The ability to capture leads on your website is fundamental to solid marketing and sales funnel. Without online lead capture, a large percentage of your advertising investment is being wasted. If you’re not capturing leads on your site or aren’t capturing enough leads, close your door, mute your phone, and take some notes…

Three Primary Types of Online Lead Capture

As an Infusionsoft Consultant working alongside some of the top online marketers in the world, I often heard them use terms like ‘web forms’, ‘landing pages’, and ‘squeeze pages’ when talking about permission-based marketing, list building, and lead capture. Let me remove any confusion here:

• • Any page on your site can be armed with a ‘web form’ which allows the visitor to type in their contact information and submit it (usually in exchange for something of value). Your primary lead capture form should be on the homepage, preferably above the fold (above the bottom of the screen), and on as many pages of your site as possible.
• • A ‘landing page’ is a dedicated page on your site specific to the opt-in offer. For example, you may run an online or offline ad driving traffic to a page on your site set up to offer an advisory, free report, or something similar. The body of the page is dedicated to explaining the offer, benefits, and has an opt-in web form within the body of the page. The sole purpose of this ‘landing page’ is to convert visitors to opt-ins.
• • A ‘squeeze page’ is much like a landing page… but there is no navigation on the page. The visitor has no option to view other pages or do anything else other than opting in or closing the page.

When setting up your online lead capture strategy, you’ll need to think about what I like to call the “magnet”. What can you offer the site visitors that will provide them enough value to entice them to provide you their contact information? Here are some ideas for you: free report, advisory, white paper, demo, consult, quote, coupons, tips, newsletter, webinar, teleseminar, in-person seminar or event, survey, drawing, free trial, or ebook.

If you’re thinking right now this is a ton of work, it’s not. If you’re not a writer, contract a copywriter to write it for you. Also, the web forms can be set up to automatically pass the opt-in information to your database or list (and segment them for targeted marketing and automated follow-up). Commit to getting it done — I promise it will be worth it.

One final note…

Don’t overwhelm your visitors with lengthy forms. Typically, you should limit the form to name and email. In some cases, however, you can get away with requesting more information… but the value of the ‘magnet’ needs to justify the additional info requested.