There are countless ways to get in touch with someone. Phone. Email. Video conference. Snail mail. Carrier pigeon. Smoke signals. Morse code. Those are all well and good for general communication, but when someone visits your website, what’s the best way? Sure, you can throw your standard email-phone-address combo up on your website and pray for the best, but how effective is it? Not very. That’s why something as simple as a contact form can be so beneficial for any professional services firm. Because in the end analytics are great for telling you how many people are visiting your site and when or how they got there, but they aren’t very much help if you want to reach out to them.
Be Selective About Your Fields
But before you go just slapping a contact form onto the tail end of your website, think about what information you would like to retain from your visitors/prospective clients. This is your gateway to keep the line of communication open between you and your clients. By nature, people can be very impatient and want to give over as little and as less intrusive information as possible, so keep to the important stuff when deciding what “fields” you would like them to complete. Name, email, company, phone number, location, message etc. When you start asking for home addresses or pet’s names, you’ve gone too far. You want to learn as much as you can from them, so stick to what you need to know. The longer the contact form, the higher the perceived risk by the user and the more uncomfortable they will be. And an uncomfortable user is more likely to not contact you at all.
Drop Down Menus Add Ease
An additional field to think about would be the “subject.” Say you are CPA firm that has many disciplines-Income Tax, Estate Planning, Mergers and Acquisitions, etc.-you can designate the subject matter for the message in a simple drop down menu which makes it easier to organize, designate departments and respond to queries.
Define Your Call-To-Action
So now you have all the fields you want with all the information you deem most important to engage and/or be engaged by your client. You’re done, right? Nope, just one more thing. Make it clear what they are signing up or contacting you for. A strong call-to-action can help motivate clients to contact you. Make it easy for your users by letting them know what they are doing up front. A simple “click here to receive our newsletter” or “get your free quote” or “enter your name and email to learn more” is all the direction they need to feel more confident they are signing up for what they want. Clear, concise, and to the point.
And there you have it. When you put together a simple contact form with a great call to action that is defined, your odds are much higher that you’ll convert users into followers. And remember, make those replies consistent and be sure to respond in a timely fashion. They made the effort to fill out all the information you wanted, so don’t leave them hanging.