Whether you’re utilizing some kind of link bait to drive email signups or campaigning for large scale initiatives, always make sure that what you’re requesting of the user aligns with the benefit being offered. As an extreme example, requiring users’ Social Security numbers might be completely acceptable for a college application. The benefit of obtaining a college degree outweighs any risk of providing personally identifiable information. On the other hand, if you were to require Social Security numbers in return for a flimsy pdf download, then you’d likely have a lot of trouble obtaining leads! But, it may not always be this obvious. Even more common fields, such as a phone number or street address, could have the potential to negatively effect your form completion rates, depending on the benefit being offered. Take a look not only at your form fields, but at any hoops your users are being required to jump through in order to get to what they’re looking for.
Provide incentive to sign up
Users rarely sign up for things just to sign up. They sign up in order to benefit in some way. Provide your users with some incentive to fill out your lead forms. Incentive can take the form of an informative email newsletter, a free trial, free guide, download or other type of link bait. Give your visitors something in return for their information. Make it clear to the user how they will benefit by signing up.