While embedding contact forms into the pages of your site in various ways is
an excellent tactic to generate leads, sometimes you may want to use a form as a
"doorway" that blocks access to a page of your site unless your visitor fills it
out. Other times, you might just want to periodically remind your prospects that
they can contact you for assistance on your site. Both of these tactics form the
basis of your site's doorway forms tools.
Blocking doorway forms allow you to prevent access to a specific page of your
site, or to prevent further access to your site by requiring the visitor to
supply a password or fill out a form before continuing through your site. To set
up a blocking form that "prevents" access to a specific page of your site:
- From your site's Client
Data Capture tools, click PowerView in the Lead
Tools menu on the left.
- Find the page you wish to block in the list provided. As necessary, use
the options at the top to filter the pages listed in the PowerView so you can
find the page you need more quickly. Options include:
- Filtering by State — To filter the pages by
whether you've activated them on your site by checking them in My Content, choose Show
Active Pages option to limit the pages to just activated pages.
Otherwise, choose Show All Pages.
- Filtering by Page Type — To filter the list of
pages by the page category (e.g. listings pages, provided pages, custom
pages) in My Content, choose an
option from the Show the Following XSite Pages drop-down
list.
- Filtering by Form — If you're using the same form
on multiple pages on your site, you can filter list of pages by those that
use a particular form. Just choose the form from the Show Pages that
Use this Form menu.
- Filtering by Contact Group — To filter the list of
pages by the contact group into which you're enrolling new leads, choose the
contact group from the Show Pages Where Leads Are Added to this
Group menu.
- When you find the page you wish to block with a Client Data Capture form,
you can either password protect the page to generate leads through password
requests OR select a specific doorway form to block the page.
- Password Protecting Pages — To password protect
the page, click the lock icon by the Password Protection
section for your page. In the box that appears, type a page password and
then click Submit to save it.
- Blocking Pages with Specific Forms — To select a
specific form with which to block the page, click the Edit
Settings link beside its title. Then, choose the form you want to
use to block the page from the Doorway Form menu and select
a Contact Group into which to enroll the contact from the
Contact Group menu. By default, the form is optional for
your visitors, but if you also want to use your blocking form to force the
visitor to provide certain information, check the Required
box on the right. Then, click Save to apply your changes.
Doorway forms and, in particular, required doorway forms are effective
lead generation tools when used properly. But if you use them excessively or
require too much information, they're often more frustrating to your visitors
than they are useful. For best results, use doorway forms sparingly, and only
in places where you've justified the value of what you're offering in exchange
for the visitors' contact information.
Reminder forms are forms that periodically pop up to prompt the visitor for
information. Unlike traditional blocking forms, they aren't attached to any
specific page of your site. Instead you specify how often the forms should
appear as the visitor browses your site to control when it appears. You can also
use reminder forms as blocking forms by capping the number of pages a visitor
can view on your site without providing contact information. To set up a
reminder form on your site:
- From your site's Client
Data Capture tools, click Global Settings in the
Lead Tools menu on the left.
- In the screen that appears, check the Activate the Page Counter
Trigger box and specify the number of pages that you will allow
visitors to view on your site before "reminding" them with a form.
- From the drop‑down menus on the right, select a form to use as your
reminder form and a contact group into which to save the leads from the
reminder form.
- To use the reminder form as a blocking form that prevents your visitors
from browsing through your site until they fill it out, check the
Require the visitor to complete the form box.
- If you're not using the reminder form as a blocking form, you can specify
a maximum number of times to show the form to your visitor by checking the
Until the visitor fills out this form, show it a maximum of
box and specifying a maximum number of times to show the form.
- To tell your site which pages to "count" as a gauge for how often to show
your reminder form, check the boxes in the Pages to Count
section. Options include:
- Include Content Pages in Count — Content pages are
all of the pages of your site with the exception of those pages that display
a list of your listings. Check this box if you want to show your reminder
form even while your visitors are casually browsing your site.
- When finished, click Save to apply your changes.