You Need to Remove ‘Contact Us’ from Your Page. Here’s Why…
Book an Appointment: the new Form Fill
There are many benefits to using a web form to capture contact information. After all, the point of having a web site is to get customers to contact you to buy your product or offering.
When someone has an interest or a question about your business, you want them to be able to get in touch with you as easily as possible. You would expect the ‘Contact Us’ link at the top of your page is performing very well. Chances are it is not.
At ActiveDEMAND we were curious about our own website’s ‘Contact Us’ link. We pulled the data, and realized the conversion rate was quite low.
An Experiment
Recently we added an integrated appointment scheduler to the ActiveDEMAND platform. This gives our potential customers the opportunity to book time with us to answer any questions they may have. For one hour segments, they have our undivided attention. And similar to a web form, we collect their contact data when they book their appointment.
So we decided to relegate the ‘Contact Us’ link to the page footer, and change the menu call-to-action to ‘Book a Demo’. The conversion rate of the appointment scheduler verses the static web form was remarkable with a 533% increase for the appointment scheduler. And it surprised us. So why was there such a big difference?
We surmised prospects may have become jaded towards the generic ‘Contact Us’ web form. The expectation is low to receive a useful or timely follow up. Whereas booking an appointment implies a level of commitment on the vendor’s part. We found that prospects were much more responsive to picking a specific time to talk about the product rather than just fill out a form to ask a question.
Can the Results Be Duplicated?
We wondered if the same thinking could be applied to increase conversion rates on other campaigns. The results again surprised us. Using ActiveDEMAND’s landing page split testing functionality, we tested web forms vs. appointment scheduling on two different Google AdWords PPC campaigns. One campaign offered Call Tracking Software, the other promoted the Landing Page Builder Features. Both campaigns used a split-testing call to action page that either displayed a standard web form or an appointment booking calendar. This is what we saw…
With the Call Tracking campaign, there was no major difference in conversions between conversions on the form fill and conversions on the appointment scheduler. However, with the Landing Page Builder, the appointment calendar version was far and away the winner with a conversion rate increase of 60% over a 6-week period.
Again, We Asked Ourselves Why?
The difference lies in the complexity of the final offering. Call Tracking software is fairly straightforward and doesn’t require an immediate financial commitment, so prospects are fairly comfortable with signing up for an account trial. Landing Page Building software can have a higher level of complexity and must accommodate each customer’s specific needs. Registering for the demo gives prospects the opportunity to ask: Can I build fully responsive pages? Are there templates? What do they look like? Can I add them to my WordPress site? Prospects looking to purchase a product or solution welcome a committed, convenient way to get those questions answered. Setting up a one-on-one meeting promises answers to questions in a way a generic web form cannot.
The bottom line is adding the ability for your potential customers to schedule an appointment with online appointment scheduling software is beneficial for everyone involved. They receive the opportunity to have an in-depth discussion and have all their questions answered. You gain access to a strong lead.
Depending on the complexity of your offering or the trust level of your prospects, the impact to your conversion rate with an appointment booking option may be significant.
Try the higher converting appointment scheduler calendar on your website in your own experiment. You may discover it’s a better ‘Contact Us’ call-to-action than ‘Contact Us’ ever was.
