9 Critical Questions for Building Lead Capture Forms
With everything we try in marketing our services, we do it with the goal of ensuring we’re speaking to our ideal clients and making it clear who the offer is for. This way, we’ll have as many qualified leads as possible that fill out our lead capture form. But something that often goes unchecked or doesn’t have much strategy put into it is what information you’re actually asking for on the form. If you want to repel unqualified leads while also making sure you’re gathering all of the information you need to make that initial “possible fit” decision, then this is definitely something you should put thought towards.
In this post we’ll be covering 9 critical questions that we recommend service providers include in your lead capture form! (These are questions aside from the usual spaces to collect contact information.)
1. Services Interested In
It’s great to already have an idea of what particular services someone is interested in if this applies to how your offering is set up. You can make this multiple choice, checkboxes, or a dropdown menu depending on how many services there are to choose from. We have lots of available service options, for example, so our waitlist form uses checkboxes so that leads can select more than one option. We also recommend including space for an “Other” service just in case.
2. Budget
This is likely one of the most important questions to ask. Not only does it serve to give you an idea of what a client may be willing to pay (though we consider everything negotiable until we actually have that conversation), but it also helps to both repel unqualified leads and give leads an idea of what they could be spending to work with you. Always make this a selection question and not free response! Otherwise, the repelling factor of this question is moot. If you know that you want leads with a specific minimum in their budget, then that should be the lowest option that’s available to select.
Depending on if you offer both retainer services and one-time projects, another tip we’ve found success with is including what price point retainers or projects start from. You can see what we mean on our waitlist here.
3. Project Goals
You may want to include a longer free response box to allow leads to express what their goals would be from the project. Allow them to share what their ideal solution would be working with you (after all, that’s basically what project goals are). While you can have this conversation during their discovery call, many people appreciate having the time to think through the question. In turn, you as the service provider will appreciate it as well because you’ll have a more thoughtful and concise response, plus it’s something you can still chat about on the call later.
4. Ideal Start Date
Depending on what industry you’re in, you may want to ask what the lead’s ideal project start date would be. This way you’ll know before hopping on a call with them whether or not you’re even able to book them for that specific timeline. In your follow-up communication, you can share what a more possible timeline or start date would be or, if need be, you can refer them out to another service provider in your network with that availability.
5. Biggest Pain Point
Again, this is something you could discuss on the call, but we love to encourage thoughtful responses. Asking them their biggest pain point will allow you to understand a bit better what the challenges are they’re facing. It’ll also give you an idea on what ways you can step in to help, plus allow you to figure out how the discovery call should flow to position yourself to solve those specific challenges for them.
6. Project Location
Of course, if you work in person with clients or travel, you’ll need to know where the project will be located. Aside from knowing if this is even a client you’re able to take on based on their region, you’ll also be able to anticipate travel fees and other costs associated with the project.
7. Project Source
For your records, we always recommend asking how the lead heard about you, a.k.a. the project source. If they came from a referral, be sure to include a field for them to type the name of the person who referred them. Knowing where leads are coming from will help you identify your most fruitful lead source and pour more effort into those channels instead of focusing your marketing efforts on strategies that aren’t producing any results.
8. Experience with Another Service Provider
It can be helpful to have an idea of what type of experience a potential client has working with another service provider in the industry. It may be a good idea to ask– if you aren’t the first person they’ve worked with to seek the results they’re looking for, you’ll typically be able to get a feeling for what the issue was. Read: You’ll be able to spot the potential disaster or nightmare clients! That said, unless you have a strong negative gut feeling towards their response or it’s obvious that this isn’t the type of client you’d like to work with, still hop on a call with them to poke around and see what’s up.
9. Industry-Specific Questions
Now you’ve come to your industry-specific questions that are all based on the particular services you offer. Most of the time, these can wait to be sent in a project questionnaire after the lead has already been converted, has signed the contract, and paid. However, there are likely some questions you must know (or that would be nice to know) before hopping on a call with them. For example, brand designers may want to know where the client finds inspiration. Product photographers may want to get an idea for similar company product photos that the client likes. Only you know what industry-specific information you’ll need from the jump.
