It’s crucial to make the most out of your lead generation tactics. You need to capture the attention of both warm and cold customers and convert them from passive viewers to active consumers of your product or service.
If you’ve grown frustrated with some of your other lead generation methods, we have a solution for you in three words:
Pop-Up Forms
If you don’t have these on your site, you’re missing out on a vital lead generation technique. In this guide, we discuss how to create a high-converting lead generation pop-up form.
What Is a Pop-Up Form?
If you aren’t familiar with this marketing concept, check out what you see when you visit Old Navy’s home page:
Pop-up forms allow users to enter their personal information. For businesses, these forms are opportunities to pursue more sales. They are a type of opt-in method. Pop-up forms can take a variety of molds, including a full-screen box that covers website content and small banners at the top of a website page.
A study by Nielsen Norman Group found that pop-ups are one of the most disliked types of advertising on both mobile and desktop platforms. However, they are instrumental. The news website Business2Community reported that pop-up forms deliver an average of 3 to 9% conversion rate, which can drastically add up if your site has 100+ visitors per day.
Even better, Popup Maker directly integrates with most of the common form plugins including Ninja Forms, Caldera Forms, and WP Forms.
Despite consumers’ tendency to dislike them, you can create pop-up forms that aren’t intrusive using the following tips.
Ask for Minimal Information
In a hectic digital age, users don’t want to provide you with more information than necessary. Besides, they may not even be able to focus for long enough to provide you with beneficial information.
Indeed, a 2015 study performed by Microsoft reported that humans, mainly due to enhanced digital lifestyles, have an average attention span of around 8 seconds. With this short window in mind, you need a foolproof way to get users to stick around on your website and provide you with information you can use to pursue a sale.
Create your lead generation pop-up form so that it has a minimal number of fields. Users want something quick to fill out so they can move on with their day. If you infect your pop-up form with unnecessary inquiry fields, visitors will be more likely to click off out of frustration or disinterest.
With this in mind, you must evaluate what information is relevant for you to obtain. Don’t neglect any essential fields. If you end up collecting a good portion of visitors’ data, you may be missing out on a vital piece of information. Before making your pop-up form go live, ensure that it has every relevant field that you need to maximize your marketing efforts.
For Consideration: On your search for just the right amount of information, we recommend you avoid being smug in your final call-to-action (CTA). Don’t incorporate phrases like “No, thanks; I’m not interested in improving my fashion game.”
Some companies use this strategy to develop their unique brand voice. However, this strategy can harm a company’s image according to Joanna Wiebe’s criticisms of Bounce Exchange, which is the business that pioneered these kinds of passive-aggressive slogans.
Decide on the Right Color
The visual appeal of your pop-up form plays a significant role in the conversion rate. No one color will invite users to complete your form over another one. However, you can evaluate your specific site and incorporate colors that work best for your brand.
For example, some companies opt for a blue CTA button because of its universal appeal. This appeal is because hyperlinks are blue, so users associate that color with something clickable. By incorporating blue CTA buttons on your pop-up forms, you will have an edge up on enticing new visitors.
However, you don’t need to use a blue CTA button to achieve a high conversion rate. Whatever color you pick, aim for high contrast between the background color and the button color. This contrast allows for increased visibility, which is essential for capturing and maintaining a visitor’s attention.
One effective way to increase the visibility of your CTA button is to utilize the color wheel. After a quick overview of a standard color wheel, you can see that orange is blue’s complementary color. So, you can have a primarily blue website page with a vibrant orange CTA button. This stark contrast is visually appealing and attention-capturing. Check out how well it works for Trello on a standard pop-up ad:
Your pop-up forms and corresponding CTAs should fit with the theme of your site so that they don’t appear as spam. However, these features should still stand out enough to grab a visitor’s attention. This delicate balance can be challenging to achieve but should be manageable with some experimentation.
Feature the Right Font
Similar to its color, your pop-up form’s font should both stand out from and align with your website’s theme. Make it easy to read so that customers don’t get frustrated. You don’t want to deter a potential customer with an illegible font.
Some of the most universally easy-to-read fonts are Georgia, PT Sans, PT Serif, and Verdana. You don’t have to feel confined to these fonts, but be sure the ones you do pick are legible.
Differentiating Between Legible and Readable
The terms legible and readable often seem interchangeable. However, while this may be acceptable in everyday conversation, you must make the distinction when it comes to creating a compelling pop-up form.
Legibility describes how easy it is to read the font. On the other hand, readability deals with the formatting of the text on the page.
Sjo.com recommends maintaining a line-height of around 150%. This ratio ensures your text isn’t too smudged together or widely spaced. When making your pop-out form more readable, some other factors to consider include:
- Characters per line
- Inclusion of bullet points
- Headlines
- Compatibility with mobile devices
You don’t want to overwhelm your readers with an unorganized chunk of text that’s difficult to read. On the other hand, now isn’t the time to be overly clever. Make your pop-up form straightforward and easy-to-read. Don’t leave your visitors wondering what you mean or what you’re offering.
When measuring for readability, remember this point: make your pop-up form easy to read, and consequently, fill out so that you can get the vital information from the user.
Make Pop-Up Forms Relevant to Each Customer
If the customer gets to your page by clicking on an ad, the pop-up form they see should relate to the ad they saw. This consistency will ensure that they see relevant content rather than some cookie-cutter pop-up form.
Don’t try to compose a one-size-fits-all pop-up form. There isn’t such a thing. Instead, mix up your pop-up form’s style and message.
A company like Convertica offers user behavior services so that you don’t have to track and collect visitors’ data yourself. When you recruit a professional service, you can create highly-customized pop-up forms for all of your visitors’ different personas with no data collection on your part.
Time the Pop-Up Form
Timing is everything. You have to catch your visitors at the right time. If you’re too early, you may risk annoying your visitor and cause them to leave before they learn about your company. On the other hand, you don’t want to be too late when trying to get a visitor to opt-in.
Different industries can benefit from different timings of pop-up forms depending on their users’ bounce rates.
With these figures in mind, you can determine the best course of action for your company’s website. Because landing pages have a high bounce rate, you may want to try to capture users’ attention with an instant pop-up form. On the other hand, visitors to industries of typically low bounce rate may not need an immediate pop-up form to stick around.
Instant Pop-Ups
Some websites utilize instant pop-ups. These forms load automatically once the user’s page loads. They can be useful in some industries, but users often view the forms as distracting and invasive.
If you want to avoid distressing your visitors, avoid using instant pop-up forms in most cases. Give them some time to browse your website first. Then, you can introduce one of the other types of pop-up forms later.
Timed Pop-Ups
Timed pop-ups show after the user has had the chance to browse your site. These timed pop-ups can occur when a visitor:
- Scrolls to a certain point (using our Scroll Trigger extension!)
- Hovers over a particular icon
- Clicks on a specific link within your site
- Spends a predetermined amount of time on your page
You can customize your pop-up forms, so they show up exactly when you want them.
Exit Pop-Ups
If you’re worried about being intrusive, exit pop-ups may be the way to go. These pop-up forms show up when a user makes their way to exit your page.
These forms can capture the attention of someone who didn’t take the time to look over your page thoroughly. Because they don’t interrupt someone’s browsing activity, they are less intrusive than other types of pop-up forms.
Looking to add an exit pop-up using Popup Maker? Check out our Exit Intent extension!
Testing Your Forms
Even if you’ve followed every guideline we have offered, the pop-up form you have created may not be useful for your particular industry or audience base.
Consider bounce rates and the average amount of time users spend on each page to determine the right timing of your pop-up form. Conduct surveys to determine whether your pop-up form is visually appealing enough and stands out from the rest of your website. All request services like A/B testing from companies like Convertica to determine which forms produce the highest conversions.
Though pop-up forms get a bad rap, you shouldn’t neglect them. By following these guidelines, you can create something of value to both your customers and your business.
by Ahoy
