5 Ways 'Progressive Profiling' Will Improve Your Conversion Rates

Hey Dan Rather, what's with the 60 questions on your landing page forms?

I mean, whose idea was it to conduct a Barbara Walters style interview in order for your leads to receive an offer?

Alright...so while I may be exercising my hyperbolic muscle, the point still stands that many marketers and business owners may be asking too much information, too soon in order for a visitor to download and receive an offer.

But what choice do we really have? There's certain information you need in order to effectively qualify and nurture your leads, so what other solution is there than to ask these pertinent questions?

Progressive profiling.

What is it you ask? It's a new feature in the HubSpot software that enables you to ask specific questions of your leads at the precise time. Think of your forms as a three-tier process.

In the first tier of questions, you'd keep it quick and simple in order to generate more TOFU leads:

• First Name

• Last Name

• Email

The second time a lead comes back to download an offer, you can capture new, more personal information:

• Best Describes Me

• Company

• Number of Employees

Finally, if they download a third offer, they've certainly taken a serious interest in your company. Now you can ask:

• Website

• Phone Number

This greatly increases the likelihood of lead reconversions. Below I've detailed 5 reasons why.

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How Does Progressive Profiling Help?

1. Less Questions

For better or worse, our collective attention span as a society has decreased drastically. In a time where mobile phones, TiVo, and tablets make it much easier and quicker to digest content and information, your visitors simply have no interest or desire to fill out a lengthy landing page form.

Ask yourself, would you be more likely to convert on a form that asked 9 questions? Or 3 questions?

By asking less questions on the first form fill for your visitors, you'll greatly increase the volume of top-of-the-funnel leads (TOFU's) being fed into your sales funnel. This increases the opportunity for reconversions and lead nurturing, which in turn, increases the opportunity for more customers.

No brainer, right?

2. Less Personal for TOFU's

Keep in mind that most of your visitors who are downloading a form for the first time are top-of-the-funnel leads who are still researching and identifying their needs.

TOFU leads should be handled delicately, as asking too many questions right off the bat will most likely scare them away for good.

Don't be that guy who on the first date proposes marriage. I mean, that's an awkward situation for everyone.

3. Quicker

Back to #1, your prospects like to consume their information quickly.

After all, they have several outstanding Words With Friends notifications to handle, a FaceTime request, and 2 new emails.

The point? It's really easy to become distracted. So leave no time for that. By keeping your landing page forms lean, you'll ensure that you're not losing a potential prospect to the newest level of Temple Run.

4. Easier to Reconvert

People like easy.

If a lead only has to fill out 2-3 questions, wouldn't you say the likelihood of leads reconverting greatly increases rather than if they had to fill in the information and answer the questions all over again?

If a lead only has to fill out 2-3 questions, wouldn't you say the likelihood of leads reconverting greatly increases rather than if they had to fill in the information and answer the questions all over again?

See that? I just repeated myself, using the same sentence twice. How annoying is that? Well...that's how your leads feel.

5. Remembers Contact Information

Once a lead comes back to your website, the 3 questions they answered on the first form have already been captured  therefore it's stored and will not be asked again. You can even choose to have their email autofilled in the form, which conveys that you remember who they are. How cool is that?

In an age where websites like Amazon are killing it with personalization, it's time we all started remembering a little bit more about our prospects.