Capture Contacts with Hubspot Forms
This guide shares what’s worked for me when “capturing” interest from website visitors via Hubspot forms. An approach like this results in a structured way to collect information and kicks off the inbound process on a great note.
Why contact capture based on form submission type is important
In my experience, when someone submits a form on a website, they have a specific goal and expectations mind. They want to request a demo, talk to customer support, download a piece of content, attend a webinar, etc. Business are able to best help contacts when when the information they’re asking for aligns with the goals of the person submitting the form.
What are the costs of not getting the information capture process right?
The effects of a bad lead capture setup damage businesses in subtle, but significant ways. This is similar to any situation where information is not organized and not exchanged across teams well, including:
Longer time spent selling. More questions need to be asked and additional meetings are required. Selling drags on when you don’t have relevant information upfront.
Internal strife between sales and marketing. If the two teams don’t agree on what information is important to capture per conversion type, it’s a recipe for long-drawn out sales conversations and watered down nurturing.
Frustrated buyers and existing customers. No one wants to explain the same thing multiple times to different people because information wasn’t passed along. It’s the same thing as going into a store ready to make a large purchase and the first person you talk to for 10 minutes goes to get another person, who ends up having no clue what you told the first person. This makes me want to do literally anything else except buy something from the people treating me like this.
An optimized lead capture setup is easy to set up and everyone involved should instantly see an improvement. I personally think it’s remarkable when businesses are able to reference the information you shared with them over time, precisely because so many businesses aren’t great at sharing and referencing important information.
What about routing and assignment?
This guide does not touch on the second half of the equation, which is contact routing and assignment. I’ve personally seen mediocre setups drain businesses of millions in would-be revenue each year. All because they regularly ignore inquiries that never make it to a sales or customer support team. This is all resolved by first setting up a solid contact capture process, and then building out the routing and assignment workflows.
1. Remove irrelevant forms and label the rest with a type
Get down to as few forms as possible. Then, organize them.
Here’s the process that’s worked for me when paring down forms.
1.1 - Export all forms. I like exporting the forms and using the resulting spreadsheet to determine what will be removed and what will be kept. This pushes the actual form updates until the last step, but results in better decision making.
1.2 - Prep the spreadsheet. Add two additional columns, one called “Next Step” and the other “Conversion Type”.
1.3 - Plan to remove forms that are obviously unused. Order the rows by number of submissions. Are there any that have zero views and zero submissions? They can likely be removed. Write “Keep” or “Remove” in the Next Step column.
To archive or delete? - You can delete or archive forms. If you need to archive, I would remove all fields, put something like “[ARCHIVED]” in front of their name, and place them in an “Archived Forms” folder. My preference is generally to delete unless there are reporting needs that force me to archive.
1.4 - Assign a purpose to the forms you’re keeping. Examples include a demo request form, a content download form, a support form, and a newsletter subscription form. They’ll help determine the right information to ask for because they assigning a purpose to each form. Add this information to the Conversion Type column.
1.5 - Plan to merge duplicate conversion types. If you have multiple demo forms, can you choose one to be your one demo form and remove the rest? Write “Merge with line [x]” in the Next Steps column for these.
1.6 - Edit website pages by replacing the “duplicate” forms with the unique form. Once the canonical or master form per conversion type is identified, put that form on all relevant pages. For example, if you had three different demo request forms, you’d choose one to be the master and remove the other two from all the pages they live on.
1.7 - Delete or archive the phased out forms. Reference the “Next Step” column as you go through.
1.8 - Create and add a hidden property to the final forms called “Recent Conversion Type”. This should be a dropdown with a value for each conversion type. It will get stamped when the contact submits the form. It will be helpful for lead routing and assignment.
This section was all about reducing the number of forms that exist in the forms tool. Most teams I’ve seen end up with around five forms, each with its own conversion type. If there’s more than ten forms, that’s probably too many.
It’s important to become comfortable with having the same form existing on multiple pages and using page filters to refine reporting. In my opinion, this is a clear improvement over having excessive amounts of forms.
At this point, you’d be left with about five forms, each with their own unique purpose.
2. Choose the fields that live on each form
Determine which fields are important per conversion type.
Here a way I’ve been successful at setting up the actual information that is asked of website visitors.
2.1 - Create a new tab to list out the form fields per conversion types. I like to use the same spreadsheet from the previous step and create a new tab. This creates a workbook and keeps all information separate, but in one place. Add a column for “Team” and columns for “Property 1” - “Property 5”.
2.2 - Fill in what you can on your own. Eventually, it’ll be necessary to talk to others. But it’s possible to get this started with the “Team” column and some of the “Property” columns.
Team column - This answers the question of “which team is this form most relevant to?” Examples include the Demo Request form belonging to Sales, the Support form belonging to Customer Success, and the Newsletter form belonging to Marketing.
Property columns - I like to take inspiration from existing forms, since there are usually reasons why teams have historically asked for information. This usually gives the specific teams enough of a prompt to go off of.
2.3 - Collaborate with Sales and Customer Support to finalize the properties. I’ve found it useful to ask teams “what information is helpful when responding to demo requests / support requests?” Then, work with them to fill in the property columns in the sheet. Some tips:
I tend to start with team leadership and then move to front line reps. Both provide valuable viewpoints.
The more fields on a form, the more work it becomes to fill it out, which means less inquiries. This is something that’s good to remind everyone as they reflect on what’s most important.
Too few form fields means unqualified contacts. If only asking for an email, there’s more of a risk of low quality demo requests and painful support troubleshooting tickets.
Go for a best guess now and update later. It’s unlikely this will be perfect from the get go. Giving everyone the flexibility by checking in a month from now tends to result in a better collaboration.
3. Update the form fields
Once the spreadsheet is agreed upon, use the forms tool and update the forms.
3.1 - Update the fields on each form. Open the forms tool, go into a form that needs updates, and reference the spreadsheet while you make the updates. Move on to the next until they’re all complete.
Dependent form fields - You may want to experiment with dependent form fields that ask for relevant information based on the previous form field response. A classic example of this is asking what country someone lives in, and then displaying only the states and/or regions in that country. Alternatively, in a support form, you could change the type of questions you ask based on the help someone is requesting.
3.2 - Share links with the teams. Giving Sales and Customer Support the page URLs will let them feel what it’s like to fill out this form as a prospect or customer. They’ll offer better recommendations as a result. Make minor adjustments based on any feedback that comes from this.
Takeaways on the contact capture process
Start with a spreadsheet export of all forms. Document what will be changed before making updates. This tends to allow for better collaboration and improved relationships across teams.
Remove irrelevant forms. I like to have a goal of five or less forms. They will exist on multiple pages and submissions can be filtered using the lists tool.
Assign a unique conversion type to each form. This specifies the form’s purpose and gives clarity around which team owns or is responsible for which form submissions. Demo Requests = Sales. Support Requests = Customer Support. Newsletter Subscription = Marketing.
Collaborate across teams to finalize decisions. Have working sessions where the goal is to fill in the spreadsheet. I’ve seen this result in more confident decisions, improved working relationships, and less of a need for ongoing troubleshooting.
Make the updates in the forms tool. This should be the easiest step, as all of the hard work was already completed in the spreadsheet.
