Forms are one of the unsung heroes of our industry and using a web form builder is the best way to create them. Forms allow leads to provide their information, which then sets in motion the old dance that we call lead distribution. In other words, a lead is the pretty girl waiting to get picked up for the prom and your form is the car you pick her up in. You already got her to agree to go with you, but if you're pulling into the driveway in a 1989 Buick Century with rusted out wheel wells, she might just turn around and walk right back into her house. If you're satisfied in pulling up in a car with roll-down windows and a cassette player blasting "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", more power to you, but wouldn't you rather be driving something that was made in this millennium, something she's not afraid to get in?
Well this analogy has gone on long enough, but you get the point. Forms are important. They're not just the final step of your marketing efforts. In a way, they're just the beginning. If leads are not converting once they reach your landing page, then all of your hard work (and more importantly, your money) is wasted. So if you're looking to turn your '89 Buick into something that looks like a Ferrari, and performs like one too, read our Expert's Guide to the Forms Manager/Builder to learn more.
No one wants to fill out a long and tedious form, but in some verticals (I'm looking at you, auto insurance) you can't get around it. Because of this issue, configuring fields and marketing benefits on your forms is extremely important. Carefully choose your wording, make the lead feel as comfortable as possible, and even break up long forms into multiple pages so you don't overwhelm the lead. Web form builders allow you to do all of this. Not only can you design your form in the most fluid way, but you can also make certain drop-down or select responses map to specific fields in your lead system to simplify the lead submission process.
A/B testing is absolutely essential when building a form. Simple tweaks to form layouts or wording can make a big difference to the people that are visiting your landing page. However, it's impossible for any outside source to tell you what will really work for your business. Because of this, you need to test your pages to determine which specifications lead to the greatest conversion for you. With a web form builder you can easily create and copy template forms and enable you to immediately push them to your landing pages for testing.
Some web form builders also allow you to push your form to your landing page and manage changes from the back end. This means that any changes you make when editing or tweaking your form or its design will automatically update your form that already sits on your landing page. This feature makes A/B testing much easier and even more reliable. If you're a WordPress user and looking for an even easier way to manage your forms and push them to your landing page, check out the WordPress Plugin for our web form builder.
We all know that attaching CSS templates to forms is essential, but not all of us are CSS geniuses. Do yourself a favor and use a web form builder that has a CSS editor as well. This will allow you to build your own design for your forms using simple slider tools and color selections. If you already have a CSS template that matches your landing page, no problem. You can even use your pre-made templates for any form you would like. Forms and form building is far from an exact science. However, web form builders do a good job of making the entire process much easier and making your forms much better. At boberdoo.com, we know how important forms are and have built an entire forms manager into each of our lead distribution systems. Our forms manager includes a web form builder as well as a CSS editor, which allow you to easily create, modify, and publish your forms to your landing pages. If you would like to take a look at our web form builder in action, check out our form builder videos or request a demo.