When running a lead-generation campaign, you want there to be as few barriers as possible between your leads and your list. Whether you’re collecting email addresses, phone numbers, mailing addresses, or something else, you want clear, simple forms.
The harder it is for people to sign up, the fewer leads your campaign will create—even if your audience and your offer are relevant.
But sometimes that creates a problem. What if your follow-up plan includes email, phone calls, and physical mail? What if your messaging depends on someone’s role, or the problem they’re trying to solve?
Thankfully, there are some simple ways to ensure you get the information you need, so your follow-up campaign can be as effective as possible without drastically reducing the number of people who sign up.
Here are four tips for getting the right information from your leads.
Balance simplicity with necessity
Webforms can be really tedious. But people are also pretty accustomed to filling them out in order to get things they want. When you’re creating forms for your lead-generation campaign, you need to strike the balance between keeping the number of fields low, and getting the info you need.
There’s no hard-and-fast rule for the number of fields you should have, and the reason is this: it depends on what you’re offering and how relevant the fields are.
If you’re offering people something awesome, and they really want it, they’re going to be more willing to fill out a couple extra fields. But the less those fields connect to your offering, the more skeptical people become. (You don’t want people thinking, “Wait, why do they need to know how much money I make?”)
So it’s important to focus on the most important information, such as the primary contact info you’ll use for follow up. You might also consider making some of your “nice to have” fields optional, so people can still get what they want from you (and give you what you need most) without spending five minutes telling you how qualified they are to be on your lead list.
And of course, whatever you think is best for your specific campaign, be sure you A/B test it, and then you’ll know for sure.
Get your leads to segment themselves
One of the best ways to collect supplemental information (like someone’s role at their organization) is by framing it in a way that feels like a benefit to them. If someone signs up for your newsletter about church leadership, for example, you might tell them that you can provide them with more relevant tips and articles if you know more about them, and then ask them to choose a role based on a segment of your email list. It might look something like this.
We’d love to send you tips that align with your ministry role. Would you like content for:
- Pastors
- Committee members
- Volunteer leaders
- Ministry directors
This helps you filter some of your leads into more refined categories, so you can send them more relevant messaging (and eventually, sales pitches). And it ultimately provides your leads with a better experience with you, so they’ll be more encouraged to do it. Your leads will be much more willing to give you information when doing so will also benefit them.
Pro tip: You could even incentivize people to “segment themselves” by including a free offer that relates to each specific role.
Send them another related offer
Suppose you find that collecting two pieces of contact information significantly reduces your landing page’s conversion rates. You decide to stick with email to run your new leads through a well-crafted drip campaign, but your sales associates are masters at closing deals over the phone.
Instead of sacrificing all those leads up front, you could just send your leads another offer. Ideally, an offer that ties into a phone call—such as a free consultation or a product demonstration. Asking someone to use a tool like Calendly to schedule a meeting is a totally different experience than filling out another form, so it doesn’t feel repetitive.
The important thing is to reduce the inconvenience of asking for more contact information by giving your leads something they want.
Just ask
If you do a good job nurturing your leads, you earn the right to make a pitch now and then. You don’t want to ask your leads for too much too early, or they won’t feel like being on your list is valuable (so they’ll unsubscribe, or just ignore you), but after you’ve sent some emails that add value, you can send a dedicated email that makes your pitch:
“We’d love to talk about some of the ways we can help your church maximize your capital campaigns. Claim a slot for your free consultation here: [link]”
A pitch like this could easily work into your regular content, too. This would completely make sense in an email about “reasons churches fall short of their capital campaign goals,” or “things to avoid in your next capital campaign.”
Alternatively, you could also just include your phone number at the bottom of every email, and encourage people to call in for some sort of special offer. Flip the script, and incentivize them to call you.
Qualifying leads doesn’t have to mean getting less of them
Focus your lead-generation campaign on getting the greatest number of people from your target audience onto your list. If your offer is most relevant to the people who benefit from your product or services, your lead capture form doesn’t have to feel like a survey.
When there are too many fields on your form, you’re going to miss out on some great leads simply because you asked for too big of a commitment. You can always qualify your leads more through your nurture campaign, but you can never go back in time and create a simpler form.
