know that 50% of marketers use contact forms as their main source of leads?

Are you one of those marketers? If not, check out our latest blogpost about contact forms and how they can be used to easily convert hot leads .

What is a contact form?

Simply put, a contact form offers a website user a way to contact the site owner via a form. This form features different fields such as name, email address, comment box etc.

These types of forms are ideal if you want to encourage your users to contact you, like potential customers or existing customers who want to contact you regarding their purchase/service.

Contact forms can be used for just about anything, but they are mostly used for feedback. The contact form provides a direct platform for your customer to voice their opinions and thoughts on your product or service.

Contact forms can also be used by consumers who have questions related to the product or service you’re offering. The customer simply fills out the form and inserts their question and submits it straight to the business.

If your business offers a service or product, a customer can use the contact form to enquire more about your offering and receive more information, details or perhaps a quote.

Why is it important to optimise the contact form?

Contact forms are useful at encouraging communication between the business and the customer. However, contact forms have other benefits.

Reduce spam

Due to contact forms being handled on the server, your email address and contact information is not as readily available as a mail to tag. This means that your contact information is protected and cannot be accessed as easily, reducing the likelihood of spam and harmful emails from entering your inbox.

Consistency is key

Since the contact form’s format will remain the same, the order and make-up of the data will also be provided to you in the same way.

This means that you can consistently view the information in the exact same layout and design. Allowing you to quickly extract key details from the information and stay organized.

Specific information

The beauty of a contact form is that you can decide which details you would like to capture from your customers.

Let’s say you would like to capture your consumers’ ages to identify which age range is engaging the most with your contact forms. You can simply add an age field to your contact form and wait for the results to come in. 

You could completely tailor the contact form fields to contain whatever you would like. However, try to keep it relatively simple, as anything too complex or time-consuming may deter users.

Best practice – 3 tips on how to increase conversion on your contact forms

Contact forms are often overlooked as a strategy to increase your conversions. Check out our tips below on how to make your contact forms a way to easily up your conversions.

1.     Play the field

One tip to make your website contact form more appealing is to limit the number of fields on your contact form.

Keep your contact form simple and easy to fill out. Over-complicated fields with complex questions can be off-putting. No customer wants to spend over an hour trying to get in touch with a business via their contact form. 

You should also try to keep the fields on your contact form to a maximum of three. According to HubSpot, conversion rates improved by almost half, when the number of fields were reduced to three from four.

This massive jump in conversions is down to removing one simple field. A simple action like this can have a huge impact on your conversions, with little to no effort.

2.     Give a helping hand

Another tip to increase conversions on your website contact form is to help your customer along the way.

Many different people will land on your contact form page on your website, from potential customers, to job seekers, to press, to sales people, to existing customers. The range will be extremely broad, so you must design your contact form with this in mind.

So, make it an easy process for all your users and explain why you need the details you require. For instance, a new customer would need to be passed to your sales department and an existing customer to their individual sales consultant.

You could insert a field in your contact form that specifies which part of the sales cycle your user is in, in order to help them more efficiently.

Another great way to help your user is to implement ghost text in your website contact form. This ghost text helps the user understand which format they should use to insert their information on your website contact form.

Make your contact form as easy as possible and assist wherever you can to get the best conversion rate.

3.     Mobile friendly is a must

Mobile browsing is increasingly becoming the most popular method of surfing the web. In 2019, there was 3.9 billion mobile internet users in the World, emphasising the importance of having a mobile friendly website.

This is especially important when it comes to contact forms. There’s nothing more painful than filling out a contact form that is not optimised for mobile use, scrolling past 100 different countries to get to the “United Kingdom” option to finish the “country” field. It is tedious, long and fiddly. 

So, making sure you have a well-designed mobile contact form is paramount. You should also consider mobile use when deciding the layout of your contact form.

Decisions like the placement of your fields or which options you provide as default can make a massive difference to usability and user experience.

Contact form examples

We’ve gathered a few examples of contact forms to demonstrate what works well and what doesn’t work so well.

Bootz

Bootz’s contact form is a good contact form example. It is well laid out, easy to read and easy to navigate.

The ghost text is well-designed on the last comment box, prompting the user to explain their problem or issue.

The “topic” field is a great feature and allows the user’s query to be sent to the appropriate department, making it a quick and efficient process.

One small suggestion could be to improve the ghost text in the order number field. Perhaps specifying which format this should be in, and whether the number should include letters and number or numbers only.

Nivea

Nivea’s contact form is surprisingly long-winded and thorough. It starts off pretty simple with a comments field and a topic field similar to Bootz’s.

They have also included an upload feature for users to include pictures or attachments to their query, which is a fantastic feature.

But then the contact form gets a little too fiddly and asks the user for their mobile number, street name, street number, postcode and city.

This is a lot of information that needs to be inserted by the user before they can submit their inquiry and is not the most efficient process.  

Street name and street number could perhaps be condensed into one field, and there could be a new field that automatically detects your street name from your postcode.

The date-of-birth field could also be simplified, and instead of selecting each component of the birthdate, the user could simply type in their birthdate in the preferred format.

Although these are small details, it would make the contact form look less tedious and drawn out and, therefore, more appealing. Nivea’s contact form example is still a solid case, but it could definitely be optimised.

Coca Cola

Coca Cola’s contact form is simple and straight to the point. The fields are well laid-out and easy to read.

Unlike Nivea, the “date of birth” field requires users to type their data into the field, making it less awkward and fiddly.

Coca Cola have also featured a “topic” field, allowing for smoother processes. The “brand” field could perhaps be simplified, since Coca Cola has hundreds of products from soft drinks to teas and coffee.

An upload feature, as seen in Nivea’s contact form, could also be a great addition to the Coca Cola contact form.

However, this is a solid contact form example from Coca Cola but there are certainly some improvements that could be made.

Keep testing

Make sure that you are consistently monitoring and analysing your contact forms as this will keep them optimised and efficient.

Perhaps you find that your date-of-birth field is becoming useless or that you decide to add a new department to your firm that can be reached via the contact form. Always keep your contact forms up-to-date and accurate, as this will entice customers to complete the contact form and increase your conversions over time.