Lead Capture Best Practices For Your Website

Attracting potential new customers is something that every organization must focus on at some point or another. In fact, 50% of marketers consider lead generation a top priority in their marketing campaigns. But, how exactly do you convert website visitors into loyal customers? It starts with capturing leads.

Today we’ll discuss how to effectively capture leads on your site and dive into how web messaging and UX play a role in that. We’ll also talk about some of the best practices for capturing more leads on your website if you aren’t meeting your conversion goals.

What Does Lead Capture Mean?

While your website serves many roles for your business, one of its primary functions should be to capture and engage potential leads. Lead capture is the process of gathering information from individuals who show interest in a company in hopes of warming them from prospects to paying customers. Most often, lead capture happens when website visitors fill out a dedicated form or landing page.

Lead capture forms are tools that collect customers’ data in exchange for something of value to the customer, like a guide, discount code, access to a webinar, or even an eBook. Lead capture pages are a type of post-click landing page where lead capture forms typically live.

Both of these lead capture methods work together to help your organization achieve lead capture rate success.

Your Website Messaging and UX Are Fundamental to Your Lead Capture Process

Before you can focus on nurturing potential leads and turning them into loyal customers, it’s important to fully hone your website’s messaging and UX. After all, your website’s messaging is at the core of how you connect with your customers.

Website messaging showcases your brand’s offerings, personality, and values. It should be clear and concise, as well as succinctly communicate how your brand stands apart from the crowd. Powerful website messaging equips you to capture customer attention, differentiate you from the competition, and drive conversions. Here are some quick tips for optimizing your website’s messaging:

Address your target audience: The first step to creating powerful website messaging is truly knowing your audience. By understanding your audience’s needs, pain points, and motivations, you can craft your messaging to resonate with them.

Know your unique value proposition (UVP): Your company’s UVP is a brief statement that differentiates you from your competitors. If you don’t already have one, it’s time to get started on it. If your company doesn’t deeply understand what sets you apart from everyone else in the industry, your customers won’t either.

Use clear, concise language: In the world of web messaging, simplicity and clarity trump cleverness. Try to avoid jargon, buzzwords, or technical terms that might result in confusion for your visitors.

Your website’s UX design also plays a large role in lead generation. You only have three seconds to make a positive first impression with your website’s visitors — that’s a short amount of time to capture their attention and gain their interest.

A great user experience on your website builds trust and simplifies interactions with your site’s visitors, increasing the chance for lead capture. On the other hand, a frustrating web experience for your visitors can quickly turn away a potential lead from your business, resulting in lost opportunities. Here are some must-dos when optimizing UX on your site:

Implement easy navigation on your site: Your website should be simple to navigate for every visitor. Prominent navigation, simple footers, and search functions should be included on every site so users can find what they’re looking for easily.

Enhance user control and freedom: Your website should be straightforward for users to independently navigate. Don’t get us wrong, it should be clear what path you want visitors to follow, but they should still have overall freedom and control.

Prioritize accessibility and inclusivity: Designing for accessibility ensures that your site is usable by people of all abilities and circumstances. This isn’t just a moral obligation; in many jurisdictions it’s even a legal requirement. If a visitor to your website can’t find what they’re looking for due to accessibility challenges, there’s no chance of them becoming a lead.

For more on user-experience design, read our article for more information and tips on optimizing your site’s UX design.

Read Here

5 Lead Capture Best Practices

Once you’re confident in your website’s messaging and UX, it’s time to dive into creating a solid lead capture strategy. While this may look different across various industries and platforms, there are some best practices that every company should follow. Here are some lead capture tips to help you kickstart your organization’s strategy:

Optimize landing pages: Your website’s landing pages are crucial for successful lead capture. Ultimately, your landing pages exist to help your customers focus on one specific offer, so simplicity is key. Each landing page on your site should offer a visible CTA, engaging headline, and social proof such as customer testimonials or reviews.

Streamline your lead capture forms: The forms on your website are likely where lead capture will occur, so keeping them streamlined is essential. Just like your site’s landing pages, lead capture forms should be simple. Keep them short and sweet, asking only for essential contact details. Consider implementing auto-fill fields wherever possible, and if they’re multi-step forms, offer completion indicators so that your site’s visitors can see visible progress.

Gate valuable content: Gated content helps your business capture contact information from interested prospects in exchange for high-quality resources, such as eBooks, templates, or webinars. Use clear, compelling CTAs for these resources and deliver the promised content immediately after contact submission.

Conduct webinars: Using webinars for lead capture has become increasingly popular. Webinars are a great choice because they don’t just stop at collecting contact info from your leads. They also give them a platform for engagement and interaction with your business. In addition, webinars can help position your company as a thought leader within your industry.

Consider user-friendly pop-ups: Incorporating user-friendly pop-ups on your website can also aid lead generation efforts. However, these should be used the most sparingly, as too many can overwhelm visitors. Consider limiting pop-ups to once per unique session and include only the most critical information you want viewers to know. Additionally, pop-ups should be non-intrusive and easy to close by your site’s visitors. Remember, the goal of pop-ups isn’t to overpower your website’s other content but to stand beside and aid it.

Looking To Increase Your Lead Capture Rate? We’re Ready To Help.

434 Marketing is here to help you with all of your website needs, including lead capture, website messaging, and UX research. Our team has over four decades of combined experience in web design and development, content production, market analysis, and project management. Let us help you prioritize your conversion rates, lead generation, and ultimately, revenue.

Contact us today for more information.

Brianna Arnold

Brianna Arnold holds the role of Content Manager at 434 Marketing. As part of the 434 team, Brianna brings with her a career of experience in the agency world. She is responsible for ensuring client goals are achieved with measurable success. Brianna’s digital marketing experience spans a myriad of skills, including copywriting, content strategy, brand messaging and more.