Take a look at your HubSpot account (or whatever CRM system you use to capture leads). How many lead generating forms do you have? If your forms page(s) looks anything like this (or worse), there's a better, more organized way to live:
Most of the companies I've worked with have gotten wrapped up in the same exact trap - they make a form for literally everything. Having a webinar? Create a new form. Going to a trade show? Create a new form! What if someone isn't ready to request a demo but only wants some information? Create. A. New. Form.
At first, it seems like a great way to stay organized. You can easily run reports and create lists from your forms. But after a couple of months, and especially after a couple years, you are drowning in forms that become difficult to manage as your business grows, or as you decide to update, merge, or completely change fields. Have you ever tried merging two company's HubSpot instances into one after an acquisition? I have, and it's not fun when you're working with hundreds of forms, templates, files, lists, landing pages, website pages, etc.
Of course you will still have forms outside of lead generating forms, such as support forms, partner forms, referral forms, etc. But keeping your HubSpot instance squeaky clean from the start can prevent you from spending thousands of dollars having someone clean it up for you - or can save you thousands of hours of rummaging around trying to find what you need.
Let's talk about everyone's favorite form, the Bottom Funnel (or BOFU, meaning "Bottom of the Funnel") Form, which is the one you would use on any landing page that features bottom of the funnel content. Seems pretty self explanatory, but what exactly is BOFU content?
Simply put, BOFU content is created to convert your customers. People who fill out this form are past the awareness and evaluation stage. They are ready to make a purchase, and it is at this point that the lead should be handed off to your sales team. This is also the form that should be on the LEAST amount of your landing pages, because there are the least amount of content opportunities or offers at the bottom of the funnel. The amount of fields on your forms should always be equivalent to the offer you are providing, which is why BOFU forms should be your longest forms. But remember, the more fields you add to your forms, the less likely your prospects will fill them out. You shouldn't use forms to thoroughly qualify a lead, especially when an easy Google search will give you some of the information you need. A CRM like HubSpot will automatically track things like IP address, lead source, company size, etc, so that is also information that you don't need to have on your forms.
Unfortunately, in my experience, I see marketers trying to drive leads down the funnel by using BOFU forms when they are offering things as simple as a checklist, webinar, e-book, or even a simple contact form. A good rule of thumb when matching up a form to your offer is to honestly ask yourself, "would I give my own information for this?" If the answer is no, then you're using the wrong form.
The form that should be found the most on your website is the middle funnel form, or MOFU (meaning middle of the funnel - noticing a pattern here?). MOFU content should be designed to educate prospects who are already aware they have a need and are in the process of evaluating solutions.
These forms are not meant to convert your customers, and depending on your sales process, should not be sent to sales. I know I've fallen victim to filling out a form for an educational e-book and then getting an immediate follow-up call from that company's sales team asking if I wanted to buy a product that was completely unrelated to the e-book I had just downloaded. Prospects downloading middle funnel content are not yet ready to buy and have not raised their hand to talk to sales. This is also definitely not the stage in the funnel where you want to gather all the information you can from them, and so your MOFU forms should be short and be an equivalent trade for your offer.
By not requiring a last name or phone number, prospects are way more likely to fill out this form, and that is exactly what you want at the MOFU stage - to educate your potential prospects on how your company (or companies like yours) can solve a specific problem they already know they have. You may not have collected their phone number, but that's ok because they aren't yet in a stage where sales should be reaching out. You don't need to know their last name or their company just yet, because again, they are not in the purchasing stage. If you do send MOFU leads to sales, it can not only cause a bad experience for the prospect, but it can contribute to the sales and marketing blame game, where sales blames marketing for giving them unqualified leads.
If you are worried that your prospect will give you a bogus email on this form, you can always send an automated email with the content instead of having them download it on the thank you page. Those who give you a bogus email will not be able to receive the content. But be aware that the reason behind why people fill out these types of forms with fake emails is because they don't want to be bombarded with emails every day - so keep that in mind in your overall marketing strategy.
Your top funnel forms, or TOFU (top of the funnel) forms, should bring awareness to a problem or problems that your potential prospects are facing and can also be used to bring awareness to your company in general. Your TOFU forms should be used sparingly, and you should consider keeping your top funnel content ungated completely.
Your TOFU content is your prospects first impression of you, and they should not have to jump through hoops or exchange information to access this content. Make it easy to find on your website, ensure your keyword targeting strategy on for this content is focused on high-volume keywords, and make it general and not product-specific.
At the top funnel stage, you don't need to know anything about your prospect. You don't even need to know their name. The only time you should even use a form at this stage is really to sign someone up for your newsletter. Top funnel content should be easily accessible to anyone and everyone.
Now that you know which lead generating forms you need, what they should look like, and what content they should be used on, you can now use these same forms across all your lead generating landing pages. All of your bottom funnel content, including demo requests, free trials, consultation requests, etc, can use the same bottom funnel form. Same thing with your middle funnel forms and top funnel forms. This will make tracking leads in their different stages a breeze. If you need to make a change to one of your forms, you will only need to make a change on that one form instead of making the change on hundreds of the same types of forms.
If you still feel as though you need more forms than just the BOFU, MOFU, and TOFU forms, you should still group them into categories, such as:
You will be able to tailor these forms for your specific content, but depending on where that content, however it might be more difficult to figure out where your prospects are in the lead funnel. That's where marketers rely on tools like lead scoring, workflow automation, etc.
However you decide to organize your forms, streamlining your lead generating forms can be a game-changer for you creating efficiency and improving your customer experience. The approach of consolidating your forms into the Bottom Funnel, Middle Funnel, and Top Funnel categories is not just about organization, but also about aligning your forms with the right content and stage of the buyer's journey. By adopting this strategy, you ensure that you're not overwhelming prospects with unnecessary information requests and that you're providing value at every step. Remember, simplicity is key – fewer fields mean higher completion rates, especially when prospects are still in the early stages of engagement. And as you move forward, consider the power of uniformity: using the same form types across multiple landing pages, with a thoughtful grouping of variations, can lead to greater lead tracking accuracy and overall marketing success. So, embrace the efficiency, tailor your forms, and guide your leads through the funnel with precision and clarity. Your future self – and your marketing and sales teams – will thank you for it.