High Value: High value content is usually proprietary and requires a monetary investment, such as development or conducting research. It provides a significant advantage or higher perceived value to your target audience. For example, there are white papers that provide timely and important information to potential customers or customers to help them improve their business or do their jobs. For example, there are white papers on new federal, state, or local government laws that are directly related to software solutions. Whether it’s a horizontal or vertical industry message, from personal corporate experience for various software and service categories, there is always an opportunity to create these high-value white papers.
Low Value: Product-specific white papers, product demos, webinars, and podcasts are generally low-value content in most cases. It’s a valuable tool to help you invest money and resources to monetize, drive interest and generate leads in one click here, but it’s not inherently high value for your potential customers.
High or Low Value: Trial and promotional offers or discounts can be high or low depending on what you are offering.
Table of Contents
Expected Lea Volume
Even if it’s a regular white paper, we develop predictions about what to expect from the lead volume for each call to action. Don’t be afraid to forecast monthly and share your expectations with your sales team. If you deliver webinars on a monthly basis, predicting responses over time and changing the way you market your webinars can help you adjust your lead goals. In addition to promoting webinars on your website, you are stopping email campaigns. Here are subtle answers to questions about sales who want as much information as possible about their leads. With so many questions about your marketing form, you can’t show how many potential customers are afraid.
Desired Lead Quality
Not all leads are created equal. It’s okay to strike a marketing balance between call-to-actions that generate very high quality leads and lots of responses, but other call-to-actions with a low percentage of highly qualified leads. You certainly want to filter out as many tire kickers as possible, but you also need to consider the sales cycle and the lifetime value of converted leads.
Long, Short, or no Format at all
Long forms have more fields for contact and profile collection, more force fields, and may include surveys.
The short form requires the minimum number of fields required to achieve your goal for a specific call to action.
No Form Needs Definition
I have spent years accumulating wisdom about the use of online forms and have seen new trends emerge. There are general rules of thumb when not using long, short, or forms from real-world experience managing a corporate website and being deeply involved in any response mechanism, including custom online forms.
Long Format: Use long format for high-value content. If you’re making this content available to both new prospects and customers through separate marketing activities or media, use the shortened long format for your customers. Customers will be offended by requesting contact information that they should already have. In both cases, you have to be careful about the forced field. Consider asking only the prospect’s name, company name, and email. Some people will fill in some or all of the optional fields. The advantage is that it displays a high level of interest as more voluntary fields are filled. You can then mark it as the “A” lead for your sales team.
Short form: This is ideal for low-value content downloads, demos, and webinars. It’s also the best format to use for most online call to action in email or direct marketing campaigns. First name, last name, job title, company name, and email are reasonable criteria for most potential clients. Be careful when asking for a phone number and don’t force that field to be short. Leave it optional. People will also back off in short form if they think you’ll be harassing them over the phone. When promoting your content on your Facebook business page, we recommend the simplest form (email only-for follow-up marketing, but don’t forget the opt-out rules), or don’t use the form at all.
No format: I don’t ask any questions and I believe it allows content downloads for low-cost content. You may not get a solid lead on your sales right away, but you can track your efficiency by monitoring your download volume. When downloading content from a website that has previously used the form, do not use the form at all. Check the number before and after download. Landing pages linked to specific email marketing campaigns are an ideal opportunity to do A/B testing of form disabling and short form use, as it allows you to track activity, especially if you use a unique URL. Initially, it takes some belief to not use any form in the call to action. In addition to downloading the stats, you’ll also receive sales feedback about the sources of leads that will be part of your measurement.
Tracking the Effectiveness of Online Forms
Whether you’re using a long form or a short form, check the open percentage and compare it to the form completion. This will show you if you need to reduce the long format or if you need to reduce the number and type of forced fields. Conversely, if your completion rate is very high and you are interested in collecting some additional data, test adding more fields to a short form. But only if it’s truly meaningful data that expands your marketing opportunities.
Testing, tracking, and analyzing results obtained from online forms is critical to maintaining the right balance of interest in your content with leads for actionable follow-up. Match your results to your goals and adjust the form when you can clearly see trends in response rates and quality for your leads.
When a potential customer withdraws from an online form, they are losing leads unnecessarily. Relationships with customers and prospects extend to all communications and interactions. This includes marketing forms. If you take the time to create the most appropriate and less invasive form, you value your potential customers’ interest in your products and services rather than gathering contact information. An enjoyable online experience builds credibility and trust and ultimately generates more leads and more customers.
