Almost all marketing activities lead to conversion as one of its primary objectives. Even when doing brand marketing, you are essentially building the brand’s credibility and equity so that customers are more likely to make purchases and use your products.
Conversion, however, is often easier said than done. Aside from a strong call to action, you need to make sure that this part of the journey is as pleasant as possible. This means optimizing forms for conversion (checkout form or opt-in form, depending on your objective).
There are several mistakes that can harm your conversion rate. In this article, we are going to focus on 4 mistakes that you can avoid immediately.
Table of Contents
Too Many Steps
Using a checkout form as an example, one of the things you want to avoid is adding too many steps to the process. Ideally, you want the checkout phase to be no longer than a couple of steps. Adding too many steps is a surefire way to lose customers.
The same principle applies to other forms designed for conversion. As tempting as it may be to add as many steps and get more data from users, the best way to go is simplifying the process and making sure that users can complete the process quickly.
Sensitive Details
Next, you want to avoid asking for sensitive personal information, especially when they are not absolutely necessary. For instance, you want to avoid asking for details such as a person’s Social Security Number and mother’s maiden name.
A Social Security Number may seem essential for identity verification, but you can improve the customer experience by switching to better identity verification. Cognito is one such solution, offering identity verification without requiring SSN.
Cognito can be integrated into any process that requires identity verification. It is also suitable for compliance, so you can use Cognito to comply with security regulations. This article about identity verification without SSN will help you learn more.
Large Uploads
It is not uncommon for forms, including checkout forms, to allow for uploads. You can ask customers to upload a photo and scan documents or other materials as a part of the process. However, you want to avoid uploads from becoming the bottleneck.
If you do want to ask customers to upload files, make sure the server is fast enough to support quick uploads, and that the user interface presents an upload progress bar clearly. These simple elements will keep users waiting for the upload to complete.
Permissions
Last but not least, watch the permissions you ask for through the Terms and Conditions. While not many users read the Terms and Conditions thoroughly, asking for access to too many things (i.e. smartphone location data) is still not the way to go.
You want to keep your Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy clear and easy to understand. Make sure users can understand what to expect when they complete the form too.
Avoid these mistakes and you can take your conversion rate to a higher level. The more you pay attention to the details, the more you will find ways to optimize the entire conversion process for the better.