Lead Capture Forms: 12 Hacks to Make it Perfect

Are you seeking strategies to attract more customers and increase revenue from your online business? Consider this: Have you adequately optimized your lead capture form? Perhaps, despite your efforts, the conversion rate remains low. This article presents 12 simple tips to enhance the effectiveness of your lead capture form.

12 Tips to Create a Lead Capture Form That Drives Conversions

Why is a lead capture form so important for generating leads? And why can't you do a successful lead generation without it?

Let’s start with the landing page. Its goal is to catch your viewers’ attention and encourage them to fill out your capture form so that you can get their contact information. In exchange, you can offer a piece of content, for example, a guide or an exclusive product.

Your conversion rates directly depend on your lead capture form's formatting and its design. So it is crucial that you spend your time developing it wisely. Here are the 12 most important tips on how to create successful lead capture forms.

1. Consider the Position of a Lead Form

When positioning your capture form, you need to make sure it is visible to a user right away, so they don’t need to scroll down the page to find it. Your main goal is to draw attention to the lead form.

However, don’t make your form too intrusive, it may scare off viewers who are less willing to reveal personal information right away. In order to make sure your lead form is visible you may place it next to the content offer itself. It won’t cover the content on the landing page but will be a constant reminder of what people may get in return for their basic information.

Another option for your capture form positioning is to place it at the bottom of the landing page. That way you focus on the content itself and give users a choice if it’s worth continuing interaction with your product or not.

2. Don’t Ask for Too Much Personal Information

There is no doubt that you need high-quality leads. It seems logical to ask people for their first and last names, birthdays, or maybe even a phone number. But a lot of people are reluctant to provide such private information, especially online. So make your lead form as simple as possible. Ask for contact information because the only thing you will actually need at first is an email address to build your email list.

3. Make Your Lead Form Short

The length of the lead capture form is really important. You don’t want people to feel overwhelmed with questions. So when you decide on fields and questions you want to have on your capture form, keep in mind that you should only ask for necessary information. If you need more information, it is better to ask for it later. Many companies do not realize that asking their visitors too many questions simply scares them off and lowers conversion rates.

4. Use The Right Calls To Action

Submit button is the last important component of your lead form. It is obvious that it should simply say “Submit”, but studies show that about 4% of people are likely to walk away from a capture form if it just says “Submit”. So if you don’t want to lower your conversion rates you could customize the text for this button, for example, you could use “Go!” or “Click here”. These options have proven their effectiveness and are considered to be one of the best variations of a submit button.

5. Email People When Someone Submits a Form

It is a great idea to set up your capture form to send emails automatically when people submit your form. First, those who submitted would know that everything went well and get feedback from you. And you, on the other hand, would be able to stay on top of leads and be sure that your forms convert at a higher rate.

6. Make Your Lead Capture Form Interactive

Your lead capture form may really stand out if you make it interactive, so it looks like a visitor is having a conversation with you. You may ask one question at a time so it feels more human. People are more likely to complete such forms as they seem more realistic. 

This tactic has proven itself as really effective and it’s a great way to increase conversions on forms.

7. Capture Leads from Partial Form Submissions

Studies show that a big amount of users don’t finish filling lead capture forms once they’ve started. People don’t go through the process of filling out the form, leave it for later, and then simply forget about it. However, you can use a couple of strategies to avoid that. 

The best way is to add a button “Save and Resume” to your capture form. Visitors will receive a link, they can later follow and continue filling out the form. 

Another option is to set up an automatic service that will email these people and invite them back to a capture form in order to complete it.

8. Learn More About Your Audience

If you turn on Geolocation for your capture forms, you can see the exact place your leads are coming from. You will receive information about your client’s country, city, and region and it will be automatically included in their entry.

Such information about who and from where is submitting your forms may be really helpful for better conversion of your lead capture forms.

Also, you will be able to see what exactly your visitors looked at before submitting a form. With such insights, you can make various optimizations to your website for more conversions.

9. Make Your Lead Capture Form Secure

It is crucial for your website and lead capture forms to be secure. It is simple — if your capture form doesn’t look secure to visitors, they might think it’s a scam and not complete it. The easiest way to ensure the safety of your client’s personal information is to set up CAPTCHA. It will comfort your users and show them that you care about their safety.

Make sure your site looks credible, and have your logo and your privacy policy visible so that people feel protected while providing their email. It is also better to make your terms of service agreement scrollable, because if they’re not it may significantly affect your conversion rates.

10. Protect your Users’ Privacy

Before setting up any privacy policy you need to get familiar with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It is actually essential because some users are looking for capture forms that follow GDPR. Adding such an agreement to your forms will satisfy the needs of a wide range of users who really care about their personal data protection. If they see that you respect the GDPR agreement they would feel more secure and keep on filling out the form. They will definitely appreciate it.

11. Attract Users With a Giveaway

Who doesn’t like gifts, perks, or exclusive offers? Including a giveaway into your lead capture form is very effective if you want to get more leads. Your clients could get an ebook, an exclusive product, or a discount in exchange for their email address which seems more than reasonable. Any type of giveaway you are able to provide is an easy way to gather contact information from your users.

12. Try a Survey or Poll

The lead capture process may seem a bit tiring to viewers even if your form is easy to fill. A good idea on how to engage your users a bit is to convert your capture form into a poll or a survey.

With such an approach, you can collect a lot of useful information and your users will find it easier to fill out the form in the survey style as it looks simple and not very intrusive. You don’t want to look like you’re desperate about getting their emails. 

Make it interactive and simple and you will see how quickly your forms start to convert.

Maximize Profits with Well-Designed Capture Forms

Now you know the importance of a lead capture form on your website. Do not think that you will waste your time paying close attention to creating capture forms. On the contrary, not only will you make your email list bigger, but you can also get more loyal customers and eventually make more money from your online business.