How successful online offer forms avoid common pitfalls
By HGB , May 21 2015
You have just made a brand new landing page for an offer on your company’s website, hoping it will attract new leads for your business.
The only problem is, you have no way of capturing information about the people who are coming to your page – all you are seeing are page views. Have no fear. You’re simply missing a brand spanking new lead generating information gathering offer form.
What is an offer form?
Offer forms are one of the easiest ways to capture valuable information from visitors on your landing page. This information provides valuable insight into who your website visitors are.
What do you ask in your offer form?
Ask the questions you know are going to give you relevant and useful information about these potential leads that your business can seize on. The most common fields to include on your offer form should be:
- Name (First Name and Last Name)
- Email Address
- Company Name
- Phone Number
Other fields you may include could be:
- Job Title
- Region
- Website URL
How much should you ask?
It can be difficult to know how many fields to include in your offer form. After all, you don’t want to scare people off from filling in your form, but at the same time, you want to find out as much information about them as possible.
Therefore, the length of your offer form is basically up to you and what information you want to gather from potential leads. The key is to make sure you only ask the most relevant questions, avoid any space filler fields and get straight to the point with what information you want to find out from your visitors.
Incorporating security badges
If you are asking sensitive questions on your offer form, make sure to include support elements such as testimonials or security badges. These reassure visitors your business can be trusted with valuable and/or personal information they are about to enter into your offer form. Supporting testimonials and security badges are essential when asking for bank account information and personal address details.
Beware of the dreaded submit button
In a study conducted by HubSpot on 40,000 landing pages they found on average people were more likely fill out a form that didn’t use the word ‘Submit’ as opposed to forms that did.
Hubspot’s research found people tend to stay away from submitting offer forms that have a ‘Submit’ button because they are left puzzling over questions such as: ‘What am I submitting?’, ‘What do I get after I fill in the form?’
Phrases you can use for your button instead of ’Submit’ could be ‘Click here to receive your eBook’ or ‘Yes please I want to sign up for the Newsletter’. These button titles clearly explain to the viewer what they are signing up for. It also gives them more of an incentive to submit the form knowing they will receive your offer and are not just giving away information for no reason.