How to Get Your Contact Form to Convert Visitors

cyfe contact form

The contact form is usually seen as an afterthought — a quick “for more information, contact us” line you throw together while creating your website.

Truth is, your contact form is valuable website real estate that welcomes people to your company, creates a first impression, encourages someone to reach out, and turns anonymous website visitors into qualified leads. 

Aside from writing a catchy call-to-action, how else can you optimize your contact us form to make the most of your marketing efforts? 

Table of Contents

What is a contact form?

A contact form is a set of questions on your site that lets visitors reach out to customer support or a person from your company. Often, a contact form is placed at the bottom of key website pages to capture lead information.  

Your contact can include a short message encouraging website visitors to reach out, field forms to collect information such as name, email, etc., and a call-to-action. Remember, your contact form is what people look at when deciding to contact your business or not — so make every piece of information you collect count. 

What your contact form needs to achieve

It may not seem like you have much room to work with when you consider everything your form should accomplish. Useful contact forms will: 

  • explain why the website visitor should contact you and motivate them to get in touch
  • avoid necessary information, focusing on explaining how someone can communicate with your company
  • showcase your brand’s personality, matching your style and voice to the rest of your site and social media profiles
  • offer a few ways to contact you, whether it’s through Live Chat, Messenger, phone, or email
  • set the right expectations for visitors, reassuring them you’ll contact them back. 

Fortunately, there’s are ton of different ways you can boost the effectiveness of your contact form, and create a lead generation process that helps visitors quickly get in touch with your business and take further action. The tips below will help you convert more site visitors with an optimized contact form. 

How to create the best contact form for your site

Since you only have a limited amount of working space, there are a few objectives you should prioritize in your contact form before you send it live.

1. Show visitors your brand’s personality

However you choose to convey it, the first thing your contact form needs to achieve is showing some personality.  When visitors find your contact form after scrolling through your site, you need to give them a reason to stay. As with most attention spans, you won’t have their interest for too long, so be concise and to the point, with a splash of personality and quirkiness.  For many companies, such as TearDwn in the example below, that means using a conversational tone to convince people to get in touch:
still not sure contact page

Your contact form doesn’t have to be just fill-in-the box fields. You can make it stand out by:

  • using one call-to-action (CTA) that prompts an email.
  • asking a question in your headline
  • re-ensuring prospects they’re in good hands with a guarantee

2. Add social media links

The contact form on your website isn’t the only way people can get in touch or learn more about you. If you have social media profiles or specific locations a person can go to, include it in your contact form. Just add it to the bottom as you fill out the content of the form. Yeti, for example, uses it’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and a Live Chat on its contact page to offer alternative lines of communication.
yeti call to action page

This actively encourages potential customers to get in touch on channels they’re most comfortable, plus, can get drive traffic to your social platforms for further discovery.

3. Create a visually appealing form to encourage contact

To give visitors extra incentive to provide you with their details, invest in a well-designed form. Marvel does this with their contact form, keeping it minimal with visual breaks and space, as well as an eye-catching illustration:
marvel contact form example

4. Consider a full contact page

A contact page is an extension of your form that lets you add extra information and be more flexible in your design. These contact pages can often include an FAQ and an address for people to come and stop by.  Ella’s Kitchen has built a strong contact page mainly due to design and the amount of useful information. The infant food producer covers multiple ways for parents to get in touch for different reasons including shop orders, press inquiries, and even links out to a different contact form for general inquiries. 
contact page example

5. Personalize your contact form

Personalization is an essential part of your contact form, and using the word “you” can help improve conversion rates. You can go more in-depth with logic and dynamic content, but leveraging good messaging can be equally as effective.

bippy contact form

6. Collect relevant lead information

It’s extremely common that visitors will contact your company for a specific reason, but it’s not always easy to communicate it without the proper form fields. That’s why it’s important to collect information, whether it’s timeline, budget, project type, email, etc. Many companies add multiple choice and free text by default to help potential leads share their needs, like this example from RFTB
request a quote rftb contact
You can also ask for:
  • business type
  • website URL
  • company name
  • job role
  • number of employees
Just make sure you only ask for information that’s necessary. Forms between 5 to 10 fields tend to convert better than outlying numbers.   

Contact form ideas: 5 Best Examples

1. VentureHarbour

ventureharbour contact form
Digital innovation studio and technology company VentureHarbour offers a free marketing proposal in exchange for contact details. Its contact form asks questions that helps the company get a feel for who the lead is. It also adds social proof of their services by highlighting a testimonial on the form.

2. Single Grain

single grain contact form
Marketing agency Single Grain qualified two types of leads on their lead generation form: people who want to pay for services, and people who just want information. This helps them segment leads into different nurture sequences and build a relationship by sending helpful content. The language is clear and concise, and is centered around the visitor to encourage action. 

3. Marketing Automation Insider (MAI)

simple contact form example
Marketing Automation Insider makes major use of it’s homepage, leading site visitors into a contact form through a tool they made, and a guide on how to choose the best automation tools for their needs. The form collects an email address in order to send the guide. 

4. Leadformly

leadformly homepage
Leadformly has taken an anti form approach to link customers to support, using a chatbot to let people contact the company. It uses live human agents and if they are outside office hours, the bot will collect an email address for the team to reach out when they’re back.

5. 360i

contact us form
360i uses its contact form to help segment leads by their needs. Its dropdown bar provides different reasons to get in touch, with simple text inputs and a dash of brand personality. You can also subscribe to the company’s blog from the form. 

Making the most of your contact form

As you go on creating lead generation processes and updating your website — be sure to keep your contact form in mind. Potential leads are bound to fill it out if they feel they’ll get value out of it. 

With these contact form tips in hand, you can make a powerful impression on behalf of your company and convince website visitors to get in touch with someone from your team. 

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