Tip 1: Simple Contact Forms
Simplicity is key. Visitors don't want to write an entire book just to find out what you can do for them. A form that asks for basic contact information and perhaps one line about their interest in your product/service will get filled out more often than something requiring paragraphs of writing. You can gather the additional information during the contact. Keep the form simple and produce results.
The form should request:
- Name
- Valid Email Address
- Contact Phone Number
- Area for text to let you know what product/service interests them.
Use lots of form links. Every page should have a link that leads to the contact information form. Remember, it is a lot easier to click that exit X than it is to back through multiple pages trying to find a link. Make it easy for them to give you contact information - put a link on every page. Check those links frequently to be sure they work.
Tip 2: Offer Great Incentives
Bribery works! Yes, incentives are nothing more than shameless bribery, but if it helps you to generate business leads a little shame can go a long way. Offer coupons for your business for your customers' first purchase if they fill out the form. Stress that the purchase doesn't have to be today—though that would be great. The real goal is to capture their contact information. Once they hit “send” on the form, give them a coupon code that never expires. Yes, never. If they only come back in six weeks to buy, you will still happily accept their money, right?
Make it easy! Be sure the visitor sees at the top of each page an opportunity to get the incentive, whether it is a discount, a downloadable ebook or something else. “Click here to get your discount coupon”, should take them to one place: the contact form. They fill in the blanks, click submit and get the discount code. Choose a simple form tool. Nothing says “forget about it” like having to jump through multiple hoops just to hit submit.
Tip 3: Silence Is Golden
Avoid audio pop-ups. Many of your visitors are going to be sneaking a peek at work, or while listening to music. To have their quiet office or music interrupted by the sudden sound of a sales video or product demonstration is going to make them frantically click out of your site. Keep them there with clean, informative copy, some solid visuals and no sound. Add clickable links for them to access that product demonstration.
Music isn’t really a universal language. Not only is it annoying to have uninvited music start playing from your site, but music should have been included in the things people don't discuss in casual conversation. If a visitor is an avid fan of classical music and you make a country song play list that blasts while the page is loading, it could get ugly. Rather than offend a potential customer with music he doesn't care for, leave it off the site if it is not related to your business.
Tip 4: Please Everyone
Use tons of landing pages. There are many ways to communicate with visitors. White papers, audio clips (that they click to play), blogs, archived informational articles and videos all provide a way to capture the attention of every type of Internet user. If you have set your site up properly, visitors are going to land on different pages depending on where they came from. Be sure to have as many communication methods available as possible to catch their eye and draw them to the ever-present contact form and incentive.
Tip 5: Hold Contests
Everyone can be a winner! Each month one lucky winner should receive a prize related to your product, service or business. The prize can be an actual sample of your product, an ebook about your business or anything else that is cost effective. The only thing the visitor has to do to enter the drawing is—you guessed it—fill out the form. They can enter every month. This helps keeps your contact information up to date as each time a visitor enters he or she will put their most current information in the form. Contests are a great way to ensure a visitor doesn't provide fake contact information because he or she wants you to find them if they win.
Tip 6: Use a Tracking System
Track progress. You need to know how your incentives and contests are working. A website tracking tool such as BoostSuite tells you how many of your unique visitors followed through with the contact form. Try one incentive for 30 days, track progress, then switch to another incentive. After several months you’ll see which incentives work and can begin offering some similar to those that drew the most leads.
*Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
