“At the end of the day, it all comes down to leads.”

It’s a simple enough concept—your marketing strategy, your tactics, your team and your results should eventually generate leads and sales for your company; otherwise, why invest anything in marketing at all?

But how do B2B companies in the digital age actually generate qualified leads when online marketing is an increasingly critical part of the selling process?

In this four-part series, I’ll take you through some fundamental tactics of online lead-generation. In each part, I’ll focus on one basic method for getting leads online, along with best practices to follow in each scenario. It’s not an exhaustive list by any means, but it’s a good one to go by to kickstart your digital marketing campaigns.

Forms: The Classic Lead Generator

You’ve seen these in just about every website in a variety of colors, lengths and layouts.

An online form is akin to the vanilla flavor in an ice cream shop—at some point, you have to have it. It’s arguably the most straightforward lead-capture mechanism you can implement on your company’s website.

It’s also the easiest to overdo.

If you ask your sales team right now how much information they need to properly qualify a customer, chances are, they’ll say “a lot”. Let’s say, a list of 10 questions to be reasonable.
Ask that same question of your potential customers, and you’ll be lucky to get beyond “name” and “email address”.

Forms are tricky because you have to ask the necessary questions required to continue the conversation. But anything more than that falls into the category of something you want, not something you need—the additional requirements may turn potential customers away.

The goal of the form is NOT to conduct the sale. It’s to get a business card’s worth of customer information, with the express intent of reaching out after this “initial conversation” online.

Here are a few tips to create successful forms on your site:

• Visibility is key—to a point. Back in the early days of the web, you saw big form popups that appeared in the middle of your screen, asking you to submit your information. These loud, distracting forms are generally frowned upon now in favor of formats that are more integrated in the overall website design.
• Be very thoughtful in the form fields you ask. Each field you add potentially decreases the chance of someone converting into a lead. So, it’s important to make sure that each question you’re asking counts. For example, do you need to ask for the person’s position to qualify him or her for the service your offering? Do you really need their phone number? If you ask too much, you’re more likely to get resistance in lieu of a desire to move forward.
• “Opt-in” consent is a requirement. Forms asking visitors to subscribe to a blog or a company newsletter are common ways to start email dialogues with your company. They should know your intentions upfront. So, always include an “opt-in” requirement on your form (typically a checkbox), stating that by submitting this form, they can expect communication in the future.
• Include a clear call-to-action. This is the last part in creating your form. Think of it as your “closer”: In one sentence or less, after reading all the content on your site, why should the visitor contact you? The answer should be an incentive for your potential customer to take the next step.

The Online Form is a Form of Engagement

With how easy forms are to make today, and despite there being options to choose from, many B2B firms still treat forms as an afterthought. They’re likely to put a form on their website, expect leads to come in, and then be surprised when it performs less than expected.

That’s because a form is not a tool. It’s an initial engagement.

Think about the last time you visited a conference or a trade show. Or better, when your company hosted a booth or an exhibit somewhere. When sales reps and attendees interact, the reps usually just ask a few key questions. They know there isn’t much time, and their only goal is to spark enough interest to connect on a deeper level later on.

On the other hand, the attendees are looking for something to catch their interest. They’re not sure if your company has what they’re looking for yet, but they want to know in an equally short amount of time what benefits you have to go on to the next step.

The content on your website plays the same role as your sales reps do during face to face conversations in conferences and exhibitions. And a successfully submitted form is the same as an attendee (and potential new customer) who says:

“Okay, let’s talk”.