List of Best Ways to Optimize Web Forms

A webform is essentially an exceptional way to allow the visitor to get in touch with you and send information such as an important order request, query, etc. On some websites, information that gets submitted with web forms is transferred directly to the company email. Web forms are constructed in programming languages and successful implementation of the code is important for the success of any form.

They can include any form fields such as text areas, text boxes, radio buttons, checkboxes, file upload, buttons, and hidden fields. These forms basically work as a communication bridge that allows a user to communicate with a company and vice versa. You must know your target audience and market to frame important questions on a web form. Either you can research them all independently or you can get in touch with an expert for evaluating the target market and creating sensible questions as needed.

Importance of Web Forms

Web forms are an exceptional way to get valuable customer information that can be used for a wide range of purposes. You can keep your customers updated about the new offers, discounts, and a variety of other things if you have their contact information.

If you have a running landing page, we are sure you must have had conversations about using that landing page for converting the incoming traffic into leads. The process of attracting people to your business is called lead generation. To do this, you can begin a marketing campaign, advertise, conduct seminars, and online webinars, or participate in an event or trade show. All of these methods help in getting the audience getting attracted to your offering.

With web forms, you can move a step ahead and get their information. Given below is a list of best ways to optimize web forms along with an explanation on how to implement these ways using Zoho CRM.

1. Connect the Web Form With CRM

The usual course of action that most organizations follow is waiting until getting a good number of leads and then transferring them to a CRM system. However, the truth is that getting a bunch of leads all at once can be difficult to manage.

If you collect these leads one at a time, it can become relatively simple to assign them to the sales representatives, add tasks, schedule tasks, and follow up when the time is right. You can use and optimize web forms that are well connected to your CRM and get the data directly into the CRM database.

In addition, you can also relax without any doubt on the precision of data that gets captured into a web form and is linked to your sales representatives. Basically, the information recorded into your web form will be transferred to the CRM automatically and the sales cycle will eventually turn into a streamlined process.

2. Add Links and Clues to Fill Fields

Filling out a web form is not necessarily a task that most people enjoy. Most often, you will find that people are reluctant to share information, particularly when email addresses, contact details, and any other information are involved. To make this better, you can add a link to the privacy policy guidelines that your company follows and also assure them that the information is secure all the time.

Any further hints on the information including the date and time format, phone numbers with or without the code of an area can be useful for maintaining the CRM with clean and precise data. This will also ensure that all the data gets collected in the same format and also somehow helps the visitors to fill up the relevant details.

3. Take Important Information Only

It can turn out to be a big loss if you attract a lot of traffic on the web page but do not end up having a web form that is attractive enough to get the user to fill that form. Of course, you cannot deny that it is always tempting to collect as much information as you can but you cannot afford to present a lengthy web form with too many fields because it is certain that this will backfire.

A seamless user experience matters immensely and you should aim to give the user no reason to turn away from your website. Hence, you must focus on keeping the web form rather simple with only those fields that are required as that is a wise way to go about the process.

Create a form with only the important fields so that it takes less than two minutes to fill. You can probably add an extra field that you think may look good but check if it is really worth it. Ask for only whatever is necessary for the sales representatives to contact the leads and follow up with them.

4. Passing Hidden Values For Forms

Many times, there is a need to link some details to the new leads without revealing these details to the visitors. This detail could be the campaign that generated the lead or it could be a source of the lead. It could also be a hidden value that you want along with the detail of the lead.

You can add a hidden value that comes in with the lead for such requirements. For instance, if you wish to host a specific page then the best way to go about this is by getting a clear picture of the source of lead generation and passing the hidden values automatically.

5. No Spam or Automatic Form Submission

You would never want your site to get attacked by the bots that can sign up countless times within one minute. In addition, you would also want to avoid receiving any kind of junk requests that qualify in the category of spam.

One of the best, most used, and reliable solutions for this is Captcha. It is used a lot and is very useful as well. You can try and include captchas that can differentiate between human beings and computers. This will help in eliminating the automatic web form submission process to a great extent. It is also going to reduce spam and give you many quality leads to work on.

6. Keeping the Visitor Engaged

Convincing the visitors to fill out the forms is not the only goal. You can go way further to keep the valuable users engaged for good. Attract the attention of users by giving them additional information. You can also redirect the users to a page that focuses on underlining updates, offers, and important information.

You can provide an overview of the product in the form of a video or an interactive UI. You can also list the testimonials from existing customers or just redirect them to a page that expresses gratitude.

7. Personalized Emails

Personalization is extremely important in these times. As long as you do not find a way to make the customers feel that they matter, you will not be able to stand out in the market. If the customers feel that something is customized according to just for them then they are bound to feel special and interested.

The practice of sending emails to acknowledge the requests sent by the leads is one of the best practices that you can get used to for nurturing leads. However, making this automatic is not fun anymore. You can add a personal touch to your emails and set the right note for customer relationships and sales. Make sure that you let your customers know that you are trying to help them.

8. Assigning Records to Sales Representatives

The leads might fill up a web form to find out more about a product or while downloading a white paper or an e-book. No matter what case it is, the main question is how long it takes for the sales representatives to follow up on leads and get back.

There are different methods that can be used for connecting to the leads or prospects but keep in mind that the timing must be right. In case the process takes longer then you must revisit the lead management and follow-up process. The focus should be on making the most out of the opportunity and not making the leads wait for a long time.

You can create a simple workflow for assigning and routing the leads to the sales representatives for quick follow-ups. When you really put this into practice, you will see a massive change in the way the sales process starts working out and does well for the business. 

9. Filter Records

It is very important to make sure that the leads that get added to the CRM system are all genuine. They must not be from bots or junk leads. Captcha is actually for avoiding spam but the sales team should also be mindful of the junk leads that can enter the CRM. 

When the web forms and CRM systems are connected to each other, possibilities are that the uninterested leads get added as well. You would definitely not want the sales professionals to waste their time on any junk leads. For this reason, it is important to keep a check on records that get added automatically and approve them before they are ready for follow-up by the sales team.

Conclusion

All of the tips that are mentioned above can be extremely useful to optimize the web forms and use them for your benefit. Web forms will make sure that each lead that gets added to the Zoho CRM is used to its complete extent.

If you need any more support in the optimization of your web forms or in making the best use of leads that get registered in the CRM, get in touch with our expert Zoho consultants. They come with a wide experience that can guide and lead you towards a much better sales process. 

Stay Tuned for more!

Cheers!

Abhi

(Seasoned Zoho Authorized and Certified Partner)

Feel free to contact me if you have any queries

Email: abhishek(@)encaptechno(dot)com

Call: +1-416-405-8185

• Topic Participants

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