But they just won't fill out the 'big form'.

How many times have you heard it, or said it, that people don't like to fill out forms on your website? How often do you take the time to do it yourself? Me neither.

If you do it right, they might not have to.

Well, they'll need to fill out the form to give you their contact info, sure, but as for the rest of their details-read on.

Working on a pitch for a major real estate developer, we came up with a novel approach to solving the 'short form' / 'long form' dilemma. This is the age old issue of 'how big can we make the form and still have people fill it out?' We all know that the more accurately you can profile a prospect, the more likely you can convert them from a lead into a customer.  And, we all know that there is some breaking point after which they won't fill it out at all.

Consider this, what do we know about a site visitor without them telling us anything? Well, we know what they did on the site. And, more than likely, they looked at the content on the site based on 2 principals:

1. We look at what we like. It almost goes without saying, but no one really takes this into account.  Any page that someone looks at, especially if they view it one or two times, is an item of interest (or you need to rework your navigation).
2. We look at things in order of importance to us. Again, simple in theory, but often missed in the practice.

What this means is that if we track a visitors movement on the site, then store that infomration along with what they typed into the submission form, we have a more qualified/better profiled lead. We all know the benefits of that. More targeted email campaigns, direct mailings, follow up sales calls. (No need to push the golf course if Dick and Jane prefer tennis)

This is interesting and powerful stuff.  Stuff, I might add, that you don't get with Google Analytics.  Want to find out more, reach out to us over at the contact page.