Oh yes, contact forms: the evil necessity of any and every website. Whether you’re selling a product, service or even just an idea, contact forms provide invaluable data about your target audience. In fact, taking full advantage of your contact form data is only becoming more important. According to recent studies, 74% of marketers now use web forms to generate leads, and nearly 50% claim that web forms are their best converting lead generation tool.
It helps that contact forms also provide credibility, convenience, and are more secure than just tossing your email on a web page.
The question, then, is how to get more visitors to willingly fill out your contact form in the first place. Not to mention how difficult it can be to make sense of the data you collect – a must for putting it to use.
The answers are in form and data enrichment. We’ve collected everything you need to know about both and the tools that will make them easy to implement below.
What Is Data Enrichment and Why You Need It
Let’s be honest: Data is a pain. There’s too much of it. Oftentimes it’s dated or incorrect. And yet, your business needs it. Businesses with data-driven personalization efforts earn five to eight times the ROI of those that don’t.
Cue data enrichment. It eliminates errors, outdated information, and all that extra stuff you don’t need. It also fills in the blanks you do need (e.g. missing phone numbers, company information, job titles and so on).
So, how does this apply to your contact forms?
By rounding out your customer profiles and getting higher-quality data, you get higher conversion rates. Studies show that even a 10% improvement in lead quality means a 40% boost in sales productivity.
This is because the people who fill out your contact forms are coming to you, making them the perfect lead. With the right data, via enrichment, you learn enough about your leads to optimize campaigns. You can also use your forms to set-up task automation and grow your email lists – factors in improving customer satisfaction and retention.
How to Store Contact Form Data
If you’re just starting out, you may be wondering where to collect your contact form data in the first place. The truth is that most website hosts or form builders will automatically collect the data for you, but we recommend routing it to a third-party CRM (customer relationship management) tool.
A CRM makes it easy to see all your customer and lead data, manage campaigns, and identify problems and opportunities all in one location. When choosing a CRM, be sure to check all of its integrations to ensure that any marketing automation services you use will work with it. Popular CRM tools include Pipedrive and Salesforce.
It’s important to note that your contact form needs to have a responsive design, as should the rest of your site. Otherwise, you’ll miss out on a growing number of mobile users.
How To Optimize Your Contact Form Data
Okay okay, so you have the data, but it’s a mess. Or there’s too little or too much of it. Or you don’t know how to implement it – or you haven’t tried. Whatever you’re having trouble with, it’s time to clean that data up and put it to good use (finally).
It seems obvious, but the first step to getting more data from your contact forms is to improve your contact form. Chances are it could be better – no offense. There’s simply always room for growth. One collection of studies reveal 10 research-backed tips for improving contact form conversion, including form design, placement, CAPTCHA use, and more.
One of the best tips far and wide is to limit the number of fields a visitor has to fill out. Fewer fields means greater convenience and less invasion.
Many form tools have taken to auto-filling forms for website visitors because it makes completion easier, therefore increasing chances of submission. If you create your own forms, be sure to optimize your forms to take advantage of autofill.
The next step is to enrich the data you do collect, and we have great news! There are many third-party tools that will enrich your data for you and work with your CRM. Unsure if your contact form is performing well enough to provide all the lead data it could be? There are tools for that too!
We’ve taken the liberty of collecting the best of both for you below.
The Best Tools For Contact Form Data Enrichment
Clearbit Forms
We’re including Clearbit in the data enrichment list, but the truth is that this tool really is the best of both worlds. This is because it offers contact form enhancement and data enrichment all-in-one. Clearbit uses it’s own expansive database to auto-fill form fields for your visitors once they enter their email address. The best part? It only shows visitors the fields it can’t fill on its own, making forms much shorter. You can customize your must-have fields to include the types of data you want.
Once you have the data, Clearbit filters out the best leads for you, so you can prioritize your time and personalize your campaigns. Clearbit refreshes all data every 30 days to keep everything up-to-date and integrates with over 20 other tools including Salesforce, Hubspot, Marketo, Pardot, and Drift.
Pricing is based on the size of your company’s database and web traffic.
Leadspace
Like Clearbit, Leadspace SmartForms requires visitors to fill out the bare minimum. It scours the internet and uses IP address data to provide you with 120+ extra data pieces to contribute to your customer profile. But not to fear: You can customize data sets to avoid getting overwhelmed. Leadspace is special in that it uses knowledge of customer interaction on other websites to predict how good of a fit they are for you.
Leadspace boasts impressive integration and compatibility with any form builder, CRM and marketing automation tool. Easy to install, all you have to do is add one piece of code to the form page you’re monitoring.
Leadspace pricing varies, so you’ll need to call for a quote.
Openprise
Unlike the last two, Openprise is solely a data enrichment tool, but it does a great job. The ultimate database holder, Openprise updates your profiles with what it finds online and allows you to integrate data from multiple other providers all at once. To prevent data overload, this tool lets you build custom bots and cleansing rituals to fit your needs.
Openprise helps you prioritize by scoring leads in your database and routing them for you. It even goes a step further by helping find new account leads and the person to contact for each based on their job descriptions and your target personas.
Ideal for larger organizations, Openprise pricing starts at $48k a year.
InsideView
A great option for smaller businesses with a lower budget, InsideView uses information spanning 18 million companies and 59 million decision-makers to enrich your profiles. With each lead, you get 60+ fields of actionable data to base your marketing decisions on, as well as predictive scoring. All data from InsideView is dated for relevancy and given a confidence score for reliability.
Plans start out at $6k a year.
The Best Tools For Optimizing Your Contact Forms
While the above tools help you get the most out of your lead data, these tools inform you step-by-step on how to build higher-converting contact forms (so you get more leads to work with).
Formstack
At the lower-level, Formstack offers what most contact form optimization tools do: number of views, conversion rates, abandonment rates, easy to read visual reports, and customizability. With Formstack’s Conversion Kit, you get something a little more special. You get Google Analytics integration, UTM tracking and A/B testing. Better yet, you learn which form fields are the ones causing people to abandon ship.
With 5 plans to choose from, pricing ranges from $19/month to $249+. We recommend checking out their 14-day free trial.
Zuko
Once upon a time, the tool was called Forisimo, but it’s leveled up and dubbed itself “Zuko”. The upgraded tool offers the standard contact form analytics to tell you when it’s working, when it’s not and why. What makes Zuko special is the ability to see change over time and compare form performance at different periods in time. You also have the ability to view an individual’s or segment’s unique interaction with your contact form and the option to set behavior alerts for significant changes in interaction. This helps fight issues in real-time.
Zuko offers 3 payment plans based on sessions, but your free trial will track up to 1000 visits with no time limit attached.
Hotjar
Have a hard time making sense of numbers? Boy, do we have the tool for you. Hotjar provides a unique take on contact form optimization by providing heatmaps and video recordings of the visitor’s journey. These show you how a lead navigated the page and form, what areas drew their interest and what areas didn’t.
Hotjar gives you the option to filter through your collection and take notes directly in the source. For newbies, single code tracking and guidance make installation easy.
Hotjar provides 4 plans from $99 to $389 a month, as well as a 15-day free trial.
Which Contact Form Data Enrichment Tool is Best For You?
If you’re wondering whether contact form data enrichment is worth the investment, it is. Don’t get stuck in the past, Dinosaur. Just make sure that you’re using the tool that best fits your business needs and budget.
When choosing, keep in mind the size of your company, the number of visitors or sessions you get and the integrations you’ll need. If you primarily need contact form optimization or data enhancement, you can get away with a tool that provides the sole service. If you need both, consider a tool like Clearbit that does it all-in-one. Your customers, sales team and ROI will thank you.
