Every company needs the right data to make better business decisions. You can easily collect data from customers and prospects while generating leads by creating and distributing online forms to gather information to help you make data-driven decisions.
Writing, designing, and implementing online forms is straightforward, with a little effort and the right tools to help you feed data into your existing business systems.
Here’s what entrepreneurs, small business owners, and marketing professionals should know about creating, using, and analyzing online forms to improve your business.
Many free and paid online form builders can help you create and integrate forms into your marketing automation system. While the layouts, features, and workflows vary, the steps to create an online form are generally the same with every program:
Marketing automation software can streamline tasks, boost productivity, and lower costs. Check out our reviews of the best marketing automation software to find a platform to help you merge your marketing efforts into one powerful strategy.
Online forms are simple questionnaires you place on your website to gather feedback from customers and prospects. They’re interactive web pages or HTML forms that let users input information. Once they hit the Submit button, their responses are sent to servers for processing, analysis, and evaluation.
Chances are, you’re very familiar with filling out online forms, including registration forms, business surveys, order forms, or custom forms on a specific topic. They are often simple questionnaires seamlessly integrated into a company’s website. If you’ve ever purchased something online and typed in your credit card information, you’ve used an online form.
Various online form types can appear across your website, such as:
Where you place and promote your online form is up to you. However, when you build an effective business website, pinpoint visible form locations to get the most responses.
Online forms serve broad purposes and can help businesses in many ways. Benefits include:
Your online form should consist of one or more questions, where users can either type a response or select a menu option. The form’s purpose will dictate the questions you include. Typical online forms include text boxes, drop-down lists, checkboxes, radio buttons, and feedback messages.
Consider these best practices to gather valuable information in your online form:
If you’re creating a lead capture form, you must immediately draw your website visitor’s attention and include a strong call to action (CTA) that incentivizes them to complete the form.
An excellent online form builder should be straightforward, intuitive, and easy to customize. Here are a few of the best free and paid online form builders that can help you create your own forms without hurting your small business marketing budget.
Using online forms as part of your marketing plan can be easy when you choose user-friendly tools and create meaningful questions for your audience. The data these forms capture can be uniquely powerful – it comes directly from users who have taken the time to provide it. That means you’ll often get a highly accurate picture of your customer base. With the right form – and the right technology behind it – you can get to know your customers like never before.
Max Freedman contributed to the reporting and writing in this article.