Online Response Forms: Garner Quality Leads With Creative Questions
Online response forms provide marketers, website owners and virtual businesses with the opportunity to gather useful information from potential customers who visit social media pages, websites and blogs.
Used correctly and creatively, online response forms can be a source of information that allows you to better serve your customers while acquiring better and more valuable leads.
- Be creative with your questions. Craft engaging questions that show your personality while subtly extracting additional details about the respondent. “Do you plan to increase your online marketing?” is a bland question with a yes or no answer. It tells you something, but not much. Instead, ask questions such as “How many more people should know about you online by this time next year?” Give potential responses such as “None, I’ve had it with the online world,” “Just people from my local area,” “Everybody from Maine to Mexico” or “Anybody anywhere who speaks English.” Answers to these questions will give you an idea of your respondent’s attitude toward online marketing, overall ambition level, company size and reach, and expansion goals.
- Have a conversation. If you were talking to a potential lead in person, you wouldn’t immediately start asking detailed questions about that person or his business. Instead, use online surveys, polls and interactive content to initiate a conversation and establish a relationship. After engaging in some creative or entertaining activities, site visitors will be more likely to fill out your response forms. You can combine the information gained from the forms and other sources to get a better picture of your customers and their needs without asking for much of the information directly.
- Be concise. People who respond to your online response forms usually won’t mind responding to a few questions, but they don’t want to feel like they’re taking an exam in school. Keep your online response forms short and concise.
- Offer something valuable in return. Site visitors are giving you a benefit by filling out your response forms, so give them something of value in return, such as an industry-specific white paper, informative e-book or other relevant reward.
Are your online response forms designed to ask creative questions and encourage response?
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