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How can I get more (real) phone numbers in my leads?

Remove all the required fields, consumers will either fill out the form with their real information or bs. Allow the consumer to decide, rather you trying to decide for them.


Elise has offered a lot of great information on the subject using video. And if you have the right team with the spirit to get into front of a camera for each and every lead, let's not deny the results that can be achieved. But at the same time lets consider some other options, knowing not everyone is going to be comfortable in front of the camera each and every day if at all for some.


It seems we've overlooked some other elements within our online and offline marketing that could potentially help with this.


Before a consumer is going to give up their phone number they need to feel comfortable with doing so. Are you using realestate with in your website / VDP to present yourself as a reputable place to do business? Does your website make the customer feel comfortable?


We often say people buy people, but we do little on our websites to showcase our people.


What about reviews. Are you showcasing your reviews on different pages within your website like your VDP or does a customer have to click on the "reviews tab" to find them?


Back to video - possible video intros of your sales team. Group photos of your sales and service team (in their better attire). How about a photo or video of people at the dealership having fun.


Are you building transparency with your pricing. Are you providing value reports (like PureCars) for your shoppers to help determine and support value.


Land on a page that says "you don't know me, but if you give me your information I might give you something in return. And by the way, though I don't need your phone number (because what your requesting can be sent via email), give it to me anyway."


Are you catching my drift?


What are you doing on your website to help build transparency?
What are you doing on your website to help build value in your product and brand?
What are you doing on your website to help humanize your dealership?
What are you doing on your website to help build trust?


Will this speak to everyone? Nope.


But ask yourself - if you were in the market for a high ticket item and the companies website had all the elements to help you build confidence in their company, people, and product, would you potentially be more willing to give if your real phone number?


I would.
 
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@Jeff, You are spot on in reference to removing required fields. About 6 months ago we revisited the forms on our own sales site and removed required fields, but we didn't remove the fields themselves. The results we astounding. The number of leads went up significantly, but surprisingly the percentage number of valid contact numbers didn't change. I'm sure all of us have filled out a form clicked save, only to be bounced right back to the page warning us that we had left out a required field. I personally have left sites irritated after 2 passes at trying to complete a simple form. That is why we even discourage required fields in our CRM tool. Required fields lead to bad data. Don't believe me, just try to send an email to all the customers from your DMS account a month after you implemented a required email address.
 
I'm curious if anyone has tried reducing the number of fields in addition to making them optional?

Neil Patel mentions reducing the number of fields to increase conversions (see #5 halfway down the page)
and making fields with an "optional" mask instead of marking fields required (see #4-ii)

How about having only the first name and email fields to simply start the conversation?

And in terms of the number of CTAs, Russell Brunson has some A/B testing stats in his book "108 Split Test Winners", and shows that less CTAs can increase conversions by 20%.

It seems like forms like this are the best way to REDUCE conversions:

upload_2017-7-4_14-38-29.png
Thoughts?
 
Ben, you are correct in saying "forms like this reduce conversion". In a form like this, we have a high expectation that the user is going to give us both email and phone number. That alone reduces conversion dramatically. Let me throw an idea out there.. What if the website built a funnel for the user and over time collect their information instead of asking for everything all at once? In other words, Ask for a first name here and then later on ask for a phone number. You would have to do it in a way to where its almost not noticeable that your trying to pressure them. This logic also allows us to track conversion, customize their experience to them personally and have a higher conversion rate.

*p.s im currently working on improving dealer mobile websites and will have a fix for lead conversion in the first release.