they may not even submit a lead form in the first place. Make sure you design lead forms that describe to them exactly what happens after they submit. Messages such as “a customer service rep will call you shortly” or “we’re reviewing your request and will email you as soon as possible” help alleviate that worry.

The consumer understands exactly what is going to happen with their message. Even more importantly, they receive a rough timeline for contact from your business. These are just a few of the first steps you can take to optimize your lead forms. As always, you’ll want to see how your implementation of these tips works out and adjust as necessary for continued success.

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