There is little by way of industry recognition for cleverly designed web forms but they are fundamental to your marketing. Lucy Fisher reports
Nobody sets out to win the prize for the best online form. But with demand generation or lead nurturing approaches and services on the rise, as a result of the fact that more and more buyers are doing their research online, they are no doubt critical to B2B marketing success – however unexciting they may seem. After all, your site or other web content needs to attract visitors in order for them to deem it worthwhile to leave a sufficient data footprint so you can start a relationship with them. Without that, you are letting potential customers walk away.
Web forms crop up in a number of guises, too. As well as enabling marketing automation and ecommerce, they are often the first step for signing up to an online community or group, or are put in front of what is perceived to be valuable content (whether this is a trial, a free download, or access to industry experts on an information portal).
So for marketers they can be used to nurture leads, research a target audience, to improve conversion rates, and for customer service monitoring, among many other functions. According to Rosemary Smith, director at permission-based marketing specialists Opt-4, online forms are best described as tools for data capture, “That’s what they’re there for,” she says. “They are any device online that’s there for collecting information, whether a simple pop-up box, or a full registration page – anything that involves a sign-up process.”
Ricky Warren, marketing manager at research publishers Research, summises, “An online form is something used to gather data. You can have forms behind forms, too. The main thing is not to give the more detailed form straight away. You need just enough to continue the conversation.”
He adds, “Forms don’t get the attention they deserve. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve filled in a form only to return straight back to the homepage without confirmation of receipt. Customers expect reassurance.”
Warren explains how Research is launching a new ecommerce system as its previous one wasn’t sufficiently flexible to the needs of the business; the order of fields couldn’t be changed, it only enabled a set format and a lot of time was spent on the phone trouble-shooting. He says, “We get 40,000 hits per month on our website and we could see from Google Analytics that orders were regularly only partly filled and leads were being lost.
“Alongside the new system we are building a database that will allow us to refer to unique customer IDs and quantify the value of an organisation. This will help us to cross-sell and improve customer service. Productivity and efficiency will shoot through the roof. The cost of the new system will be offset by staff time saved alone.”
Form etiquette and incentives
In terms of how best to design these all-important marketing tools, the key appears to be not to ask for too much, too soon. Smith explains, “You’ve got to make a judgement as to what information is adequate and what is excessive. Ask yourself, ‘Is it the right time to ask this, or is it a bit like asking how much money is in my wallet when you first come across me in the street?’”
At the heart of the effective use of online forms lies a value exchange, say experts. The idea is if a visitor gives up data, the company will give something back of at least the same value.
As part of this approach, and because many are becoming increasingly sceptical about how their data will be used, incentivising people to fill in forms is becoming more important. Incentives can take the form of a free USB stick, entry into a prize draw, or access to a benchmarking survey. However, experts warn incentives must be relevant and stress marketers mustn’t overestimate the value of, say, yet another whitepaper unless it is truly insightful. “Many offer hospitality around the Olympics or an iPad, but you need to engage with the brand over and above the offer,” adds Shane Redding, director of Cyance and a senior tutor and member of the B2B council at the Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM).
All in the design
Effective form design is a skill that many marketers lack, in part because until fairly recently the primary function of a website was to act as a repository for information about a company. Yet with the wealth of freely available web analytics packages, there is no valid excuse for failing to assess the effectiveness of web forms or testing different approaches. As Steve Kemish, chair of the IDM’s digital marketing council, explains, “You can do split testing with online forms. You can use three questions or five questions, and put them on the left-hand side or the right-hand side, for instance. So you can load various versions of a form and use intelligence to establish which approach works best.”
And with the increasing use of mobile, it’s important to use analytics in order to ascertain what proportion of your audience is accessing your web forms via these devices and to make sure their design reflects this. Kemish adds, “Devices such as iPads and iPhones are becoming more prevalent. They don’t support flash and it’s important to make changes to form design accordingly.”
Fortunately the use of analytics – including free offerings such as Google Analytics – can enable B2B marketers to identify which elements of a form are turning customers or prospects off. It’s important to track the individual elements on a page, rather than the entire page. This can start to highlight patterns, say experts. According to Daniel Rowles, course director in digital at the Chartered Institute of Marketing, “We often find that people hate giving their date of birth as they are worried about ID theft. There is also cynicism around giving a telephone number. A lot of people online don’t want to speak to someone.”
And don’t forget that although the concept of web form creation may seem like a job for the IT department, you will need to call upon marketing design and copywriting skills in order to position your business brand effectively and enable the form to perform its function optimally. Chris Yeates, a designer at agency Mason Zimbler, says it’s important to keep things concise, with clear language and signposting, and to consider using icons, as well as text. “It’s possible to be too text-heavy; you need instructional, yet human language. Let the user feel in control of what they’re giving you,” he says.
Profiling and preferences
Ahead in this space seem to be the B2B marketing automation platform providers and lead nurturing experts. They have identified one or two trends that the more forward-thinking business brands are adopting. One of these is described as ‘progressive profiling’, which involves taking a gradual approach with online forms, filling in the gaps as the relationship with a prospect develops. To hone this method, a collaborative approach is needed, with marketing and sales in agreement as to what constitutes a lead from the outset, and a culture of sensitive and efficient data capture being instilled within the corporate culture.
“Those that are really successful are learning to become more joined-up in their thinking,” points out Elle Woulfe, senior marketing programmes manager at Eloqua. “The technology alone won’t solve the problem. You need the right process.”
Another innovation in the world of web forms is the use of added sophistication within preference centres. According to Richard Evans, director of marketing, EMEA, at Silverpop, “More up-to-date preference centres can be used to try to divert an unsubscribe, by offering what is called an opt-down as opposed to an opt-out. Instead of removing the relationship entirely, the customer can choose to reduce the frequency of communication.”
There is also a new concept he calls ‘snooze’. “If I’m an email subscriber, receiving an email every two weeks, I can snooze communication for 90 days or six months, if I’m not yet ready to make a buying decision,” he explains.
Some of these ‘innovations’ appear quite obvious, but that’s the thing about web forms: those that work best apply common sense. With so few designed with optimal function in mind, they represent an untapped opportunity for those B2B marketers that take the time to ensure they get them right.
Form design: 10 top tips
1. There needs to be an appropriate trade-off for customers and prospects to share data. Consider the use of incentives.
2. Don’t make too many fields mandatory. Aim for engagement then ask for detail later.
3. Put yourself in the position of the person completing the form. Make it easy and make it clear what the data is for. Avoid overly technical language.
4. Test various designs and make the most of web analytics.
5. Ensure your systems are compatible with the data you are asking for. Only ask for what you need and never ask for the same information twice.
6. Show the benefits of adding more information. Let the user feel in control.
Collaborate with other departments. Think in terms of the sales cycle, next steps and the end goal.
7. Be aware of where your audience are and what devices they are using. Ensure your forms are compatible with new and emerging web platforms.
8. There may be a standard order to online forms but you can tweak this to suit you.
9. Ask the right questions and ask for the critical data first.
10. Don’t forget about data validation. Dirty data is worse than useless.
