Fact: 97% of your website visitors leave your site
without ever identifying themselves.
Hey, they came to your site for a reason; most of them have a genuine
interest in your product or service. But
only 3% every give you the opportunity to engage with them.
Not
good numbers.
So,
if you’re sales team is only engaging 3% of your potential market, what would
it mean to you if you could increase that number to just 4%… 6%… or 10%?
CharlesBevier is a web developer with a keen marketing mind and a strong background in
the housing industry. His company,
Bevier Creative, has built websites for a growing number of builders. Charles
suggests that to get more engagement from our website, the site should be,
well, more engaging. And the first place
to look is on the Contact Us form.
The
first thing you have to realize is that a visitor to your website can have many
motivations when it comes to opting to use your contact form. It could be an
employee of a competitor looking to move to your company; it could a potential
game-changing partnership with another company; or it could be a lucrative new
business opportunity; or even a customer service question that may turn a past
client with a poor experience into a lifelong advocate.
With
all that riding on you contact form, don’t you think it’s worth spending some
time on its strategy? Here are 6 Tips to help capture those visitors.
1. Keep it short and sweet
Many
Contact Forms ask for way too much information before any relationship has been
established. Imagine a new lead walked
into your office: Would you start asking
them qualifying questions before you introduced yourself, made sure they were
comfortable with you, and established some rapport? Certainly not! So, why expect someone new to fill out a
dozen fields on your contact form use to ask a simple question?
Instead,
reduce the amount of fields in your form to as few as you can possibly have. “Studies show that reducing the number
of required fields by just one – from 4 down to 3 – increased conversion rates
by 50%.” Forms that require simply
the person’s name and email, plus a field where they can post a message or
comment, have the highest conversions.
Sure,
as salespeople we want all the qualifying information we can get; they want to
give us as little as possible and maintain their anonymity until they’re
comfortable working with us. Start with
the bare minimum that allows you to continue to market to them, build trust and
earn the right to gather more information over time.
2. Create Trust
Do
you feel more comfortable talking with a real person or a featureless company
entity? So, humanize the interaction by
being friendly. Invite people to fill
out your form. Assure them that their
comments or inquiry will be received and read by a real live person who is
eager to hear from them and appreciates the contact.
Most
of us hesitate to fill out a contact form because we don’t want to be inundated
with spam. So, take away their fear
right up front. Clearly state on your
form that you respect their privacy and will never share their personal
information with any third parties, and that you will never spam them
yourself.
If
you’re asking someone to fill out a form to subscribe to your newsletter, for
instance, you might state: “We’ll
add you to our newsletter list, but you can unsubscribe at any time and you
won’t hurt our feelings.”
3. Make it personal
Once
again, people crave and respond to personal appeals. Moe than 30 years ago, the
Beatles discovered they sold twice as many albums when they used personal
pronouns in the titles and lyrics. I, me, my, mine. This is why Apple has
followed their lead, with the I-phone, the I-pad, etc. I developed the website
for the Log Homes Council and I created a general contact form for that site that’s
entitled “Tell Me More.” It’s dramatically help increase that site’s
conversions. Use similar tactics on your contact form, to help visitors
understand it’s all about their needs. “How can we help you with your research”
is another non-threatening way to get them to interact.
4.
Make it easy
Nearly
every website has a Contact Us page, but the real ‘meat’ of our site is on all
the other pages. So, why not have your
contact form available on every page, not just Contact Us page?
Reduce
‘friction’ by making the form easy to understand as to what fields are needed
and why. Visually your site visitors
should intuitively understand they way the form is designed and what they need
to do. For example, using one field for
the prospects NAME instead of separate fields for FIRST NAME and LAST NAME
makes the form easier to complete, reducing friction and encouraging more
people to fill it out. Consider the
actual design of your form to make it easy, not awkward.
5. Make it Mobile Friendly.
More
people are viewing your website from mobile devises every day. Your website might be optimized for mobile
viewing, but is your contact form? If
you’ve ever tried to fill out a long, involved form on your iPhone or Android,
you probably gave up – most do, including your prospects. Make your forms simple and easy to complete
from phones, tablets etc.
Also,
QR (Quick Response) Codes are a great tool to drive traffic to your
website. But think: If a QR code is scanned, it is being done
from a mobile device. So, make sure that
code takes your prospect to a site that is optimized for their mobile device,
not one that is best viewed from a 27″ computer screen! Again, if you want more people to engage, you
need to make it easy for them to do so.
Now is the time to start including your QR code on your business cards, literature and even your yard signs. People really like using their smart phones so take advantage of it.
6. Plan What Happens Next
In
other words, plan out your entire engagement strategy before you ask someone to
submit a web form. Ask: Why are they filling out this form, what are
they expecting to happen, and what do I need to do to make sure they are happy
enough to take the next step toward the sale?
The
Internet is an instantaneous medium – people expect that when they click a
button something is going to happen immediately; no matter what or when! So, automate the first response. Create an automated process where if someone
submits a request for information, an email is sent out immediately and
automatically to reward them for their efforts.
Automated
responses (called autoresponders) can be a simple ‘Thank You’ email to tell
them that their request has been received and that someone will be contacting
them soon, a link to download the information requested, or a welcome message
for joining your newsletter list.
Also
important is to make sure that you have a process for recording and storing the
prospect’s information once a form has been filled out. This can happen automatically using programs
such as Infusionsoft, which generates web forms, processes automated email
responses, and stores contact information directly into a robust CRM (customer
relationship management) database.
In
review, if you want more engagement from your website visitors, then be more
engaging with your web forms by making them clear, understandable, easy to fill
out, and inviting. Create a strategy
that offers people a compelling reward for their time. You’ll get more engagement, more leads, and
more opportunities to make the sale.
