The Truth About Contact Forms for B2Bs

None of what I’m about to say applies to B2Cs.

Most managers and executives have the expectation that if they only had the right offer, best contact page, easiest to fill out form, or a better marketing person/dept. website visitors would be filling out contact forms faster than they could process them.

The truth is, people (even people that are very interested in what you have to offer), don’t fill out contact forms for so many reasons, including:

1. It’s a waste of time; it’s highly unlikely that anyone will respond or respond within an acceptable timeframe.

2. The contact information will be added to an email list (which is probably true) or even sold.

3. The contact form seems like a commitment that they just aren’t willing to make until they know a little more about the product/service and available options

Look at it this way; once someone fills out a contact form, they lose some control over the buying/decision making process. From their perspective, they’d be better off continuing to research online until they are almost ready to buy. When they are, they won’t fill out a contact form; they will call or if they have contact info for a specific sales person, send an email.

This applies to almost all B2B products/services, but especially to higher end versions. So the more your offering costs, the fewer people will fill out the contact form.

If you are in marketing, you can stop banging your head against the wall now—there is almost nothing you can do to get more people to fill out the form. Better instead to spend your precious time trying to identify website visitors that are good leads. There are excellent tools, that if leveraged correctly, will accomplish this—imperfectly, but good enough to deliver leads to sales.