Web Design Special Report: Sign Up Forms Must Die
A List Apart: Articles: Sign Up Forms Must Die: “”
In the Interactive Agency game we deal with sign-up forms everyday. At my agency in particular we wrestle with longwinded registrations and surveys (we deal significantly with customer profiling and segmentation). The notion of ‘gradual engagement’ detailed in the article is not new either, but not commonly practiced. It really comes down to an issue of ‘VALUE EXCHANGE’. What is the perceived consumer value, or offer, that might compel a user to sign-up on your site. Gradual Engagement is a great way to build that value without significant investment in unnecessary offers, giveaways or sweepstakes (i.e. low value, low cost gimmes that savvy websters realize are being used only to grab that all important email). This is especially true when the value revolves around information or the use of services. With Gradual Engagement you allow your site visitors to interact with content and potentially complete a set of actions. Only at the end when a transaction occurs (i.e. downloaded content, viral distribution and sharing, etc.) do you ask for any information. You’ve already sold them the value. They trust you because you let them participate. You let them get to the content and perform the behaviors they salivated for.
I’m also a big fan of longitudinal customer data acquisition. Simply put, longitudinal gathering collects a bare minimum set of information like name and email. It’s through follow up communications or subsequent site usage do you ask for any more personal information. That allows you to establish a level of trust and overcomes any inherent barriers to gathering more customer info. But isn’t that what we want anyway? We want return visitors, loyal customers that happily revisit your site and recommend your site and it’s content to their network.
If you’re developing a site that requires registration it behooves you to entertain and validate one of the approaches mentioned above. I’ve been on the evil end of the registration equation in the past. If you’d like to see significant lifts in site registration then abandon the old world reg methodology and don’t be afraid to give something away.
Thanks to Shai Reichert for the heads up on the article. It says everything we’re thinking.
dmihalovic @ March 25, 2008