How To Use Lead Gen Forms

In this article, we are going to discover how to use lead gen forms.

What Is A Lead Gen Form

Have you ever filled in a form with your name and email address because you want to get in contact with a particular business? Or you want the free product that they are offering?

Perhaps you sign an online form to register with a particular group, or to receive a regular newsletter. All these forms are types of lead generation forms.

A lead generation form is a web form which a business can use to capture emails and information about potential customers.

Essentially, if someone fills in a form on your website, they are engaging or showing an interest in your business.

Thanks to the information you capture from the form, that person is now a lead for your business. Your next job is to turn that lead into a paying customer.

But are lead gen forms really that important? What happens if you don’t have one?

Did you know that in an online landscape, only 2% of visitors leave their contact details without a prompt?

That means if you don’t have a strategy for using lead gen forms, you could be losing 98% of your potential leads.

Three Benefits to Creating Lead Gen Forms

If you don’t know where to start or a well meaning friend says ‘why bother?’ There are many benefits to creating a lead generation form. Here are the top three.

1. It gives you important customer data which you can use to target similar customers through advertising or social media.
2. You can create a custom online form to reflect your brand and to raise awareness of your business.
3. It helps to convert your visitors into leads and ultimately this grows your business at a faster rate.

Types of Lead Gen Form

What are the different types of lead gen form? Essentially, you want to gather customer details and there are many ways you can do this.

• Collect email sign ups
• Get more people to subscribe to your newsletter
• Manage inquiry forms
• Offer deals or promotions
• Subscribe to a blog
• Request a contact
• Thank you message

Before Creating Your Lead Gen Form

– What Is Your Objective

Before you create a lead gen form, you need to have an objective in mind. What do you want this lead gen form to achieve for your business?

For example, do you want to grow your customer database and raise awareness of your business?

Or is your main reason to get more people to subscribe to your newsletter because your marketing analysis shows it’s the best way to attract potential customers.

Perhaps you want to simply collect inquiries to learn more about what your potential customers are interested in.

This will help you to target the people you want and provide them with relevant information.

– Give People A Reason

So if you want someone to fill in your lead gen form, there has to be a reason for it. Something you can offer back that is of value.

This is important to think about, otherwise you might get people looking at the form and then rejecting it.

Consider something specific to your business that you can giveaway at little cost to get the information you need.

This could be in the form of content such as tips, stories and videos or discounts, promotions and even giveaways.

Or you could offer a free service, or an invitation to a free event.

– What Information Do You Want

Ideally, you want to focus on the information you need to reach your objective. Hence you don’t want to over complicate the form. Keep it simple and easy to use at all times.

Potentially, there are hundreds of fields you can choose from. However, stick to a few questions and you will get the information you want in the first place. Too many items to fill in could turn people away.

– Choose Questions Relevant To Your Business

The great thing about lead gen forms is that you can customise them to reflect your business, even using design to reflect your brand.

Again, think about the objective behind creating your lead gen form. What is the end goal for your business?

If you want to increase visitors to your website for example, then choose questions which are relevant to this.

How To Create A Simple Lead Gen Form

Creating an online lead gen form can be simple, or you can make it a lot more intricate.

For example, you can collect many form fields, but you don’t need that to start with.

You don’t really need any technical expertise either. We’ll start with a simple form.

– Hubspot

With Hubspot, you can create an online form in seconds using the drag and drop form builder.

You can either add that form onto your website, or use a standalone form page to share with others.

So you can choose any field type to create custom form fields. For example, you can choose where to put the text, date, check boxes and so on.

Once you have made the form, simply drag and drop the questions you want to ask in the right place.

Use the type that works best: text, dropdown, select, check box, date picker, or something else.

– Example 1

You are starting a new business from scratch and you simply want to start collecting information from potential customers.

Perhaps you offer a cleaning service for business premises. You can create a contact me lead generation form. Your wording could be:

“ If you would like to find out more about how we can help clean your business premises, please contact us using the form below”.

Your fields might include:

• When would you need us to clean – with a drop down list of times.
• How big are your premises – (by square feet).
• Where is your business located.
• How many rooms do you need cleaning.
• What is your name and contact email.

From this form, you have collected information about a potential customer. Now you follow up that lead to see if you can offer them the cleaning service.

– Example 2

You are an established business and now you want to grow your customer base even further.

One idea is to create a newsletter which offers something of value to potential customers.

So if someone signs up to your newsletter, they could get the first peek at a new product before you launch it to the general public.

Or they could get a loyal customer discount for sticking with your business.

Hence the wording on your lead gen form could be:

“Sign up to our newsletter for the first look at new products and customer discounts”

With this in mind, it’s the newsletter you need to work on.

It should be creative, informative and offer something of value including exactly what you have promised on the lead gen form.

There’s no point in sending out a newsletter which doesn’t have the new product or discount in it.

Back to the lead gen form, you will simply need these fields:

• Your name
• Your email address

And you might want to add:

• How did you find out about this business – with a drop down list of different ways.

Lead Gen Forms Design

How you design your lead gen form could make or break if it’s used well. Ask yourself, when was the last time you enjoyed filling in a form? Some people have form fatigue!

The same questions and the same style may be enough to put someone off your website altogether.

Hence, the design of your lead gen form is important.

Clearly, you can’t make simple questions look amazingly attractive. However, you can try to make it look less like a form.

Most platforms offer design templates for you to choose from, and then you can even customise this further to match your branding and create visual awareness of your business.

Ideally, the lead gen form will pop up and customers know it’s from you.

Furthermore, you can now even get smart forms that adapt the questions to each website visitor, which means that a returning visitor can see new questions.

Why You Need A Good Lead Gen Form

There are three main tips to creating a good lead gen form. Ultimately, they need to be easy, straightforward and simple to use.

If a potential customer has to look twice, or doesn’t understand the question, they may give up.

Hence, it doesn’t matter how good your lead generation strategy is if your forms are too intimidating or difficult to fill in.

Essentially, if people are turned away by the form, you are losing a high percentage of your prospective leads at the final hurdle.

Don’t let your lead gen form stop you from converting people into leads. Ideally, a simple and attractive form will help you to generate leads and grow your business even further.

Top Examples of A Lead Gen Form

Facebook

Firstly, if you choose to sign up to Facebook, you have already filled in one of their lead gen forms. As a business, you already know how important it is to use social media platforms.

With Facebook, you can utilise lead form adverts to reach your target audience.

Lead Form Ads include a call to action that opens a form with any information the user has already provided via the Facebook platform.

Essentially, these forms are short and easy to fill in. Furthermore, it means that potential customers don’t need to find or visit your website.

They have found you on Facebook, so now they can quickly fill in a form on there, usually via their phone.

– How To Set Up A Facebook Lead Gen Form

1. Go to Ads Manager.
2. Click Create.
3. Select Lead generation as your objective and name your campaign.
4. Choose the Page you plan to use for the lead ad.
5. Choose your target audience, placements, budget and schedule.
6. Select your lead ad formats.

– Benefits

Data submission is quick and easy so people can fill in details even when they’re on the move. Because the forms are so simple, more people are likely to finish and send them off.

By customising a form, you can request specific information relating to your business. Hence you can streamline your sales and identify high quality leads more easily.

Furthermore, you can sync your lead form ads to your CRM so that you can follow up immediately.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is another platform which uses Lead Gen forms incredibly well.

Essentially, LinkedIn is a large professional network on the internet. Creating your own profile is a bit like having an online CV which you can instantly share.

Furthermore, you can create professional business networks and search for jobs. It’s a useful way to showcase your professional talent through experience, skills and education.

– How To Set Up A LinkedIn Lead Gen Form

1. Log into LinkedIn Campaign Manager and select the account you’d like to create the form templates for
2. Under ‘Account Assets’ click ‘Lead Generation Forms’.
3. Explain your offering, ie. ‘ sign up to our webinar’.
4. Add a privacy policy URL, a legal part of the form.
5. Select the fields you’d like to add to your form.
6. Create a thank you page.
7. Add the form to your campaign advert, currently this is known as ‘Sponsored content’.
8. Select ‘Collect leads using LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms’.
9. Once you create your content, add a call to action button and the lead gen form.

– Benefits

The aim of a LinkedIn lead gen form is to bridge the gap between the marketer’s need for quality lead data and member’s ease of access to content.

The form helps to increase lead volume and quality, hence achieving larger conversion rates.

So you can choose to promote a white paper, sign up to a newsletter or to a webinar. Basically, the forms create an easier way for LinkedIn members to connect to businesses.

In return, the business gets accurate data on potential customers.

Instagram

Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking platform. It is now owned by Facebook so the marketing tools are all linked together.

Essentially the aim of a lead gen form on Instagram is to gain information from customers without them having to leave the platform.

So you can gain insight from customers who may not directly visit your website to learn more about your business, but they are on Instagram.

Therefore you can collect information about potential customers in their chosen space, instead of sending them off elsewhere to fill in a form.

With this in mind, if you create too many steps in the customer journey between viewing an ad to completing a form, the more likely you are to lose out on potential customers.

So, once again, keep the form simple and straightforward with pertinent questions to achieve your original objective.

To start with, you need a Facebook Business Manager account with Admin Access and an Ad account for the business.

Then you need to connect your Instagram account to your Facebook business manager account.

– How to Set Up An Instagram Form

1. Choose the objective ‘Lead Generation’.
2. Choose your Facebook page to link to.
3. Create your target audience.
4. Choose your placements.
5. Set a budget and schedule.
6. Choose your format.
7. Enter text.
8. Create the form.

Website Example: Lead Genera

A good example of a website lead generation form is here: leadgenera.com/work-with-us/

The objective is to gain information from potential customers who would like assistance with the services provided by Lead Genera.

So a potential lead has found the website and wants to know more. They click on a call to action button on the home page which says ‘Request A Proposal’.

This leads to a quick lead gen form so that staff can learn more about what the customer requires.

Hence there are custom headings relevant to the business. Because Lead Genera offers many services, there is a drop down list to choose from which will then guide that person to the right team.

For example, the text is ‘what would you like to talk or learn about’ and the options are:

• Lead Generation
• Website Design and Development
• SEO/Search Engine Marketing
• PPC/Paid Search
• Marketing Consultancy
• Design, Animation and Branding
• Other

So you can see how a simple question can start to guide the lead to the right person. Other form details include the budget level and when they would like the work to start.

Then there is a heading for the business website URL.

This will allow the team at Lead Genera to look at a customer website and start to compile a list of how they can improve it or work with the brand and so on.

Hence the lead gen form gives them good initial information so that when a member of the team calls that lead, they know what they are talking about already.

Also there is another little box on the lead gen form for customers to fill in. The text reads ‘I agree to receive other communications from Lead Genera’.

Again, if the customer ticks this box, then they are giving permission for Lead Genera to provide other information which may then convert the lead to a customer.

This is a great way to nurture that lead, even if they don’t initially go through with a business contract after submitting the lead gen form.

What To Do With The Data

Now you have collected some excellent information, thanks to your lead generation forms, what happens next?

Ideally, this data now provides you with a list of potential customers, their contact details and possibly further information.

It also means that these are people who have shown an interest in your business, hence they are qualified leads and need nurturing.

Your next step is to use that data to encourage the leads further down the lead generation funnel until they become paying customers.

Firstly, you need a strategy on how you will follow up these leads. For example, you could send an email within 5 minutes or call each lead within 24 hours.

If you have asked them to subscribe to your newsletter, make sure all the leads are in the email address book and they get the newsletter week after week or however regularly you send it.

Possibly the most immediate thing you could do is to reply with a thank you message.

Saying Thank You

A custom thank you page is a great way to encourage people to stay engaged with your business after they submit a form.

After all, they have given you their details so you can contact them in the future. The expectation is that you will get in contact.

Therefore, a simple thank you is the next step to nurturing that relationship and the first official business contact.

Usually, if you are using the major social media platforms, you can choose a template which includes a thank you response.

However, you can also customise the text to give a personal response which reflects your business and brand.

Why Choose Lead Genera

Lead Genera offers different types of marketing services as mentioned above.

The work starts by identifying the leads and prospects that are in line with the precise requirements of each client.

For example, a business offering garden furniture is likely to want to attract completely different leads to a business selling gaming design software.

The team at Lead Genera will work out who your potential leads are and how to convert them to paying customers.

In each case, there are various strategies and platforms that can be used, including lead generation forms.

As a result, Lead Genera will help your business to achieve its goals and to grow.

Get in touch with them today at leadgenera.com and request a proposal.