Progressive profiling is often like your interaction with that cute lady you see on the train you take to work everyday. If you strike up a conversation and ask her out for a date in the very first interaction, chances are she won’t even reply and go away. Oh no, you blew away your chance!
You asked for way too much information here. Ask her something that she would be comfortable answering. Ask her name, what she does, make her open up and gradually, you can ask more things about her once you break the ice.
Oh no, I am not a dating expert and not here to give you dating advice in this era of virtual dating where you just swipe right at your lead(read prospective date). I am just trying to give marketers an analogy on what can happen when they ask for too many details from a prospect, too early in the game.
As marketers, when you are trying to gather intelligence on your leads, if you ask them for too much information, you might turn them off. This is why your leads don't sign-up when you ask them too many questions in the sign-up form.
However if you use progressive profiling, you can gradually learn more about your lead. It might be a slower process but it will help you retain your leads and gather more information about them to serve them better.
What is Progressive Profiling?
Progressive profiling, allows marketers to set up dynamic sign-up forms which progressively gather more information over a period of time. By using progressive profiling, marketers can keep their sign-up forms short, thereby reducing the friction in such forms.
By collecting information about leads over a period of time, marketers can build intelligence about their leads and serve them the right marketing message at the right time.
How does Progressive Profiling work?
Usually when marketers want information about their leads, they create static sign-up forms and provide as many fields as possible. Additionally, they might throw in a couple of hidden fields in the sign-up form, whenever required.
It’s no brainer that too many fields in a sign-up form turn off a lot of people. However, if you use progressive profiling, every time the same person visits your website, s(h)e will face a different form, fields that have already been filled will be replaced by other newer fields.
In this manner, you will be able to gain more information about your leads, without putting up too many fields in one-go.
Moreover, every visitor is different. But with progressive profiling, you can create different form fields for every buyer persona. Basically, progressive profiling is dynamic in nature and will adjust itself based on the lead’s journey along your marketing funnel.
Benefits of Progressive Profiling
#1: Higher Conversion
Smart forms or progressive profiling helps you create forms that are short and sweet. So, instead of asking for everything all at once, you ask people different questions over a course of time. This will help you keep the forms short as well as relevant.
With progressive profiling, there is no need to squeeze in too many questions all at once.
As a result, you get to retain more leads, and improve your rate of conversions. It’s a win-win for both parties. You get whatever information you need, and your visitors do not have to be annoyed by lengthy and repetitive forms.
#2: Avoid Repetition
Chances are that your business already has existing customers and subscribers, then along with new visitors, your existing clients will also redeem offers, download documents and fill up forms. But, you will be asking them the same old questions, the answers to which will not change much. It’s repetitive and annoying for most visitors.
Progressive profiling lets completely eliminate asking repetitive questions, and you can ask new questions every time a lead or a client is faced with a form.
#3: Capture More Information
Would you let someone bombard you with innumerable questions the first time they meet you? Nope, you would not. So, why would you bombard someone with tonnes of questions when they visit your website?
Of course, we can understand your reasons for doing so. You need as much information as possible so that you can craft your campaigns better and close more deals. You want to gather as much intelligence as you can so that Sales can figure out which leads will ultimately convert into paying customers.
So, you want to ask a lot of questions to figure things out. That’s fine. With progressive profiling you will be able to capture a lot more information than usual. This is because you ask the critical questions gradually.
You progressively ask your leads about information that you would require to serve them better. Contrary to what you might think, this will help you shorten your sales cycle.
It’s all about asking the right question at the right time so that you can create a progressive profile for every customer and complete it over time.
#4: It Saves Time
Progressive profiling helps you get the right sign-up form across to the right lead at the right time. A lead that might land up on your product pricing page might not necessarily be at the bottom of the funnel, which will trigger sales-related questions in the landing page form. The lead might just be in the top of funnel and is curious about your prices.
Thankfully with progressive profiling you can save a lot of time by reusing forms. You can take advantage of the lead’s funnel position and provide them with a top of funnel form.
Do Consider Progressing Profiling
You can use progressive profiling in innumerable ways to help improve your Marketing and Sales. It helps you become relevant and create effective forms that will help you convert more and more leads.
Most marketing automation platforms have robust progressive profiling modules. Make use of progressive profiling and see a boost in your conversion rates.