For every B2B company, the most critical conversion goal is to increase signups through your demo request forms.
At Lead Booster Pro, we specialize in creating forms that enhance lead generation and conversion. Having worked with fast-growing companies and startups, we created this guide to share the best practices that can significantly boost your signups.
This guide is tailored to experienced CMOs who want to optimize their existing demo request forms and lead generation results.
Design request demo forms for lead generation
1. Tailor form questions to your target audience
In the competitive world of B2B marketing, customization is key. Instead of relying on a generic template, tailor your demo request form to meet your specific business needs and target audience. Understanding your audience’s preferences and behavior is crucial to designing a form that resonates and converts effectively.
- Qualify deal size: Ask questions about the number of employees or annual revenue to gauge the potential deal size. This helps prioritize high-value prospects and tailor your sales approach accordingly.
- Qualify stakeholder: Identify the role of the person filling out the form. Knowing whether they are a decision-maker, influencer, or information gatherer allows your sales team to adjust their engagement strategy for maximum impact.
- Inform your demo: Gather information to personalize your demo presentations. Understanding a prospect’s pain points and industry challenges enables you to customize the demo, making it more relevant and compelling.
2. Segment your forms into individual steps
Breaking your form into smaller, manageable steps can significantly improve the user experience, especially for forms with more than five input fields. Multi-step forms help prevent users from feeling overwhelmed by a long list of questions and can lead to higher completion rates.
An effective multi-step form setup might include:
- Qualification step: Ask key qualifying questions.
- Details step: Gather more detailed information.
- Personal information step: Collect essential contact details.
- Success message: Confirm the successful submission.
Keep the form concise enough to be easy to fill out yet detailed enough to qualify your leads properly. This balance ensures you capture necessary information without discouraging users.
Limit each step to one or two questions. For contact information, asking for the first name, last name, email, and company name is typically sufficient.
3. Adapt form steps and questions with conditional form flows
Dynamic forms adapt based on the user’s inputs, presenting different questions depending on previous answers. This level of personalization makes the form feel more relevant and less intrusive, enhancing the user experience and increasing conversion rates.
- Tailored user experience: Dynamic forms allow you to skip irrelevant questions based on user responses. For instance, if a user identifies as a small business, the form can bypass questions for larger enterprises.
- Step-by-step personalization: The initial step lists general options for collaboration. Based on the user’s selection, subsequent steps can explore more specific questions about their chosen option.
- Adaptive starting options: Offer various options, such as requesting a demo, an on-demand digital walkthrough, or a free-trial. Based on the user’s choice, tailor the following questions to gather the most relevant information for that particular path.
10X learning: Schedule meetings directly
For high-value opportunities, streamline the process by scheduling meetings directly. Qualify the lead upfront and, instead of a standard success message, present a Calendly booking form prefilled with information from the previous steps. This immediate action maintains the lead’s momentum and increases the likelihood of securing a meeting.
Make filling out your forms an engaging experience
4. Show form progression through a bar indicator
Incorporating progress bars in multi-step forms gives users a clear visual cue of their completion status. This feature is essential for enhancing user experience and reducing demo form abandonment.
Progress bars give users a sense of progress and the reassurance that they are nearing the completion of their submission. This visual indicator motivates users to continue filling out the form, knowing they are progressing steadily.
However, showing a slow-moving progress bar can be discouraging for longer forms. Consider breaking the form into clearly defined, manageable sections without a detailed progress bar to maintain user engagement.
5. Enable fast navigation through keyboard hotkeys
Enabling keyboard navigation for your forms can significantly improve the user experience. Many users prefer using keyboard shortcuts to fill out forms, making it faster and more efficient than a mouse.
- Boost efficiency: Keyboard-friendly forms allow users to quickly navigate through fields, making the completion process smoother and more intuitive.
- Improve accessibility: Ensuring your forms adhere to accessibility best practices is crucial. Forms that are difficult to navigate using a keyboard can deter users, particularly those with disabilities.
6. Design for engagement and conversion
A clean, modern design with ample white space can significantly enhance the user experience of your demo request forms. This approach makes the form more inviting and easier to navigate, ultimately leading to higher conversion rates.
- Minimal and inviting layout: A minimalistic design encourages user interaction by reducing visual clutter. A well-organized layout guides the user’s eye smoothly from one field to the next, making the form completion process straightforward and intuitive.
- Consistency with your brand: Ensure your form design aligns seamlessly with your brand and values. Consistent use of colors, fonts, and imagery reinforces your brand identity and builds trust with your audience.
- Functional aesthetics: Beautiful aesthetics combined with functional design elements help users focus on completing the form. Use clean lines, clear labels, and intuitive spacing to create a visually appealing and user-friendly form.
7. Leverage responsive form fields to improve completion rate
In today’s digital landscape, your form must be mobile-friendly and perform well across all devices. With a significant percentage of demo requests coming from smartphones, responsive design is crucial for providing a seamless user experience.
- High mobile engagement: In many B2B companies, over 50% of demo requests are made on mobile devices. This trend underscores the importance of optimizing your forms for mobile users to capture this substantial audience effectively.
- Optimized layout for smaller screens: Ensure your form layout and design are tailored to smaller screen sizes. A responsive design adapts to various devices, providing an intuitive and user-friendly experience.
- Native form field types: Use native form field types to enhance the mobile user experience. Implement input fields that trigger the appropriate mobile keyboard for numbers, emails, and phone inputs. This small adjustment can significantly improve usability and increase conversion rates.
Optimize your demo request forms
8. Identify and remove conversion blockers
Analyze your form’s step completion rates regularly to identify and remove any conversion blockers. These blockers could be confusing questions, poorly placed fields, or unnecessary steps that cause users to abandon the form.
- Analyze step completion rates: Closely monitor the step completion rates of your demo request form. This data provides valuable insights into where users are dropping off, allowing you to pinpoint specific areas that need improvement.
- Identify major drop-off points: Identify significant drop-off points within your form. Look for steps where a large percentage of users abandon the process. These points indicate potential issues that must be addressed to improve the overall user experience.
- Iterate and test improvements: Once you’ve identified problematic areas, brainstorm and test solutions to reduce the drop-off rate. Experiment with different question phrasings, rearrange field placements or eliminate unnecessary steps.
9. Track metrics to drive strategic decisions
Continuously monitoring your demo request form’s performance is essential for optimizing conversions. Tracking key metrics such as total views, conversion rates, and completion rates provides valuable insights that guide data-driven decisions and improvements.
- Total views: Track the total views of your form to gauge its exposure. This metric helps you understand how many potential leads are seeing your form, allowing you to assess the effectiveness of your marketing efforts in driving traffic.
- Conversion rate: Monitor the conversion rate to evaluate the effectiveness of your landing page in converting visitors into form completions. A high conversion rate indicates that your landing page and form are compelling and relevant to your audience.
- Completion rate: Measure the completion rate of your form to understand how many users finish filling out the form once they start. This metric highlights the form’s usability and can indicate if any steps cause users to drop off.
10. Boost performance with effective A/B tests
A/B testing is essential for optimizing your demo request forms. By experimenting with different form elements, you can identify which variations yield the highest conversion rates.
- Test removing or adding steps: Assess the impact of adding or removing steps in your form. Sometimes, simplifying the form can reduce drop-off rates, while in other cases, additional steps may help better qualify leads.
- Test different questions: Experiment with the wording and order of questions to see what resonates best with your audience. Subtle changes in phrasing or sequence can significantly impact user engagement and completion rates.
- Test marketing elements: Incorporate and test various marketing elements such as trust badges or testimonials. These elements can enhance credibility and reassure users, potentially boosting conversion rates.
Applying the learnings to your form
Tailoring your forms to your business needs, simplifying the user experience, and continuously optimizing through testing and monitoring can drive substantial growth for your organization.
At Lead Booster Pro, we recognize the critical role of form design and user experience in lead generation and conversion. Below is an example form that showcases these best practices, allowing you to see and interact with them firsthand.
