2 Vital Questions Every Marketer Should Ask of Lead Gen Forms

We’ve all seen them.

Web forms that ask for an exhaustive amount of information in exchange for a paltry white paper – or worse, a static thank-you note that lets someone know Sales will soon start their phone and inbox bombing runs.

But is this truly the best we can do to serve prospects effectively through a balanced exchange of value?

I think not. In a world where Web 2.0 is here, mobile is soon to be the new desktop and content is king, lead generation must do a better job of offering value for a prospect’s information.

In this MarketingExperiments Blog post, we’ll look at the two most important questions every marketer should ask about their Web forms to help refine the lead generation process.

Question #1. Does our form only collect the information that is really, really needed?

Assessing the importance of the information your form collects is one of the best places to start.

Far too often, older forms are part of legacy marketing practices, or even worse, I would argue, are new forms with inadequate strategy planned around them.

However, no matter where your form falls in terms of strategy, here are two important questions you should ask about your Web forms:

• What information do you absolutely need to collect in the form?
• What additional information would be nice to have?

This will help your team identify which fields can be trimmed so that you’re only asking for information that is highly targeted and relevant to your sales process.

Also, don’t forget to build a review process for your forms that give them a health checkup at fixed intervals. It could be six months, a year, maybe even two – so as long as you dedicate time to assess a form’s effectiveness and performance in meeting business goals.

Question #2. How can I increase the perceived value of every field in my form? 

I love the illustration above because it really drives this point home. This is truly how most prospects see form fields.

It is how I see them.

It’s probably how you see them, too.

It’s also how you should mercilessly look at your own form fields when assessing the value they are delivering to prospects in exchange for the desired information.

Consequently, if the value of what you’re offering is not perceived as being worth more than the information you want from prospects, then why should they give it to you?

All forms should exist in the shadow of value

One thing to keep in mind is the Internet is now bombarded with lead gen forms, so perceived value will inherently make or break them – it’s that simple.

To learn more about how Web forms impact conversion, watch the on-demand MarketingExperiments Web clinic replay of “Optimizing Web Forms.”

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