If you’re running a business, you know that generating leads is one of your main priorities. But leads aren’t going to become customers without the opportunity to learn more about your business and what you have to offer. Your company has to start a conversation and share relevant, helpful information with leads before prospects convert into customers.
The only way to start developing a relationship with your leads—so you can nurture them through your sales funnel and turn them into paying customers—is by first capturing their information. From there, you can evaluate and qualify leads before beginning your outreach efforts. So how do you start this process? By creating an effective lead capture page for your business that’s set up to gather leads without additional effort on your part.
What Are Lead Capture Pages?
A lead capture page is a website or landing page with one purpose: to collect information from your visitors. Prospective customers will land on this page by clicking through a marketing campaign, social media post, or from other pages of your website. Visitors are then asked to share their information by filling out a sign-up form.
Visitors will happily offer their information when they’re getting something valuable from it, which is why businesses use lead magnets—like ebooks and webinars or a percentage off a purchase—to attract leads. Once they reach your lead capture page, they’ll be asked to fill out a form to receive their reward.
How To Build a Lead Capture Page
Building a lead capture page isn’t difficult—as long as you know which elements to include. Following this step-by-step guide will have you up and running, fast.
The Ask
Before you decide what form fields to use, you first need to determine your goals for the page. You’ll want to start by asking for their name and email address. Beyond that, it’s up to your discretion and lead generation goals. Other common asks include phone numbers, birthdays, and customer preferences.
The Give
To capture leads, you want to develop an irresistible offer—a lead magnet. When it comes to your lead capture page offer, you can go in any direction as long as it’s relevant to your business. Traditional rewards, like newsletter sign-ups, are still effective, as is offering discounts to new and returning customers. Or you can get more creative, offering quizzes or downloadable ebooks to help your leads learn more about their own preferences and your products or services.
The Position
Visitors come to your lead capture page because they’re interested in your offer, so place it where they can see it immediately. That means putting your most important information front and center, with the lead capture form fields to the side or below it.
The CTA
Every lead capture page needs a call-to-action (CTA) directing users on what to do next—in this case, submitting the form they just filled out. The CTA button is placed directly under the last form field so users can’t miss it.
The Copy
Your lead capture page copy should be short and get straight to the point. You’ll need a headline that grabs visitors’ attention and copy that details key information, such as what they’ll receive for their information.
The Legal Stuff
All businesses, regardless of their industry, have to include a privacy policy on their lead capture page to comply with regulations. This isn’t an element you want to forget about.
7 Best Practices For Lead Capture Pages
If you want to gain a competitive edge with your lead capture page, it’s not enough to just understand its elements. To truly optimize your page, you need to follow the best practices we’ve outlined below.
Choose the Right Position on Your Landing Page
The placement of your lead capture form can make or break your efforts. Placing it above the fold, so visitors don’t have to scroll to see it, is ideal. Also, consider positioning it on the side or near the header of your page. And, if your landing page is on the longer side, consider placing a form in the middle and at the bottom of it.
Determine the Right Length for Your Lead-capture Form
Your lead capture form can be as short as a headline and a few form fields or a longer page visitors have to scroll through. The length and number of form fields are completely up to you, but they should align with your lead generation goals. If you’re looking for more qualified leads, a longer page with more form fields is beneficial, while shorter pages and fewer fields are ideal for capturing more leads overall.
Choose Relevant Form Fields
Your form fields need to be relevant to your business and help you segment and track leads. Start by asking yourself what information your business needs most. After all, a doctor’s office wouldn’t want to use the same fields a car dealership does. Form fields, like name and email address, are standard.
Include Your Privacy Policy
Companies can’t collect information without the users’ consent, which includes acknowledgment of your privacy policy so they know how you intend to use their data. While you can’t fit your entire privacy policy on your lead capture page, you do need to link to it from your form.
Change the Text in Your Submission Button
Skipping boring CTAs like “Subscribe” and “Submit” and going with stronger, more personalized terms helps get people’s attention. CTAs that are direct and use first-person language tend to convert better, such as “Give Me My Discount” or “I Want in The Club.”
A/B Test Your Lead-capture Form
Your work isn’t done once you’ve created a lead capture page. Running A/B tests on your page’s headline, CTA, number of form fields, and other design elements helps you optimize your page. You’ll want to test each component separately for the best results.
Automatically Email Visitors After They Submit Your Form
Many lead capture page software and tools offer autoresponders, so your leads will automatically receive your offer in their inbox. This is a great way to start engaging and building loyalty with your leads.
Lead Capture Pages Creators
Fortunately, there are lead capture page creators available, so you don’t have to start your page from scratch. To make it easier to find the right tool, we’ve compared the key features and costs of the top choices available.
Podium
Podium’s AI Employee offers lead capture and much more. This all-in-one AI tool not only gathers lead information from across your website, social media channels, and third-party sites (like Angi and CarGurus), but also immediately starts meaningful conversations with your leads.
It manages leads by sending relevant, personalized information about your products or services to them, using automation to nurture leads through your sales funnel based on your specific goals. Podium’s AI Employee is available as an add-on to any of Podium’s plans, and you can contact sales for pricing information.
Landingi
Landingi offers ready-to-use templates with a drag-and-drop editor for tech-adverse users and includes an HTML builder as well. Other features include A/B testing, automations, and lead management. Pricing starts at $29/month after a 14-day free trial.
LeadPages
This lead page builder offers hundreds of mobile-friendly templates with no-code customizations, so you can easily create a unique form for your business. Other features include conversion guidance, helping you optimize page elements during the build. However, LeadPages doesn’t offer much customer support. Pricing starts at $49/month.
Unbounce
Unbounce has both a traditional drag-and-drop builder, which is what users use to select and customize templates, along with an AI-powered Smart Builder that builds your lead capture page based on your specific goals. Other features include A/B testing and hundreds of integrations. Unbounce has a 14-day free trial, and then pricing starts at $90/month.
HubSpot
If you’re looking for a lead capture page creator that integrates with customer relationship management (CRM) software, HubSpot is a great option. You can design, A/B test, and personalize landing pages based on your data. HubSpot does have a free plan, but you’ll need to upgrade to access every feature, which starts at $20/month.
Carrd
You don’t need any experience to get started building lead capture pages with Carrd. Its user-friendly interface lets you add images, copy, and form fields with a few clicks. You’ll pay $9/year to access its full set of features and templates.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is a good choice if you’re interested in building landing pages to help grow your business’s email list. Features like built-in Unsplash images and A/B testing help you make effective pages fast. The free option covers up to 300 contacts, and then pricing starts at $15/month.
Instapage, Inc.
As its name implies, you can create landing pages in minutes with their drag-and-drop builder. Instapage offers over 500 landing page layouts and is mobile responsive. Plus, its heatmap and A/B testing features let you see what’s working best. Pricing starts at $119/month after a 14-day free trial.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp’s landing page creator is located within their email marketing platform, making it simple to collect information and communicate with leads. However, Mailchimp doesn’t offer the most attractive templates compared to other tools, and it’s not worth getting if you’re already using a different email platform. Pricing starts at $20/month after a 30-day free trial.
Wix
Wix features a landing page creator and lead capture forms along with their website builder. Its no-code platform is beginner-friendly, and features like A/B testing and Google Analytics integration make it easy to optimize your page. Free plans are available, but you’ll have to pay for a premium plan to remove Wix’s branding, which starts at $17/month.
If you’re ready to upgrade your lead generation and management, check out Podium’s AI Employee. It not only captures more leads from visitors around the web, it automates lead management and engagement through meaningful, personalized conversations. See how our AI Employee can help grow your business today.
