Your website conversion forms aren't working

In an ideal world, the use of forms on websites would be limited, or in truth, nonexistent. With the growth of chatbots & conversation-based conversion tools, the next few years should start to see a move away from the traditional web form that we’ve all become accustomed to. 

However, the reality is that forms are still a crucial method in the conversion process of any web business, and as such the optimisation of them is vital to your business’ performance online. 

According to Wordstream, B2B landing pages convert ar around 2.4% with the top 10% converting at over 11.5%. This triggers the question, what are the best websites doing to create such a large gap?

Analysing your problem

The first step to solving the problem is to identify where the problem exists. To do this, start to visualise the flow of users on your website and make a note of the conversion points (where the forms ‘live’ in the process). Then, follow on from a completed form to where the enquiry (MQL/SQL/CQL or whatever term works for you) goes and then finally what the conversion rate is. 

As an example, I’d recommend drawing a funnel of Landing Page > Form > Sales Contact > Conversion. Where possible, give names to the individual landing pages and forms. Micro-level management is fine here as the same form might work better on different landing pages. 

By baselining the process, you will now start to see where things are going wrong/right. I’d begin by looking at the number of qualified candidates/clients versus those that aren’t of good quality and are being qualified out as a barometer of success. 

Problem: Users aren’t completing my forms

Sometimes, people just don’t like filling in forms. Depending on the job you are hiring for, you need to consider offering other options than just a simple web form in order to capture the application. 

Consider the length of the form and the information you are asking for also. Do you really need to ask the questions you’re asking, or would a simpler form to capture data, with more complex questions later in the process help to increase conversions? 

I would consider using chatbots, live chat or easily displaying telephone numbers on job posts. By mixing up the variety of contact methods, you’re likely to increase conversions from candidates/clients you didn’t even know about. 

Problem: The quality of my applicants/clients isn’t right

Unqualified clients and a high volume of candidates you can’t place are the enemies of the CRM system.

When your user is ‘in the funnel’ i.e. on your job listing or form completion page (I’ll include the contact us page here too) you need to make sure you’re taking the right steps to qualify in/out to improve the performance the further down the funnel you get. 

If we have the ideal candidate or client hitting our websites we want them to speak with sales immediately. You’ve probably walked into a car showroom at some point. The first thing you see is the stock of cars, sales messaging, and pricing. This is all seeking to qualify the right buyers. As soon as you show interest, a sales rep walks straight over, introduces themselves, and starts to further qualify you. This is the experience we want to provide digitally.

Solutions: By personalising website experiences based on user behaviour, ad tracking, and other personalised messaging, we can deliver higher qualified leads to our sales teams that in turn increase our conversion rates.

The goal here is to qualify out as much as you qualify in. The best salespeople do this without thinking about it and your website as an extension of your sales function should be no different. 

Problem: I can’t get hold of candidates/clients after they fill in forms

It’s a well-trodden path that the faster we get back to our prospects, the better chance we have of closing/placing them. 

Often, systems aren’t correctly hooked up in order to route the right lead to the right person. Ask yourself this; what happens if a client sends a job spec to my agency? Who picks it up? How quickly will we respond? 

The likelihood is that you have a lag between marketing (generation) and sales (closing) activities in your business, which is normal but entirely preventable.

Solutions: To solve the issue, we need to make sure we have a few simple steps in place. Firstly, does the form have an email that goes to a ‘live’ and ‘monitored’ mailbox? If yes, what’s the turnaround time on this, and who (you need to give a name!) will get back to the customer?

If you want to get really smart here, bring in automation. When synced with your Sourceflow websites forms/landing pages, Herefish by Bullhorn can automate a response to the customer to trigger an email. This email could contain a link to calendly to book in a call or contain other information that will assist and qualify the sales prospect. 

There’s a lot of scope for combining website marketing tools with CRM automation so I’d advise mapping your journey first and then working with your technology providers to improve the experience. 

Conclusion

As we can see, forms play a crucial role in the performance of your business. Try implementing some of the steps above, as well as looking at the actual forms themselves to make sure they are fit for purpose. Do they work on mobile/tablet? Do they integrate with your CRM and other systems? 

If you need help understanding how to get more from your website's performance, get in touch with us and we’d love to talk about how we deliver a high-performance culture as standard.