A form on a landing page or your website is often the final step in a nurturing process and represents the crucial point of conversion. According to Manifest, 81% of people will abandon a form after beginning to fill it out. And of that 81%, more than half (67%) will not return to complete the form.
So how do we, as marketers, improve our game and increase conversions while decreasing form abandonment? By using five native tools at your disposal within the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) forms tool.
Five Ways to Increase Pardot Form Submissions and Decrease Form Abandonment
When marketers first start using forms within Pardot, they’re probably inclined to keep things simple and have a primary focus on collecting information they see as required or important to their sales process. However, you can leverage a few things within Pardot to decrease form abandonment and up your marketing game.
- Use Dependent Fields
Keep the form simple and limit the number of fields using dependent fields. When you are seeking relatable information based on specific field values, dependent fields are the best way to capture that additional insight.
For example, if you are a global company, you can ask for the user’s country. And if they respond with the United States, then you can ask for their state. Or if they respond with Canada, you can ask which province they are from. Whereas, if they respond with the United Kingdom, no additional information is required.
Dependent fields eliminate unnecessary questions, shorten the form, and personalize the experience for each Prospect.
- Set Up Progressive Profiling
Another great way to help shorten your forms, but still collect the required information is through progressive profiling. This tool enables you to ask new questions based on each return to a form, eliminating previously completed questions from prior form fills.
For example, if you already know their company, the next time they return to the form, you can now ask for a job title to dig in further. This is one of the best tools at your disposal as a marketer because it ensures a positive user experience for the Prospect and helps keep the sales team happy by collecting details for lead assignment, segmentation, and increased nurturing via targeted Engagement Studio Programs.
- Have Clear Calls to Action
Calls to action are the short persuasive text used on the form button to close the deal. You want to be straightforward while keeping it short and simple. I would recommend starting with a verb and following up with an adverb or subject thereafter.
For example, a clear call to action could say: “Download Your e-book Now” or “Subscribe Today.”
Ultimately, use language that promises them the delivery of something your reader wants.
- Use Autoresponders
Creating an experience for Prospects is crucial in seeing them return to want more. This can be accomplished by ensuring that you follow through on your delivery when a form is completed through autoresponders and/or thank you pages.
Take advantage of the redirect and follow-up by creating a personalized experience by offering them a thank you message, a downloaded asset, and/or highlighting similar content they may be interested in.
By directing them to additional content, you can use your Progressive Profiling and they can gain additional insight into your organization and how you can help solve their issues.
- Enable Completion Actions
Completion Actions are similar to your Autoresponders, as they are unseen heroes of the form experience but play a critical role in delivering what was promised. A Completion Action is an action that Pardot will automatically make on your behalf as soon as the form is completed.
Actions could include:
- Delivering gated content
- Adding to subscription lists
- Notifying users
- Adding prospects to nurture programs
- Creating a task to follow up with the prospect
It’s the final touch to the entire experience and will keep your prospects returning for more.
Create Better Pardot Forms to Get More Conversions
With these out-of-the-box Pardot tools at your disposal, you can easily decrease form abandonment and increase Prospect engagement, growing your pipeline and improving your nurture game.
Interested in learning more about how to get started or how to expand your Pardot form game? Contact us today!
