by Chad Reid, Director of Communications for JotForm
If you’re a marketer, you live and breathe conversion rates. They’re the very lifeblood of your business. You look at the rates for everything from advertising to emails, because anywhere you can measure the number of visitors you get, you can measure just how successful your efforts really are. But what might be the single-most important factor when determining a campaign’s conversion rate might not be the most apparent: online forms.
Understanding the conversion rates of your online forms is absolutely critical, so we thought we’d share some ideas how to make yours into money-making machines:
Don’t Guess; Analyze.
There’s too much at stake to leave your conversion rates to chance. Just like the old adage: the first step to addressing any problem is recognizing there is one – you can’t identify where you’re losing customers until you recognize that you are, in fact, losing customers.
You’re likely well aware of site analytics tools like Google Analytics, but using a form builder with built-in Form Analytics tool can provide valuable information on your form conversions.
Generic Forms Lose Business.
Believe it or not, online forms are a great opportunity to show your company’s personality. Consider using playful action words instead of standard ones. For example, maybe your “submit” button can could say “say hello” or “learn more” on a contact form to better engage your potential leads. The more your form visitors can see your brand’s personality, the more likely they’ll be receptive to sending their critical information.
Mind Your Form Visitors’ Time.
On a level of one to ten, how much do you actually enjoy filling out online forms? I’m at about a two or three…but I digress. For every second longer it takes to fill out your form, you greatly risk abandonment. This is even more the case if visitors are seeing your form on a mobile device.
The key is identifying the difference between information you want and information that you need to collect. Clean, simple, to-the-point forms are vastly more impactful to your bottom line than drawn-out ones.
Aesthetics are Important.
We’ve all seen forms embedded on a page that don’t even closely resemble the look and feel of the rest of the site. That’s because form building services by default have certain fonts and colors they provide; it’s up to you to make the changes that match your company’s branding.
The good news is that this isnt’ a very difficult change. Many form builders allow you to pick custom fonts, colors, and designs for your forms. This way your brand is intact and form visitors won’t be put off by the questionable difference in appearance.
Online forms aren’t usually the first thing most marketers dive into when they’re looking for areas to improve conversions. But the reality is, your company can’t have great conversion rates without having great online form conversion rates. Whether you’re looking for leads to pass off to your sales team, collecting donation money, or selling a product; your forms need to convert in order for your organization to thrive.
How do you feel about the points mentioned above? Is there anything else you’d add? Let us know in the comments!
Chad Reid is a career marketer and currently Director of Communications for JotForm, a popular online form builder. He currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and writes for various tech and business publications.
