The lead generation form is one of the most important elements of your list building campaign. If you’re looking to convert more visitors into leads, one of the first things you need to do is to attract eyeballs to your lead generation form, and therefore entice them to get onto your list.
However, many marketers often use the default lead generation forms they generate from their email marketing tools like AWeber or MailChimp.
The problem is that default forms are unattractive, and they may not easily grab the attention of your potential leads. Plus, the customizability of such forms is limited if you’re designing them from your email marketing tool.
Of course, if you’re focused on conversion, you’ll need to create an eye-catching design for your lead generation forms independent of your email marketing tool.
Now, your lead generation forms must possess certain components to attract eyeballs and entice your potential leads to submit the form. Without these components, your form will be less effective.
In this post, we’ll look at various key elements of an effective lead generation form.
Design
We’ve already mentioned that unattractive forms will fail to get noticed by your potential leads. In fact, did you know that the human attention span is now less than that of a goldfish—8 seconds?
So if you want to grab the attention of your potential prospect, you’ll need to create a visually appealing lead generation form.
So the question is, how would you create a beautiful lead generation form that gets noticed?
Let’s take a detailed look at designing an eye-catching form.
Choosing colors: Just because you need the attention of your readers on your lead generation form, it doesn’t mean you should design a form that looks too promotional. Keep the design simple and pick a color that looks natural on your website. Do keep in mind to be consistent with branding. As an example, see the above lead generation from Kontrary.com
Make your form stand out: One of the best ways to grab attention is by making your form stand out from the rest of the content on your website. Use a container for placing your form and create a subtle shadow for making it pop.
CTA button: When designing a call-to-action button, the rule of thumb is to pick a color that stands out from the rest of the lead generation form.
Placement
According to an eye-tracking study, web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the fold. So while placing an opt-in form on your website, it is very important that you place it above the fold, where your readers pay more attention.
While above the fold placement is recommended for homepages, you might not want to follow this practice in all cases. For example, if you are promoting an email list on a landing page, sometimes you might want to explain what you are offering before enticing them to submit the form. In such a case, above the fold placement might not be the right idea.
Similarly, if your opt-in forms contain too many fields, chances are that above the fold placement of the form may look spammy. In that case, you can place a CTA button at the top that directs your potential leads to a dedicated landing page.
For example, take a look at how Kissmetrics promotes their free webinar from their blog.
Instead of asking users to register right from the blog’s page, it directs users to a dedicated webinar page and entices them to subscribe to the list.
CopyBlogger also follows the same approach for promoting their email list.
Popups
If you’re focused on conversion for your opt-in forms, nothing can give the same results as popup forms. Even though popup forms are intrusive, which could annoy your visitors, you can’t deny that it produces unbeatable results.
However, Google has recently announced that they’ll start penalizing ‘intrusive interstitials’ like popups on mobile devices from January 10, 2017.
As an alternative to a popup, you might want to consider using a non-intrusive notification bar like Hellobar, which is yet another effective method to grab attention and grow your list.
Opt-In Bribes
Opt-in bribes are another important aspect of a high converting list building campaign. Offering an e-Book or a newsletter as an opt-in bribe is a widely popular tactic amongst email marketers.
While your opt-in bribe shouldn’t necessarily be something huge, the presentation of your opt-in bribe on your lead generation form is critical for encouraging form submission.
If possible, use an image that raises the perceived value of your lead generation form.
For example, take a look at the example of Quicksprout’s form and how it raises the perceived value of the opt-in bribe by using an appropriate image.
Choosing An Opt-In Bribe
In order to encourage form submissions, you’ll need to pick the appropriate opt-in bribe that addresses one of the common problems of your prospects. Additionally, in order to be unique, make sure you are not giving away the same e-Book that everyone else offers on their website.
With that said, as more and more marketers are promoting their email newsletter by offering a free e-Book, visitors have started to neglect such lead generation forms.
In fact, most of the opt-in bribes are a too-generic product that has nothing to do with what your readers are looking for at the moment. Such generic offers are usually found on the lead generation forms placed in the sidebar of almost every website.
The harsh reality is that your visitors are more interested in finding answers for their pertinent questions than submitting their email for an unwanted product.
But what if you could offer laser-targeted content as an opt-in bribe that offers exactly what your users are looking for?
Sounds too good to be true. The good news is, it’s totally possible to offer laser-targeted content as an opt-in bribe, thanks to content upgrade.
Content upgrade is one innovative approach that offers targeted resources that specifically meet the needs of your visitors. Unlike other lead generation forms, content upgrades are placed inside the content area of the post.
Take a look at the screenshot of a content upgrade below.
The highlighted content is placed in the content area, so it grabs visitors’ attention easily. When a visitor clicks on the link, it immediately pops up a lead generation form. Once the form is submitted, your visitor can access the opt-in bribe.
What is your favorite method to entice subscription on a lead generation form? Let us know your thoughts by dropping a line below.
