Lead generation in inbound marketing means enticing customers to give you valuable information and tacit permission to engage with them in some way, shape, or form. This is the idea behind all the content production and SEO you perform.
Generally, the valuable contact and other information is collected through an online form that resides on a specialized landing page. This form can collect any number of interesting pieces of data about the customer…if the customer feels the value of the return offer is worth it.
The design of the landing page will make or break your conversion rate. If your sales team seems to be performing poorly, you need to ensure your landing pages are at peak performance. What follows is a run-down of the best practices for creating a top-converting landing page that will give your sales team a jumpstart.
The Physics of Friction
Friction, if you remember high school physics, is that tendency for momentum to be slowed by interaction with something that prevents movement. The higher the friction, the quicker momentum is lost.
Landing pages need to have the least possible amount of friction, which can keep a potential customer from handing over the information your sales team needs for a quick and successful sales cycle. Most landing page friction is due to the form.
If there are too many fields to the form, many visitors will jump ship before they even read your mind-blowing headline. You need to find a way to balance your information needs with what the customer is willing to part with.
Best Practices for Forms
Online marketing has been around long enough to generate plenty of data for marketers to crunch and determine the optimum number of fields in a form. There is variation due to industry or business type and also due the step in the buying cycle a customer is in.
As a rule of thumb the most successful forms have between three and seven fields. Could you get conversions with more? It is possible if the offer is of enough value to visitors that they are willing to part with more personal information. In fact, an argument could be made that the lead will be self-qualified if you get enough information. However, your conversion rate will suffer and you could lose prospects that might have converted with less information demand. It is a balancing act and one you must figure out specifically for your business.
What Should You Ask?
This question is tightly bound to why you are asking. When you create a landing page you must know precisely what you want it to do. What is your biggest concern for this landing page?
- Lead quality
- Lead quantity
- Specific information types
Once you determine the purpose of the page, plan to create two versions for A/B testing to determine the better performer.
Now it comes down to deciding which information you must have and what would be nice to have. And then leave out the nice-to-haves. As a general rule, especially if this is a first time visitor, you really only need three pieces of information:
- Name
- Email address
- Job title (depending on the offer)
Best practices say you can have up to 4 more fields. Only ask for information you will actually use. If it would just be interesting or you are hoarding information for some time in the future, resist the urge to ask for it.
Include Marketing and Sales in the Form Field Selection
Marketing brings the expertise of best landing page practices and the best metrics to monitor. The sales people have the pulse of the customer. Both are needed to put together a usable form. Between the two groups you can hammer out a lead generation and a lead nurturing strategy. Ask both teams:
- Does the form align with marketing lead goals?
- What types of lead nurturing campaigns are planned?
- What intelligence does marketing need to properly segment and personalize the campaign?
- Does the sales team have enough information to contact the lead?
- Are there enough details to qualify a lead?
- What are the deal breakers for each team?
- What type of unexpected responses does sales get from current leads?
Keep in mind that a landing page may address a first time visitor or it may address someone in a lead nurturing campaign. Different questions should be asked between the two. The new visitor needs to let you know a name and give you implicit permission to market to him. The lead in a nurturing campaign should be answering questions that help you target the correct material for the step she’s in and to lead her further through the sales cycle.
Smart Forms and Progressive Profiling
Smart form functionality on your landing page helps you refrain from asking the same question of the same person over and over. If a repeat visitor comes to one of your landing pages, a smart form will recognize him and autofill the form with the information you already have. This gives you leverage to ask additional questions without creating additional friction on your page.
Progressive profiling is a method of creating iterative, dynamic forms that pose questions according to what you already know about the lead. This prolongs the life of the form and makes it very versatile.
Your sales team will be off and running if you can provide them with the information they require for lead nurturing and selling. Ask them what information they need to do that. If you set up your landing pages right your customers will qualify themselves without the need for repeated contacts by sales.
Sales will be happy because the buying cycle is shortened and the close rate skyrockets. Customers will be happy because they control what information they give. Marketing will be happy because everyone else is happy.
That should make you happy.
