Everyone Hates Filling Out Forms

Raise your hand if you hate filling out forms. I expect every hand is now raised, as everyone I know hates filling out forms.

Yet, content marketing efforts requires the capturing of some amount of information from your website visitors, which allows for some form of follow up. Generally this means a form of some sort of form.

Make it Easy for Your Website Visitors

How do you bridge the gap between the need to ask your website visitors (your content marketing prospects) to fill out a form and the fact that the vast majority of us do not like filling out forms. The main answer is (I’m sure there is more than one answer, but most people focus on one aspect):

• Only ask for the information you absolutely need to follow up with the prospect.
• As Daniel McClure of The Modern Entrepreneur says Ruthlessly Reduce Form Fields.

If you would like to know 27 things about your prospect, DO NOT ask for 27 pieces of information via a web form. How much information you need depends on what you plan do to with it.

• Do you want to email them a weekly or monthly newsletter?
  • Ask only for their email address.
• Do you need to contact them in order to setup an appointment?
  • Get only their name, email address and phone number.
• Do you need to know 15 things?
  • Contact them with the minimum of information and follow up with a phone call.

Studies show that the more information we ask for in a conversion form, the fewer people fill it out. What would you rather have, more contacts with less detail, or fewer contacts with more detail?

Every Rule Has It’s Exceptions

There is one situation or scenario where a long complex form does make sense, and that is when you are using the form itself as a filter.s

For example, at Inbound Marketing University we have a scholarship program where very serious Inbound Marketers who are short on cash can receive a free membership in exchange for being a future success story .

Of course we only want people who are serious and that form is very long and very complex on purpose, because if you can’t take the time to fill out the complex form, you’re clearly not a serious candidate.

IMU Scholarship Application

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