Lead Capture

Lead capture is an approach that helps collect potential customers’ personal information. Usually, brands design special forms that encourage prospects to submit their contact information (name, phone number, email, etc.) in exchange for a guide, eBook, product demo, or checklist. Users can find lead captures on brands’ sites, social networks, or blog posts. Lead capture enables businesses to receive customer personal data, deliver marketing messages, and convert leads into customers.

In this article, we’ll unveil why you need to use lead capture forms and provide you with some of the best tactics. We’ll also show you how to create lead capture forms with outstanding examples that convert and inspire you.

Why do you need to use lead capture forms?

According to statistics, 53% of businesses spend at least 50% of their budget on lead generation, and 61% of marketers say it’s their number one challenge. Lead capture forms help marketers deal with multiple tasks.

• Collecting personal customer information. With lead capture forms, you can receive the contact information of potential customers. You can design forms and place them on the company website. You can get prospects' names, phone numbers, or email based on the fields you add. Moreover, you increase the chances of leads sharing their contact information if you provide something valuable instead. Send prospective customers guides, eBooks, or checklists in exchange for their personal data.
• Establishing a customer database. Whether you have a startup or a well-established company, lead capture forms are essential for customer database building. Collection of contacts daily helps you create a database of potential customers interested in your product. At the end of the day, you’ll have a list of people who show interest in your company and are likely to purchase your product in the future.
• Lead segmentation. Special fields in your form can serve as tools for segmentation and targeting. With their help, you can divide potential customers into groups based on their location, interests, or industry. As a result, your marketing team can create marketing messages and offers that resonate with specific audience segments. It’ll encourage trust and credibility.
• Increasing conversions. Lead capture forms allow you to identify people interested in your product and likely to buy from you. If you nurture these prospects and provide them with the right offers, they can become your customers. After sending relevant information, business owners are more likely to improve conversions and increase their revenues.
• Personalization. After collecting information, marketers use it to their advantage, especially for personalization. With its help, you can craft communication with potential clients based on their needs, location, preferences, etc. Personalization allows you to provide a seamless customer experience and improve conversions.

Now that you know some of the most crucial reasons to use lead capture forms, let’s review the best tactics for your business.

8 Best Lead Capture Tactics

There are many effective approaches you can use for your business. However, they vary depending on your industry, target audience, and key goals. In this section, we’ve gathered the best tactics you can incorporate into your company.

Subscription forms

When potential customers open your website, they can find a subscription form. This form encourages them to subscribe to your newsletters and receive updates and exclusive offers. By providing a subscription form, you can obtain prospects’ contact information, such as name, phone number, and email. This information is essential to follow up with your potential customers and establish trusting relationships. SendPulse allows you to create professional subscription forms without knowing the code for free.

For example, below, you can see a subscription form from Formidable where users can provide their names and emails to sign up for the company's newsletter.

Pop-ups

Pop-up windows can appear on your site when you want them to. These timely messages help grab prospects’ attention and encourage them to complete a specific action. It can be a subscription to your newsletter, a purchase, or a free trial. Pop-ups suit various purposes. You can gather leads’ information, boost sales, or increase conversions. With smart pop-ups from SendPulse, you can collect contacts and turn website visitors into subscribers and customers. The platform allows you to choose a ready-to-go template and set up pop-ups based on your requirements.

Below, you can see how Bath and Body Works encourages site visitors to join the VIPs for special rewards.

Live chat widgets

With a live chat, you can communicate with your potential customers in real time and receive all the information you need for further follow-up. Adding a live chat widget to your site increases the chances of users contacting you and asking some essential questions for them. During this conversation, you can find out their email, phone number, and name. As a result, you’ll be able to expand your customer database and provide these prospects with interesting offers. Consider using SendPulse to set up a live chat for your website. The service enables you to craft your widget to match your brand style and personality.

Below, you can see an example of a live chat from HubSpot. Leads can receive automated messages or directly speak to customer support agents.

Chatbots

Chatbots bring the same benefits as live chat. However, with bots, your customer support agents don’t have to be online 24/7. Chatbot will handle all the most common questions and other inquiries about free trials, payments, reservations, appointments, orders, delivery, etc. You are the one to identify the areas your chatbot will be responsible for. SendPulse empowers you to set up Telegram, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger chatbots without coding skills.

Below is an example of a chatbot on Facebook Messenger from Adobe Photoshop. Clients can feel free to contact a company through its chatbot and obtain assistance on various issues.

Product demos

Live product demo is an interactive and engaging lead-generation technique. With its help, you can demonstrate your product, its pros, and features in real-time. When potential customers have questions or doubts, you can instantly provide them with counterarguments. This way, you handle objections. Demos can be presented as webinars, video calls, or offline events.

Below, you can see how Slack promotes its demo on the site.

Free trials

A seamless free trial experience can become one of your effective tools for lead generation. It’s especially useful for businesses involved in the development of software and online services. With free trials, prospects have lower barriers to entry. It means that free trials make it easier for potential customers to sign up and try your product right away. Free trials encourage product exposure. Leads can explore your product's features firsthand and determine whether it suits their purpose before paying for anything.

Below, you can see Squarespace’s invitation for prospects to get started with a free trial without any credit card details.

Contests

Contests and giveaways encourage prospects to share their email addresses for participation. As a result, you’ll have contact information of people interested in your products. Promote your contests and giveaways on social media to encourage a bigger exposure. More and more people will learn about your events and strive to join.

For instance, The Original GreenPan announces its giveaway on Instagram.

Referral programs

By running referral programs, you can attract more qualified leads. Encourage loyal clients to recommend your company to their friends and refer them by offering rewards. This way, you’ll be able to establish word-of-mouth promotion and gain more customers who are ready to purchase.

Below, you can see a referral program from The Body Shop. The well-known brand encourages clients to participate for 20% off their next orders after they invite a friend.

Now that you know the best tactics, it’s time to proceed to creating an effective lead capture form. In the next section, we’ll cover all the essential steps to reach your goals.

How to create an effective lead capture form?

Creating an effective lead capture form is a must when you want to convert leads into clients. That’s why we’ve decided to provide you with a detailed guide on how to do it.

1. Focus on short forms. Effective lead capture forms are short, meaning you only have to use a few fields to keep attention. Consider limiting your form to two fields requiring prospects to insert their name and email address. This is the most essential information you need for further communication with leads.
2. Place fields based on their priority. Add fields to your form based on their priority. Make sure that fields for the most crucial information are at the top of your form. You can also add optional fields at the end of your form. If prospects want to answer, they’ll provide additional information.
3. Incorporate smart defaults. Consider implementing pre-fill fields to make it faster for prospects to submit your form. They’ll need minimum effort to take the action that can greatly impact your business.
4. Write a headline that catches users’ attention. Your form’s headline should be clear, concise, and compelling. Ensure that your title delivers the value your company offers right after users fill out the form. Your form should catch the leads’ attention, so use clear and eye-catching fonts.
5. Create an effective CTA. A concise and engaging CTA is a must for every lead capture. That’s why you need a call to action button encouraging prospective customers to take the desired action. Ensure the use of action-oriented language. For instance, your CTA can contain the following words: “Sign Up,” “Get Started,” or “Download Now.”
6. Consider mobile-first design. Since many potential customers access various sites from smartphones, there’s a vital need for mobile-responsive lead captures. Your form should be easily readable from any device. If users want to subscribe to your newsletter, it shouldn’t be a problem for them to complete the form.
7. Incorporate progressive profiling. Progressive profiling is a marketing approach that involves the gradual collection of personal data from prospects rather than overloading them with unnecessary questions at once. Consider adding fields that help gather all the most important facts first. Eventually, when leads interact with your content or company, ask for additional information.
8. Use autoresponders. Make sure to acknowledge the information leads provide to your company. Consider sending automated emails confirming the submission of forms.

Now that you know how to design a lead capture form step by step, let’s explore 10 tips on designing highly converting forms.

10 Tips to Create Lead Capture Forms that Convert

The increase in customer base depends on the effectiveness of your lead capture forms. These forms enable you to turn site visitors into potential customers. There are best practices to design lead captures successfully, and we'll unveil them below.

1. Choose strategic placement. Make sure that your form is visible on the website. Users should instantly notice it. Consider adding your capture lead form to the homepage, landing page, blog posts, etc.
2. Place form elements based on priority. Your form should be manageable with fields users are willing to fill in. Add essential fields asking prospects their names, emails, and phone numbers to the top of your form. A call to action button and fields should stand out. For this purpose, consider using appropriate fonts, colors, and spacing to catch prospects’ attention.
3. Send automated emails. After a lead submits the form, don’t forget to send an automated “Welcome ” or “Thank You” message to remind prospects about your brand and encourage trust. Automation 360 enables you to automate communication with customers. You can set up emails triggered by your customers’ actions. Show them you care and remember about each potential customer on your mailing list.
4. Create benefit-orientated titles. You should create headlines that highlight the benefits prospects can attain. Use words wisely when crafting headlines for your lead capture forms. For instance, your form title should look like “Receive best deals right to your inbox.”
5. Offer rewards. When you ask site visitors to leave their emails, names, or phone numbers, it’s better to provide something in turn. It can be a small discount, promo code, free delivery, or a free gift for a future order.
6. Use exit-intent pop-ups. Exit-intent pop-ups help you hold up leads on your site. However, you need to have a compelling reason to keep users on your site.
   This reason should encourage them to fill out the form. It can be a discount code, gift, free delivery, etc.
7. Apply single-column layout. Your form’s fields should be in a single-column layout. It’s essential to ensure that prospects scan and complete the form quickly. Multi-column forms can overwhelm leads and prevent them from submitting.
8. Provide useful materials in exchange for emails. A lead magnet is an incentive provided in exchange for prospects’ contact information. It can be a guide, white paper, checklist, webinar, discount code, template, or other helpful materials. This is an excellent way of grabbing visitors’ attention and encouraging them to share their names, emails, or phone numbers.
9. Encourage sharing. Your form might include social sharing buttons. They encourage leads to share information about your attractive offers, free trials, or product demos for signup.
10. Incorporate personalization. When you have a chance to personalize your lead capture forms, we recommend doing it. Consider crafting the form by using information about the user's behavior or referral source. This way, you increase the chances of conversion. Potential customers pay attention if the offer is tailored to their needs or communicates a general message.

Let’s check out examples of some of these effective lead-capture tips.

5 Amazing Lead Capture Forms

There are many brands, and the variety of outstanding lead capture forms amuses. We've gathered 5 best lead capture forms to keep you inspired. They’ll help you create an attention-grabbing form that converts. Let’s jump in.

Attractive Offers in Exchange for Email — Innisfree

Innisfree is the number one natural brand in Korea. The cosmetics company effectively applies various techniques to generate new leads. One of them is the pop-up form. Once users start to scroll the website, they can see a pop-up that encourages leads to pick up the color to unlock an exclusive offer. When prospects click one of the buttons, they can receive 10% off their order after they provide their email addresses to the brand.

Useful materials — ConvertKit

People are always eager to share their email addresses in exchange for something valuable and useful. That’s why ConvertKit applies this technique. Wherever these are guides, checklists, statistics, infographics, or something else, prospects will genuinely share their contact information with you. ConvertKit asks for users' emails to provide them with full reports from its website. The company provides useful materials in exchange for emails.

Loyalty Club — The Body Shop

The Body Shop is known worldwide for its cruelty-free products. The company invites users to join its loyalty club and enjoy its perks. When prospects sign up, the famous brand offers 15% off the first purchase. Leads can insert the code to take advantage of the offer. They only need to provide their emails.

Right Placement — OptinMonster

OptinMonser, a lead generation platform, makes sure the form is visible to users once they visit the website. The form has a clear and compelling call to action button: “Get Started with OptinMonster.” The company also unveils the reasons for using the software. If leads still have some questions, they can click “I have a few questions first!” and get the answers right away.

A free product demo — Kindly

Kindly encourages potential customers to share their emails and company names when they want to book a demo. The company asks for contact information so that its agents can reach out to prospects and schedule a demo. This way, Kindly receives leads’ personal information and gives value. This is the best way of obtaining qualified leads because these potential clients have an idea about a product and are interested in testing it.

Below you can see how the company encourages users to book a free demo.

Congrats, now you know what lead capture is and why it’s essential for your company. Hope that our guide and tactics will help you increase the number of contacts on your mailing list.

Use our subscription forms, widgets, pop-ups, and chatbots to attain new subscribers.

References:

1. This article provides you with lead capture best practices and examples.
2. In this article, you’ll find some effective lead-capture tactics.

Last Updated: 16.10.2023