B2B marketers use forms to gather data about their leads. But what pieces of information should they be gathering, why, and once they have it, how can they leverage it to make sales?
The first two pieces of data which might seem obvious, but are absolutely crucial to an effective form and lead gathering strategy, are name and email. Some buyers may put in their personal email address, which is common especially if they’re filling out one of your forms during off-hours.
A tip to help clarify this is by labeling the field “business email address”, as well as, their business phone number.
Collecting a likely prospect’s job title is also key. If you already see a huge drop off in conversions on your forms which only include first name, last name, email address, phone number, and company, you should perhaps hold off on adding the job title field. Consider presenting that piece on a latter form.
However, if your conversions are strong then you may want to test out adding the job title field into the initial form. If your company already has a relatively clear picture of who’s filling out their forms, it could be a much appreciated time-saver to have the ‘job title’ field consist of a drop-down or a check off on a list.
Why is this data important?
Job titles can help differentiate whether someone is a decision-maker and can actually buy from you. They can also help segment contacts gained into personas that can then be marketed to specifically.
For example, your marketing approach can vary greatly based on whether someone is a corporate level executive or a manager. Depending on your product or service, perhaps only one of those positions has the authority to buy.
Establishing who their company is and what they do will also provide you with a baseline for the potential value and scale of a sale, as well as, an approach to that specific category. Using data collected from your forms is a group effort that needs to be understood by both marketing and sales.
How could this information actually help your business gain customers?
It’s now up to the marketing and sales teams to join efforts in doing something with all these leads.
1. Some ‘leads’ don’t ‘lead’ anywhere
It’s important to accept that some ‘leads’ aren’t going to lead anywhere. Perhaps some piece of content on your site was just too tempting and someone who is completely unqualified for your product or service was interested to downloading it. Accept that, appreciate it, and put those contacts to the side.
2. Don’t waste time
Compare a form submission to opening an oven with freshly baked cookies. Now you might not want to bite into that cookie immediately, since it could burn your tongue. Letting it cool for a short while and then digging in is best.
The same concept applies to a new contact. Pouncing on them the moment they hit “Submit” (or hopefully a more powerful conversion button), will probably overwhelm them and might provoke a negative reaction.
Depending on your business and service, you have to gauge an appropriate time frame for a follow-up, however it should be within about two days of the initial form submission. This ensures that you still haven’t been forgotten, but gives the contact enough time to digest whatever it was they downloaded or requested.
3. Know your personas
Having personas, usually broadly dictated by a job title and company, is imperative to having a successful overall business strategy. Let’s say you have those personas that you know aren’t decision-makers, but still could be potential influencers or conduits to that ultimate buyer.
It would be useful to consider putting them into a workflow to help entice them and gain more information and insight into their company and higher-ups.
Those contacts that qualify as the ultimate buyer-persona should be put on their own regimen to help prepare them for making the purchase.
Also, don’t forget the group from point 1. Can you still use those contacts to see what drove them to convert? What ideas for content marketing can they help provide?
4. Divide and conquer
Although it may be difficult, it’s extremely important to have marketing and sales thoroughly understand each other. The more in sync the teams are with one another, the easier it is to effectively divide and conquer business efforts.
The marketing team should stay on top of managing all new contacts that come in and developing content marketing for existing personas. They should also systematically provide the sales team with qualified leads to follow-up with.
Sales should research these prospects, determine the right approach, and then contact the individual. Having the company voice stay consistent in both marketing and sales can be a challenge, but it’s vital in portraying authenticity and maintaining credibility.
5. Keep moving
Not everything will go smoothly, but it’s important to keep gathering data and tweaking your strategy to suit. Staying organized and making sure that whatever amount of contacts you are gaining is being optimized and leveraged to gain more insights into personas, marketing strategies, or sales tactics should be a focus of your efforts.
Looks can be deceiving, but if your form has the right action plans behind it, the data you gather can help your company close sales efficiently and consistently. Use collected information to your advantage and help refine your business’ marketing and sales strategies.
