Savvy business owners know that winning high-quality leads through contact forms can be an uphill battle. A recent study by FormAssembly found that, on average, only 27% of prospects who fill out web forms are qualified. As daunting as it may seem, designing a highly optimized contact form to help you qualify leads isn't as difficult as you might think. And it's worth the effort, because optimizing your web forms helps you identify and nurture leads that are most likely to become paying customers. So how can you design more effective contact forms for your business? Here are eight essential practices for developing lead generation forms that will help your business score more leads. 1) Remember that less is more When it comes to form fields, less is definitely more.
In fact, a Hubspot study found that companies that reduced the employee email database number of form fields from four to three had a 50% higher conversion rate. Generally speaking, it's best to keep your form as short as possible and only ask for the most essential information — too much information can overwhelm prospects and cause them to abandon your form. In some cases, you may want to ask them only for their name and email address so that you can send them more information about your offers. Here is an example of a Dropbox form with just four simple fields:2) Ask the easy questions first With contact forms, always ask the easy questions first. This includes things like a prospect's name and email address, which are a no-brainer to them because many of your prospects will already have this information stored on their web browsers. If you can encourage them to enter this basic information, they will be much more motivated to complete the form.
On the other hand, if filling out the form requires too much effort, many prospects will quickly abandon it. 3) Pay attention to your layout Your form design is also extremely important for increasing conversions. Make sure your contact forms are easy to fill out, attractive, and professional, to give your audience the best possible experience. A positive user experience gives prospects a good impression of your brand and is much more likely to convert website visitors into customers. Always design forms with one column and only one question per line. Forms with a single column layout are faster to fill out, resulting in a better user experience. Also ensure that all text is aligned to the left side of the form for easy reading and that field labels are directly above the input fields. 4) Stop asking for phone numbers