I think that sometimes as a founder or creator, it’s important to pause, reflect, and think about where you’re headed.
But more importantly, you can’t stop at just thinking about the future.
It’s also important to share the vision of the future with both current and future customers.
So that’s why today I’m going to share the vision for where I plan to take GetLeadForms.
To understand where we’re going, you have to understand where we came from
I started GetLeadForms because I was fed up with the age-old advice that the only way to get high conversion rates in your forms is to reduce the form to just one or two fields.
That’s fine and great if you’re building an email list.
Not so great if you’re actually looking to generate inbound leads for things like demos, consultations, and quotes — which the vast majority of businesses are actually looking to do (I’m speaking to the service providers, agencies, and fellow B2B SaaS companies out there).
As a marketer, I knew that to truly drive more conversions from my landing pages and websites, I needed a lead form tool that would allow me to do these four main things:
1) Engage visitors proactively if I want to
2) Qualify the visitors by asking more questions without sacrificing conversion
3) Be completely customizable
4) Provide data so I’d know exactly where to optimize
And at the same time, I had this vision in my head for a more friendly looking LeadForm that looks more like a chat, with real-time social proof embedded right into it, which is why customization was so important.
So I went out searching for such a tool…
Despite the forms market being saturated and highly competitive, I wasn’t able to find a tool that would allow me to do all of those four things.
Some had bits and pieces of the features that I needed. But nothing really filled my need.
That’s when I started to realize that there’s a gap in the market.
The vast majority of form tools and list builders are exactly that, they are just form tools.
Very few are actually built for marketers or businesses who are really looking to convert inbound visitors into qualified leads.
And those that are pretty good, seemed to have stopped innovating around increasing conversions.
So, I said “screw it” and decided to build a better LeadForm tool myself.
A tool that would help businesses that are struggling to convert website visitors into qualified leads, with smarter, interactive LeadForms.
And since we wrote the first line of code, the tool has come quite a long way.
And I really mean that — back in the day we were literally hard-coding LeadForms in JSON and uploading them to a server that would connect with an API to render the form.
But even back then… back when we had no UI to login to, no form builder, and even back before v1.0 of the form builder (we’re now on 4.0) I had a vision for a smarter, better LeadForm.
What you see with GetLeadForms is only just the start.
We’re not here to build just another form tool.
We’re here to innovate the LeadForm.
The Future of GetLeadForms: AI Powered LeadForms
First, it’s important to note that in the immediate future expect continued UX/UI improvements on the tool, unique features like chat handoff, more integrations, updated designs, improved form builder UI and so on.
But longer-term, the big focus is on making GetLeadForms more intelligent with AI Powered LeadForms.
What do I mean by AI Powered LeadForms?
Well, the way that I see it, AI can solve at least three major problems. Each problem ties back to a feature. Let’s explore below:
1. Engagement AI: (AI Popups) Increase Conversions With A Smarter Way To Engage Website Visitors Based on Behavior
Problem: Even today, popups are still effective for increasing conversion, but they kind of have a sucky user experience and could convert better. In fact, over the years popups have become less effective at converting leads.
Solution: Engagement AI
Engagement AI’s ultimate goal is to dramatically boost conversions with smarter popups.
With Engagement AI, the system will leverage a number of data points like analytics, user data, device data, and your own LeadForm metrics to determine the most appropriate time to engage the visitor.
We’ll apply this data to the LeadForm in a number of places including not just the form itself, but also the onsite message.
At the end of the day, this feature will provide a conversion lift and also improve the overall user experience of websites using popups.
And that’s just the start.
GetLeadForms also provides a TON of data, right down to the drop-off rate of each step. This naturally leads us to the next big conversion boosting feature — Insight AI.
2. Insight AI: Smart Recommendations Showing You Exactly Where to Optimize your Form
Problem: We know that there’s a ton of opportunity to continue optimizing the LeadForm after it launches. That’s one reason why we offer a done-for-you LeadForm CRO Service. But, even if you’re getting data, it’s hard to know where to optimize the LeadForm.
Solution: AI Based Analytics and Recommendations
The ultimate goal of Insights AI is to review your metrics and provide recommendations in-real time, pinpointing exactly where you can optimize your LeadForm. This will not only save you time, but it will also provide you with more data backed recommendations to help you increase leads at a faster rate. It essentially takes the guesswork out of the CRO process, which even with so much data can often feel like some sort of black magic.
3. AI Lead Scoring: It’s like a Credit Score for Your Leads
Problem: At GetLeadForms, we constantly get feature requests for lead verification features. Fake or misleading leads put a drain on resources and can be super frustrating to deal with.
Solution: An AI Lead Scoring system that uses a number of signals to determine the probability of a lead being legitimate or not. There’s way more to this one, I can’t give it all away just yet. But I can tell you for a fact it’s going to be a game changer in the area of lead validation.
It’s also worth noting that I’m talking about more than just anti-spam protection (Recaptcha and honeypots). I’m talking about knowing the likelihood of a lead that a business owner is about to get on the phone with is real or not.
I like to think of it like a credit score, for your leads. Basically, anytime GetLeadForms sends you a lead, there will be a score attached. Eventually, we’ll even be able to tell you which marketing channels are bringing you in the most fake leads and spam submissions.
Where do we start?
At this point you might be thinking that there’s quite a bit here… so where do we even start?
I know that seems like a ton.
But please keep in mind that this is the vision of where we plan to take GetLeadForms now and into the future.
And there are still other features and improvements that we need to work on along the way.
So while it all won’t happen at once, I can promise you that over the coming months, quarters, and years, we’ll roll this out to ultimately build the highest converting, smartest LeadForm tool out there for marketers and business owners who really care about growth.
So that’s the vision and that’s what we’re building our long-term roadmap around.
I hope you join us in helping build a better future for the LeadForm.
