This is a guest post by Jesus Ramirez from MarketingUnfolded.com.
Sometimes as we design our sign-up forms we forget about the most important piece of the whole sequence… the prospect.
We forget that they are people too, with fears, and pre-conceived notions and we often overlook the steps we can take to ovoid their un-easiness.
By simply looking at your sign-up form we can make 3 quick and easy changes to increase your conversion rates, they are:
1. Removing Unnecessary Fields
In most cases (at least in internet marketing) the email address field is the most important. But do you really need a physical address? Or a phone number?
If the answer is “no”, then definitely remove these, they are only creating confusion and anxiety in the sign up process. You need to have a short and unintimidating sign-up form.
You should also do a split test and see how you perform with just asking for an email and leaving out the name.
By keeping all the unnecessary fields you are giving your prospects more excuses to leave.
In my website I choose to just stick with email, if I need any other information for other offers then I will ask for them as I need them.
2. Tell Your Prospects Why You Need The Extra Information
If you must absolutely have more than a name and email, you must have a truly valid reason on why you are asking for the extra information.
Make sure that you explain it to your prospect in the sign-up form.
Remember people are very hesitant on giving away their personal phone number because they don’t want to get telemarketers trying to sell them something while they are having their dinner or doing some important work.
They don’t want to give you their address because they don’t want more junk mail than they already have.
To overcome these fears you must explain why you need the extra information. Remember it might be obvious to you, but it won’t be to your prospect, so tell them!
Remember most of your prospects just want to know why you need a particular piece of information before they give it to you.
3. Add Your Privacy Policy To Your Sign-Up Form
If you have a privacy policy and you are not linking to it from your sign-up form you may be losing a lot of leads! Remember most people just want to be assured that you are a legitimate person that won’t spam them or bother them.
By linking to your privacy policy from your sign-up form you put your prospects at ease and they feel more comfortable giving you their information.
Most people will never click on the privacy link, but the 1% that do, will be directed to your privacy page where their worries will be put to rest, and you can close them on that page by adding a sign-up form.
This is something that Copyblogger does, and it seems to work very well for them.
The Bottom Line
When you’re designing your sign-up form it’s very easy to get caught thinking of only what you want and what you need.
A better approach is to design your sign-up form in the needs of your prospect. Accept that they are skeptical, and that the value you provide might not be readily obvious to them.
You need to take these steps, and any other steps that you can, to make sure they can easily, and comfortably give you their information. Remove all the obstacles and confusion, remember…
It’s all about putting them first.
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Removing unnecessary fields is certainly an important point to note. Coz, people are lazy and won’t bother to type in too many fields; sometimes not even the name field. I stick with email alone, just like you.
Cool Jane!
I went to your site, and I saw that you just have the email form as you said; but I also saw an opt-in form on your about page.
Good Job! Those tend to do well.
Conversion has always been a tricky part of the whole Internet Marketing game for me. Simple is usually better so the less distractions, like a “name” field, the better. Great food for thought.
Matt,
Simplicity is the greatest form of genius.
Nice tips, one thing I’ve done recently is taken the field off my contact form ‘How did you hear about us’ the data from Google Analytics gives me enough information. Particularly with dedicated campaigns that I can track with campaign URLS, you don’t really have to ask this question anymore.
Keep up the great posts.
Good Job Dan!
Did removing that question increase your opt-in rate?
I’m sure it did!
Well I’m not that good at measuring unfortunately! But I don’t think it would have hurt.
I don’t think it hurt either.
If you will remove all the unnecessary fields people will be more curious about it and the more curiosity they do the more sign up they will make.
Jesus,
I agree! I am constantly working on conversion. Doing tiny changes and test, test, testing. A/B split testing is a great way to slowly get closer to the ‘perfect’ layout.
The important thing is that what works will always be a little difference from niche-to-niche and website-to-website. While there are broad strokes that tend to be better, the only way to really tell for sure is implement it, remove as many variables as possible and test it.
I could have not said it better myself Steve,
All niches are different and getting to the “perfect” layout is only a matter of implementing and testing different ideas.
really useful tips, i recognized myself in the first describe: i always used to get sceptic and felt some fear if i was asked for some personal data. it was a couple of years ago, but i remember, i was afraid to buy online because of my credit card data and so on… the most important is of course: the clear communication. conversations can cause fear and feeling insecure when not communicated with trust.
Great tips on signup forms! I agree that the more simple the better. Interesting about the privacy policy, I’ll have to try that…would’ve never thought! Thanks for the helpful advice.
Christine,
The privacy policy is one that many people don’t think about.
Glad you found this helpful!
Enhancing the usability of your website is the key to boost your conversion rates.
Hi Jesus,
Great post. really some great reminders. Conversions is all about staying relevant to your consumer market. Speaking “their” language, not yours. Having links that are descriptive and what the visitor would want to continue reading. Images also help, since so many people are visual and a website can get very cold feeling.
Romy,
I totally agree. Images can make or break a page. Speaking your prospect’s “language” is also key.
Hi Jesus!
The lengthy forms asking for a lot of un-necessary information have always irritated me and have served as a repelling force .. I would always think why don’t these people understand that phone and fax numbers were irrelevent. But now I realize someone needed to tell them.
So thanks for telling all of them that it is stupid and drives many prospects away.
Azam,
Too many necessary fields is the perfect “prospect repellent!”
No problem! glad I could help!