Have you ever wondered why some business forms have a much higher completion rate than others? While it is true that there are numerous factors that are at play in determining the frequency at which a business form is filled out – there are several key factors that make certain forms far more effective than others.
Understanding the factors that determine the effectiveness of business forms can be extremely helpful when you are designing forms of your own. It will let you know where to focus your efforts to ensure that your online forms have the most impact.
With that in mind there are three key factors in particular that you should focus on:
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Simplicity
Online forms that are simple and have fewer fields tend to be more effective. The reason for that is really just that people are more likely to fill out a short form as it looks less daunting and will likely take up less of their time.
Due to this fact, you should always try to ensure that you never ask for any unnecessary information in your online forms. Keep the number of fields to the bare minimum, and only ask for information that is absolutely needed.
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Trust
On the whole people are protective of their personal information and getting them to divulge it is an uphill battle. That is why trust is an important factor in the effectiveness of online forms, as if people don’t trust you – they won’t want to give their information to you.
Fostering trust can be tricky, but it is best to start by focusing on the basics. Ideally your form should look clean and professional, and your web site (or the place where it is published) should exude a professional appearance as well.
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Incentive
If you want to really start to get more people to complete your online forms – give them a good reason. Incentivizing the online form is one way to do that, and odds are you’ve seen it in the form of offers for free eBooks, reports, special discounts, coupons, and other perks that are attached to an email signup.
Make no mistake there are lots of ways to incentivize online forms, but what’s most important is that the value of the incentive is a powerful enough reason. For simple forms a relatively basic incentive may be enough, but for longer forms a more valuable incentive may be needed.
One of the most challenging aspects of creating effective online forms is structuring and designing them – especially if you don’t know any code to begin with. That is why tools such as AidaForm that provide you with an easy-to-use online form creator can be a big help.
Now that you’re aware of the factors that make some business forms more effective – try to focus on them in the next form that you create. If you do you should be able to see a big improvement, and your forms should have a much better completion rate.