When you work on CRO — Conversion Rate Optimization — at your website there are a number of steps in the process where you can impact how many site visitors will convert to a lead for you. Developing and testing your forms is one tactic marketers often overlook. One approach is to create a ”smart form” for your business that delivers specific information tailored to the individual that is completing the form. Forms that automatically show or hide fields based on the user’s response are known as ”smart forms” and FormStack refers to this capability as “conditional logic.”
Using this feature offers many advantages, including the following:
- Enables the form to look less intimidating than it really is
- Creates the unique, individualized experience all internet users are looking for
- Hides information that you don’t want all users to see
FormStack released an extensive report that evaluated trends, conversions and analytics of more than 40,000 forms for 2014 – it may come as no surprise that smart forms ranked supreme with the most engagement and conversions. This only makes sense when you consider the content is tailored to the individual and relevant.
Using ”Conditional Logic”
Recently we created a church membership sign up form for a client by taking the existing form and making it digital. Before and after.
This was exactly the case when we recently took on the assignment of taking a paper version of a church sign up form and turning it into a virtual reality that allows people to sign up for church membership right online. Being an extensive form that allowed for the sign up of up to seven family members at once, we had our work cut out for us. Three of the major issue we faced included:
- Breaking up this lengthy form to make it user-friendly and digestible
- Individualizing the form to display information that is only relevant to the person completing the form
- Please the client by still eliciting all the important information and trimming off the bulk
Simplifying an Overwhelming Form
“Keeping forms as short as possible is a best practice, but sometimes you really need extra data in particular circumstances. That’s where conditional form logic is very handy.” – Jay Baer, renowned marketer and founder of Convince and Convert
First of all, the form was very long and by creating a digital version, the amount of fields were overwhelming. Right away we decided to break the form up into two pages to make this content easier to digest. In fact, in the FormStack report discovered in their analysis that two page forms actually yielded higher conversion rates than one page counterparts.
Making the Form Relevant
You can see in this image when the person completing the form chooses whether they are signing up multiple family members or not, the wording in the subsequent fields are consistent with their response.
If you are filling out a form to learn more information on a certain computer you are thinking about buying, do you want to see information and details on every electronic device the company offers? Of course not!
Same goes with visitors that fill out your forms. Only display the content that is relevant their particular inquiry.
In the case of the St. Malachi church sign up form we created, it was designed to be for either an individual or a family. Using logical thinking, one of the first questions we created asked if they wanted to sign up multiple family members. Based on their response, the subsequent questions we worded to either an individual or a family.
Hiding Unnecessary Fields
In the St. Malachi church sign up form, it has been created to serve a dual purpose.
- To sign up an individual
- To sign up an entire family
This offers a clear advantage as it eliminates the need to create and maintain two separate forms. However, the individual who is signing up, does not want to see multiple fields where one would enter family member information. Furthermore, many fields may be required for families that are not required for individuals.
We dedicated the entire second page to hold the fields for additional family member information. For the single person, they can continue and only have to submit the form. The user that is signing up an entire family is able to list all relevant data on the second page.
Maximize to get the most out of your forms performance. In this digital age, more and more companies are ditching the traditional pen and paper cards or registration forms – for a more streamlined online smart form. At Webdirexion, we use a robust system called Contact123 Forms to create a versatile online form to replace your pen and paper sign ups that only collect dust. They are included our annual coverage plans and come standard for all retainer clients.
