10 Tried and Tested Ways to Increase Your Lead Form Conversion Rate

Nowadays you can find a contact form on almost any website. It is a connection between you and a site visitor who may want to purchase your product, cooperate with your company or apply for an open vacancy, but does not want to call at the same time. Moreover, modern tendencies show us that calls are becoming less and less popular, and submissions through contact forms, on the contrary, are gaining popularity.

Here are some tips on how to increase the conversion rate of contact form several times and make them more customer-friendly.

1. Minimize the number of fields

It is a common situation when the user closes the page without even clicking on the interaction form because there are too many fields required. A large number of fields tend to scare away site visitors. They are either too lazy to fill out that much, or they simply do not want to provide too much information about themselves. For example, a customer has not yet made a decision about the order, but they are already asked to give a lot of information about themselves.

A study by Hubspot verifies this concept, showing that reducing the number of fields from four to three brings a 50 percent improvement in conversion rate.

Remember - the simpler your contact form is, the easier it is for the customer to decide to fill it out.

2. Split longer forms into multiple pages.

But what if you still need to request a lot of information? In this case you can easily split the form into subcategories, like order information and shipping information. This will help keep the form design cleaner and avoid overwhelming the customer by displaying too many fields at once. The key to successfully implementing multi-page forms is to keep UX in mind. Use as many sections or pages as needed to gather information, but make sure that form sections are logically ordered and that they are limited to “one idea/question per page.”

3. Try to opt out of mandatory fields.

No one likes to do something only because they were told to. Mandatory fields, especially the ones with red asterisks, scare users away as they don’t leave any choice. The strict requirement to fill in the field with the phone number is not always necessary. Perhaps the users should be given a choice of what to leave as a contact - phone, mail, or all at once? It will be easier and more convenient for them.

4. Explain why you need this or that field.

Customers dislike spam and unsolicited phone calls. So you better tell them how the required information will be used in the future. You can also include your privacy policy to remove all doubts. This simple, trustworthy statement about your email marketing campaign will improve the conversion rate.

5. The form should help the user fill out itself

Typically, a contact form is universal, but not always. It can be different for a customer, for a potential partner and for an applicant. Accordingly, the information in these forms should be different.

It is better to show the site visitors an example of how exactly they need to fill in a specific field. This can be done in a semi-transparent font that disappears when the visitor moves to the field.

Give a visual example in which format it is better for a visitor to point out what exactly they are interested in from your products and in what form it is preferable to submit contact information. Most likely, they will fill it in that way.

If the field of the contact form is intended to be used for detailed information, then you need to give a comment next to the field, explaining what to text there and why this information is needed.

6. Focus on smartphones and tablets first

People are increasingly using smartphones and tablets for online shopping. Contact forms that are designed to be filled out with personal computers or laptops are difficult to fill out with a smartphone. And vice versa - what was originally created for a smartphone is simply filled with a computer.

Use swipes for iOS or Android and GPS data to help the user fill out the form.

7. Choose a clear and strong call-to-action

‘Submit’ doesn’t let users know what happens next. The biggest fear we all have with forms is not knowing what happens when we press that ‘Submit’ button. Change the text to ‘Request a Call’ or ‘Request Contact’ or ‘Request Price.’ Reaffirm the reason for the form, so site visitors are comfortable with what happens next.

According to studies, the word “submit” is not descriptive enough. Words like “download” and “click here” increase the conversion rate by around 25-30%.

Another study shows that if you use first person in the call-to-action button, it improves the conversions by as much as 25 percent when compared to using second person point of view.

8. Use a confirmation landing page

Let your website visitors know that the form has been received and thank them for their request. As soon as they press the button, redirect them to a new landing page with a generous thank you statement. Above all, make sure you deliver on the promise. If you promise a follow-up contact within 24 hours, make sure it happens.

9. Minimize friction in and around the form

The advice, “use power words to persuade people to subscribe to your list,” isn’t always the right approach for optimizing online lead generation forms, even if it often works. More than likely, the lead generation form isn’t the problem, but the events that happen around it are.

At the heart of every landing page, the lead generation form stands out. If you put too many elements around the generation form, you will probably lower conversion rates that’s why don’t be afraid to use white space. It allows scannability and readability and increases click-through rates.

Truly, so many different things happen on a landing page simultaneously. The visitor will be making judgments on whether or not the offer is right for them, the persuasive words and design are there to help build strong interest.

When you make it easier for people to make the right decisions, you’ll get more clicks on your call-to-action button.

10. Get instant contact with your leads

Nowadays, people receive a lot of emails to their inbox and sometimes it is very easy to miss email from a potential customer. However most of the existing form backend services offer only email notifications or Zapier. Here is a form backend that allows to get notifications of form submissions to the messenger of your choice: WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber, Facebook Messenger, Slack, etc. Form2chat.io will help you get your leads as soon as possible and in the easiest way, through your favorite chat applications and anywhere - on the desktop, mobile phone or tablet.

Conclusion

Look for problems and fix them. Test your form constantly. Try to look at it from the user perspective, make it simple and understandable for the site visitor, and remove all errors and bugs. Remember - the customer wants to get visual information and a convenient form right away, on the first page of the site, that’s why every little thing matters!

Following these recommendations will give you an advantage in the eyes of the user, which will positively affect the conversion of the contact form.

If you still have any questions, ask them in the comments below.