Should You Ask People If They Want to be Contacted?

In making your website’s registration form, you must make sure that your form is short and simple.
The more fields you add, the lesser the chance that people will register because generally, people
will be turned off if they get the impression that they will have to spend so much time answering the
registration form. With the limited number of fields in the registration form, a lead generation company
will advise you to make sure that the email and the name field is included. Those in the lead generation
services are not unanimous whether the work or the mobile number should be asked. For those in the
B2B, the work phone ranks third in the most important field in the registration form, those in the B2C
prefers to ask the mobile number.

But after all the personal information is filled in, should you still ask your prospects for permission to
contact them? In a 2012 Marketing Sherpa Lead Generation Benchmark Survey, of the 1,915 marketers
that were asked, only 29% indicated that asking for permission to be contacted by the sales team is an
important field in lead generation forms. This ranks fifth with the following fields ranked according to
importance: email address (1st), name (2nd), business phone number (3rd), lead source (4th), indication of
wanting to be contacted by sales (5th).

Some marketers believe that permission to be contacted is implied by signing up in the website or
agreeing to the opt-in email. Others believe that while this is important, a greater consideration should
be given to the fact that additional fields might decrease the chance of registration.