Filled Online Forms are Key to Inbound Marketing Success

“Since the new website went live, we are receiving appointment requests at least weekly for each office, if not daily; and, we did not receive any from our old site,” said Lisa Meyer of Main Street Dental Services. “Our office flow is impacted in a positive way as any increase in new patients is a positive.”

Are Your Website and Landing Page Forms Getting the Job Done?

Effective forms can increase your sale leads, streamline communication between your company and your client, and allow visitors to reach your business beyond regular hours. Forms are essential for people to sign-up, subscribe to your site or download an offer.

• Are the forms on your website being completed by potential customers and clients?
• Are they alleviating some of the workload from your team?
• Are they reducing some of the cost of doing business?

CWS's Form for an Inbound Marketing Class being held February 26th has auto-fill features that make completing forms and converting leads easier. Basics on Inbound Marketing will be offered at this free webinar.

Online forms are part of our everyday lives. We use them to donate, order goods and services, request information, and contact companies. Sometimes we fill the form out and sometimes we wander away from the page...why? Frustration. Confusion. Lack of Purpose.

Prevent Frustration by providing users with immediate feedback. Rather than waiting until the "submit button" is clicked, provide immediate feedback. A message showing the correct format can be made to pop up before the user moves onto the next input field when an error is made. This is known as inline validation.

Prevent Confusion by simplifying the form as much as possible:

• Reduce the amount of required fields.
• What do you need to know about the person filling out the form?
• Can fields be combined? Instead of one field for first name and one for last name, consider combining the two.
• Have fields auto fill when possible. For example, when a zip code is entered, the city and state can be auto filled.

Provide Purpose by providing a benefit:

• Free product or service (e-book, white paper, consultation)
• Coupon(s)
• Drawing entry
  

Set Expectations.
Instead of advising a prospect to fill out a form to request further information, let them know what information they can expect and how that information will be delivered.

Forms are one key element to inbound marketing success. Learn the basics of what inbound marketing entails by attending CWS's Inbound Marketing 101 Webinar.