Progressive Profiling: How Can it Help You?

If you've been in the inbound marketing game for a while, then you know just how valuable having forms are.  After all, is there any other single most important tool out there for businesses and marketers to nab leads for lead nurturing?

As you may know, we at IMPACT are HubSpot Certified Gold Partners because we've seen first hand that their marketing tools add a lot of value to online marketing campaigns.  We've even dedicated one entire ebook called “The Essential Guide For Mastering HubSpot” that you can download now so that you can learn the ins and outs of HubSpot inbound marketing tools.  One of the tools that we really like that HubSpot recently implemented is their “Smart Forms” tool.

Thanks to this tool, no returning lead will ever have to enter in tedious, duplicate information ever again.  That's saving them time and increasing the likelihood of them filling out the form, while reducing the amount of redundant information in your database.

But now there's a new feature out there that we promise you will even generate more leads.  It's called “progressive profiling,” and it's the new way for marketers and business owners to create intuitive, dynamic, lead-friendly forms.

What's Progressive Profiling All About?

The term “progressive” comes from the fact that every time that same individual lead fills out the form, you are progressively gaining more information, or lead intelligence, on that one individual.  We're really excited about this new technology because it allows you even more customization when it comes to the types of forms fields and questions that you can include on a form at any given time.  You can designate which questions will appear on a form solely based on what you know about an individual lead.

When used correctly, progressive profiling will give you the ability to get the right type of information from your leads at the most appropriate times, thus reducing any friction and increasing the likelihood of that lead filling out that form.  Decreasing friction isn't the only benefit that comes with this new technology.  Progressive profiling also:

It Will Increase Your Conversion Rates

Yes, shorter forms really do mean higher conversion rates!  By utilizing this technology, you're able to keep your forms short and to the point without sacrificing any important and ever so valuable lead intelligence.

Will Increase Valuable Lead Intelligence

Speaking of lead intelligence, by having this type of technology integrated with your inbound marketing software, you're increasing the amount of valuable lead intelligence you’ll be able to gather over a period of time.  Better information means better segmentation which means better conversions.

It Will Save You Time

If you've checked out our ebook “The Immediate Solution For Lead Generation”, then you already know just how important it is to create a new form for every single landing page that you have that's tailored to that specific offer in the sales cycle.  Now imagine having intelligent software that can actually re-create that form for an individual lead every single time they come to your landing page, all without you having to do a single thing.

Forget having to spend tons of time creating brand new forms for every single landing page that you create.  When you have this type of automation technology synced up with you inbound marketing software, never again will you have to spend hours coming up with new forms, or worry about whether or not the right questions were asked at the right time for that specific lead.

How To Make The Most Out Of Progressive Profiling

Rather than cram every single question possible onto one form, you can start by looking at every single one of those questions or fields that you feel are important and assigning them to different levels of the sales cycle.  Once you have that, you can then assign different fields and questions to certain forms that will then be aligned to where that lead is in the sales funnel based on previous lead intelligence that your inbound marketing software has captured.

Here's one word of caution though that we must leave you with:  While keeping things to the point is important when creating your first forms, make sure that you're still asking the right questions that will give you the critical information that you'll need segment, contact, and then nurture that lead along the sales funnel.

Keeping it short and sweet is great, but make sure that it's kept short and sweet with the right questions (i.e. Name, email address, position within the company).Remember – the best things come in small packages, and when your lead is putting together their ‘package’ of information, make it easy on them – they’ll appreciate it, and you’ll have just what you need.