5 Ways To Turn Your Web Forms Into Lead Generating Machines

Integrating web forms with online meeting scheduling is a great way to engage with leads quickly, but this is just one of the many ways to get the most of your web forms.

Not knowing who’s visiting your website can be very frustrating. If the purpose of your site is to capture sales leads, you probably have a web form somewhere on your Contact page. If that’s the case, chances are it’s not very effective at capturing leads. 

In this article, we will share how making some small changes to your web form can make a big difference, including integrating your web forms with online meeting scheduling tools like ScheduleOnce.  

1. Use web forms for different functions

Having one web form on the contact page of your website is a missed opportunity. People are going to visit your website for different reasons, some might not even be sales leads. Some visitors might like your content. The lead form is there to guide your customers to the next step on their journey with your business. That journey can include several paths determined by the type of customer.  

 For example:

• A lead generation form on a landing page is used to capture new sales leads
• A web form for free trial sign-ups allows you to start tracking your user journeys immediately
• A simple web form to gate content like reports and white papers can capture marketing leads for email campaigns
• A web form on your contact page is perfect for general queries

You should always integrate your web forms with your CRM platform to segment and assign leads to the right department for further action.  

2. Choose a length that suits your needs

Both short and long web forms come with pros and cons. Shorter web forms are less intimidating and feel “safer”. After all, how can a company sell someone’s data if they don’t have it? Shorter web forms are less of a commitment. If the purpose is to get in touch, then a name, email address, and phone number are more than sufficient. Plus, it’s been proven that shorter forms have a higher conversion rate. 

Longer web forms, on the other hand, contain more information to help you qualify leads and indicate what type of response is required. If one of your fields is meant to define organization size or role, for example, you can tell right away when a great lead comes along that needs nurturing.

Decide what the purpose of your web form will be, what you want to gain from it, and make a call on the length that suits your needs. Just keep in mind the customer’s experience. You don’t want to lose a lead because you’re asking for too much upfront.

3. Change the call to action

Your call to action serves a very important purpose. You want to draw your customer’s attention to the web form and give them a reason to fill it out. Ideally, you will use two calls to action on your web form – on the main headline and the action button. Be as specific as possible. If the purpose of the web form is to entice visitors to start a free trial or request a demo, make it clear that is the path they’re about to follow. In your main headline, speak to their pain point and how your product or service can solve it. 

For example: Start Increasing Your Bookings Right Away

Remember, your web form is the first step on the path to solving their problems. You need to encourage them to take that first step. Your button serves as the secondary call to action to drive them forward. “Submit” isn’t strong enough. “Download now”, “Get Started Now” or “Start My Free Trial”, are much stronger and encourage immediate action. 

4. Create a frictionless experience

Your web form should be interactive and ideally, predictive. These days, most website visitors have become used to Google Autofill completing their forms for them. If, for whatever reason, this has been disabled on your form, a potential lead might be frustrated at having to type out their information manually. Consider making some form fields optional to speed up the process. We’ve touched on conditional logic topic before and it’s worth mentioning again. Conditional logic looks at previous answers and removes certain fields based on that specific user profile. It’s a great way to personalize web forms and improve the user experience. 

The seamless experience should include your spam-prevention methods. If you’d like to prevent Spam, consider an option that won’t frustrate your visitors. According to a study conducted by Stanford University, Captchas are time-consuming, frustrating and are a huge inconvenience to web form users. Alternatives include an invisible Honeypot field or a simple reCaptcha tickbox that requires one single click. 

For even greater ease of use, place your webforms above the fold and ensure they can be filled out quickly and easily on mobile phones. 

5. Integrate online meeting scheduling into your web forms

Offering online meeting scheduling is a great way to capture leads and move them down the sales funnel quickly. By integrating scheduling with your web form, you’re making it easy for a lead to connect, eliminating the back and forth emails involved in finding the right time, and providing a seamless user experience. 

After filling out a web form on your website, leads will be able to pick a time without having to provide any additional information as their details have already been captured. To make the process even more convenient, an appointment will automatically appear in their calendar.  

Learn more about how ScheduleOnce integrates with your web forms.

To summarize, take a little bit of time to determine what you want to achieve with your web forms, how you envision your customers using them, and taking the necessary steps to optimize them.

Web forms don’t need to be dead space on your website. By making the right changes, your web forms will start generating high-quality leads in no time. 

Give your web forms and extra boost by adding online meeting scheduling to the mix. Try ScheduleOnce free for 14 days.