Collect the Right Data with Custom HubSpot Forms

Forms are data collectors, plain and simple. HubSpot’s web forms will help you track leads, follow up with current and potential clients, have better insight into your buyer personas, and enhance user experience while providing your leads with the information, services, and products they’re looking for.

Without web forms, marketers would have a difficult time obtaining the information they need from potential customers. Forms allow marketers and business owners to collect and manage information easily and efficiently. Forms also track data regarding conversions, purchases, customer feedback, new leads, and survey responses. We all know that collecting the right data from your consumers helps you to make better decisions about how you, your team, and your business move forward.

What are Web Forms?

Simply put, a web form is a space on your website where users enter data or personal information that is then sent to a server for processing. Users can provide their name and email addresses to sign up for a newsletter, they can place an order, or they can complete a survey.

Forms can vary in length, format, appearance, and content type. You can create your forms to be as basic as you want, only asking for the essential information, or you can dive deeper to gain valuable data and still maintain a positive user experience.

Creating a Web Form

The most important thing you can do is make the purpose of your form clear. Your leads should know what your form is for and why they should want to complete it. You can make your purpose clear by:

Including straightforward headers

Headers help to avoid confusion and allow your leads to the actual, specific information you are requesting. Straightforward headers include things like “First Name,” “Preferred Method of Contact,” and “Email Address.”

For example, just saying "Name", do you want visitors to fill in first & last name or just first name. Ambiguous headers are challenging for a visitor to understand what you are asking for. This also creates chaos in your database as each user may fill out the form field differently.

Providing Clear Instructions

At the top of your form, try to include a sentence or two about what you’re asking from your leads. Try to use the fewest words possible while still being clear in your communication.

Considering the appearance of your form

Nobody likes reading long paragraphs of information just to find whatever they are looking for. Also, keep in mind that cluttered text looks unprofessional. By keeping your form organized and clean, you’re able to provide your leads with a pleasant experience.

What types of web forms are there?

There are many types of forms, but some of the more common forms are

• Contact Forms

Contact Forms are used for leads to ask your business a question, voice their concerns, or maybe explain their need for a refund.

• Lead Generation Forms

Lead Generation forms help to convert your visitors into leads. These forms ask for things like personal information, such as a name, company, email address, and phone number.

• Order forms

Order forms allow your website visitors to place orders and provide a way for customers to pay for items and have the products they’ve ordered sent directly to them. These forms are detailed and may include multiple steps since they typically require a credit card, shipping, and billing information, as well as the customer’s contact information.

• Registration Forms

Registration forms are common on sites like Craigslist, eBay, and other membership websites. A lead would complete a registration form if they were interested in signing up for your service(s).

• Survey forms

Survey forms are used to learn more about your customer’s experiences with your products and services. They help you improve your future interactions with customers, as well as educate leads about ways in which your business can help them.

Web Form Analytics

HubSpot allows you to collect any type of data you need to convert anonymous website visitors into leads with a customizable form builder. Everyone who fills out your form will be automatically routed into your HubSpot CRM, where you can further manage the relationship with that person by setting reminder tasks, calling them, or sending them a personalized email.

With Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise, you get access to smart forms that adapt to questions to each website visitor, as well as progressive profiling, which allows you to show new questions to returning visitors. 

From an analytics standpoint, you’re able to get your source history from when the person accepts your site cookies. You can see the visitor’s starting point and you can see what they did all the way up until they complete your form. This means, you can see each time they visit your site, which pages they visited, and when you converted the visitor on the form. This is valuable information for businesses to have because you’re able to gain a better insight into what works and what doesn’t work on your website.

Web forms will help you track leads, follow up with current and potential clients, have better insight into your buyer personas, and enhance user experience while providing your leads with the information, services, and products they’re looking for. Remember to keep your forms straightforward and simple to use, so that you can maintain a professional user-friendly experience for each person who visits your website.