Update Your “Contact Us” Page

Here’s a piece I did for Businessweek on how we’re still using those hoary old “contact us” pages.

Pre-Filling Forms: Show Customers You Value Their Time

I love it when a company takes the time to make my life easier by pre-filling in forms accessed through personalized emails. It speaks volumes about their interest in me as a customer, and it lets me know (should I be interested) that they have their database act together.

Conversely, I find it irritating having to give information I know they already have, even if it’s only my zip code. It makes me feel like a sucker – I’m doing their work for them – and it makes me suspect that the company is technologically illiterate.

Want to make a good impression? Pre-fill forms whenever possible.

Getting Real ROI from Webinars

Occam’s Razor brought up an interesting topic: “How do you measure success of a online webinar?” Using the number of questions asked per attendee is an interesting idea. Obviously, if your audience is asking questions, it’s engaged.

There’s a bigger question, though – how do you get some return on that investment? Answering questions might help build awareness, but a webinar’s real value is as a lead generation tool. All you need is a conversion mechanism.

One good lead gen method is to immediately follow up the webinar with an email to all participants, offering additional materials and access to the webinar archive. This email brings them back to a landing page where you can identify those who are ready to enter into a sales conversation. Then you have some real ROI on your webinar.

Static Forms Just Don’t Work Anymore

These days we’ve learned to ignore Web surveys, registration forms and other lead generation devices. Chances are the Web form on your “contact us” page hasn’t generated a lot of leads lately. In any case, a static form asking everyone the same set of questions won’t help you understand which leads are sales-ready and which are just entering the sales funnel.

However, there is a way to increase response and better target sales-ready leads: create a conversation-like experience. Ask a question that’s relevant (hint: it’s not “when are you buying?”), and ask a relevant follow up question based on that answer. As an example, you might find out the problem they’re trying to solve, and then ask a value proposition – would it be valuable to have a way to do x to solve y? Get them thinking if it really might be valuable. In short, let them know you’re listening, and open up the possibilities.

On the Web, dynamic surveys and forms (which branch into different topics depending on the answer) are proven to double the number of leads generated from a given activity. It’s all about relevance.