It’s virtually impossible for sales and services business to survive, without the ability to capture leads. Prospects must first become interested in your products and services, and then express interest by interacting with one of your businesses conversion tools - be it your inbound sales telephone number, website landing page or chat widget.
Realistically, when somebody interacts with a business, and if what it offers is relevant to their needs, they will only become a lead through this very interaction. NO phone call, NO landing page form fill, NO chat query = NO LEAD.
It's the transition from the interest phase--> lead conversion into a purchase that presents the most steadfast challenge.
One of the ways to streamline this transition is through point of sale lead capture technology, like Contact Clouds FormReactor. If you have ever completed a form online (contact form, landing page, demo form, product interest form, talk to sales form etc - you get the point) and then a sales person miraculously texted you immediately and more commonly, called you to discuss the product, while you were still on the company's product website, that is our FormReactor technology in its glory!
Any sales and marketing expert worth their title will tell you that the number one time to connect with a prospect is PRECISELY when the prospect has expressed interest in your product. At this exact moment, in time you need a sales person to reach out to the prospect and begin building a relationships with a goal of winning the sale. Perhaps the sale will be earned on this very same call, FormReactor increases the odds of a win.
If you are not following up with prospects that have expressed interest in your product within 5 minutes, the chances of you winning the sale drop by more than 50%
FormReactor integrates with your current lead capture form, and provides the automation needed to immediately text your prospect as well as generate an instant outbound call to the prospect, allowing a sales person to engage immediately. No more waiting. Using this technique alone can boost your landing page conversion successes by more than 40%.
49.7% of surveyed marketers cited capture forms as their highest converting lead generation tool. However, less than 15% go the extra mile to connect the lead capture form with sales automation technology like FormReactor, for no other reason than the fact that they dont know about it yet. This is a EASY way to boost sales fast.
What is a Lead Capture Form?
A lead capture form is placed on a landing page, used as an optimization tool. Through its application, businesses collect leads for the associated offers. They are given information to nurture them through all marketing funnel stages.
These forms adhere to a principle wherein you ask for information from the customer and reward them with a promotional offer.
Why Are Lead Capture Forms Important?
Lead capture forms are necessary because they provide relevant information about prospects that initiate and help design their trip through the sales funnel.
Using this tool removes much of the legwork from the leads and your sales staff alike. The fields provided with the capture form act as prompts. This way, you're not relying on potential customers clicking through to your contact page or your teams having to make thousands of cold calls.
Essentially, lead capture forms give companies a bolstered foot in the proverbial front door with prospective customers.
How Do Businesses Use Lead Capture Forms?
While lead capture forms are undeniably useful, that’s only the case when they’re executed correctly.
Therefore, businesses that apply these forms successfully only ask for leads to provide relevant information. Asking for too much generally scares people off.
What’s considered “relevant” depends on what the form is being used to offer.
Provided it’s for a free eBook or webinar – both staples at the marketing funnel’s first stage – merely ask for basic contact info. Whereas a free product demo can delve into more intricate details, but it is best to keep things simple. In taking it one more step, you can seek more valuable information when leads are further down the funnel.
Of course, the more information you receive, the better. It's every marketer's and salesperson’s dream to know the tiniest details about leads.
Still, you must view that information as currency. The more enticing the (free) offer, the more details your lead will disperse.
Also, note that the capture form is only one facet of a fully-functional page.
Many organizations will incorporate a small form (sometimes only asking for an email) on an intricately detailed landing page. This might include testimonials, web copy, graphics, etc., with a minimalist capture form.
Here are the top 10 reasons that all businesses should incorporate lead capture forms:
1. Keeping Leads Focused on What They Want
The average attention span runs around 8 seconds, making it difficult to focus on one specific thing in a sea of other distractions.
On most other websites, there's an array of copy, different offers, and visuals that distract.
Conversely, lead capture forms exist on landings pages where all the information focuses on one offer that encourages your audience to fill out the necessary fields.
2. Staying Specific to the Offer
Prospects landed on your capture page because they clicked on an advertisement that spoke to them on some level.
Providing a capture form removes any confusion and muddling up, so your prospect can quickly and efficiently fill out the details without hassle and hopefully becomes a lead.
3. Providing Precious Data
Remember earlier in this blog, when it was said that consumer information and data is akin to a currency?
This section doubles down on that notion. In fact, information about your leads is like digital diamonds. Every little detail about your targeted prospects allows you to hone your overall marketing tactics.
4. Making Opting in Completely Painless
Nobody wants to click through to several different pages before getting what they want. Again, the human attention span isn't known for marathons; instead, it's best compared to a sprint. As such, the more seamless the opt-in process, the better.
That seamlessness is prevalent with lead capture forms. All a prospect must do is click on your targeted ad, then quickly fill in the relevant field(s).
5. Broadening Your Customer Base
When applied correctly, lead capture forms have proven to vastly grow customer bases for the businesses using them.
6. A Highly Targeted Approach
Lead capturing forms are used for on unique offer that's meant to speak to one specific customer type. This allows you to filter down and fine-tune your own marketing approach instead of appealing to multiple demographics at once.
7. A Flexible Marketing Method
Whether using lead capture forms at the beginning of the marketing funnel or multiple steps in, it’s a viable strategy.
Plus, depending on what's being offered and which part of the funnel you're at, you can request different information.
8. Encouraging Word-of-Mouth
Even though you're not guaranteeing a sales conversion with a lead form, it's a way to promote brand engagement. This keeps your company top-of-mind and in your leads' conversation with their friends and family.
9. Strategizing Long Term
In the same vein as the previous benefit, this advantage revolves around interacting and engaging with leads. Even if someone isn't ready to buy right now, such an interaction sparks a relationship that will generate a sale when the prospect is at a different stage in their life.
10. Visually Enticing Designs
Successful lead capture forms appear on well-designed web pages that appeal to a customer's aesthetic sensibilities. It's a chance to make your brand appear professional and stand out from the pack.
If you are using or thinking about using lead capture form in your marketing approach to generate sales, dont do it without Contact Cloud's FormReactor, unless of course you are not interested in high conversion rates, more sales and great revenue. But we all know thats just ludicrous!
Are you sold on implementing lead capture forms into your marketing and sales strategies?
Then consider using Contact Cloud's FormReactor – the ideal companion to any lead capture form, form tool, or page with a form. We will even set it up for you!
FormReactor can be easily retrofitted to your current system or used as a stand along form tool.
