Capturing Leads from Your Website
Mar 6, 2007Companies often contact us with basic questions about website name/lead capture forms. To our surprise, many Salesforce customers are unaware of the standard web-to-lead functionality that comes out-of-the-box with every salesforce account.
There are a few simple steps to get started with website lead capture:
(1) Enable Web-to-Lead functionality
Enabling web-to-lead is a simple step that should take only a few sceonds. Log into Salesforce and navigate to the setup area for web-to-lead (Setup > Customize > Leads > Web-to-Lead). From here click on the hyperlink to enable web-to-lead for your organization. You will be required to assign a default user as the lead creator for new inbound leads.
(2) Create a Web-to-Lead form
Salesforce does not host web pages for customers, but we do our best to make the process of creating a web-to-lead form as simple as possible. From the web-to-lead setup area, you can get started by selecting the hyperlink labeled Generate the HTML. You will be asked to select the Lead fields that you want to capture on your website, and specify a return URL. The return URL is a web page where you direct visitors after they have filled out your web-to-lead form. This is often a "thank you" page, a "download whitepaper" page, or something similar.
(3) Cut and Paste the HTML
Salesforce will generate a working HTML page that contains the web-to-lead form you generated. It's not very beautiful, but it works! From here, you can copy and paste the HTML and load it onto your site, or send it over to your web designer to apply your corporate stylesheet. Here is a sample web-to-lead appearance after applying a corporate stylesheet:
(4) Get Smart with Landing Pages
A landing page is simply a web-to-lead page that is highly tailored to a specific offer. As a best practice, instead of driving users from programs to your homepage, we recommend that you create for every marketing program you run. In addition, you can include Salesforce Campaign IDs in your web-to-lead forms and automatically associate inbound leads with email, search, telemarketing, or other programs.
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Great article on basic web-to-lead implementation.
If you want to extend the functionality of your web-to-lead landing pages you can go here:
http://www.skatterbox.com/2007/03/easy-landing-pages-for-salesforcecom.html
This may help you if you run multiple campaigns and dont want to keep alot of individual landing pages.
Posted by: Luke Newton | March 27, 2007 at 09:02 PM
A good web-to-lead strategy is a great help to extend a company’s business.
Any company that makes efforts to implement a good web-to-lead strategy should be able to get positive effect in a short period of time. Using salesforce as part of a web-to-lead strategy can be very convenient and effective.
However, the default Salesforce web-to-lead form functionality may lack of flexibility at some point.
FormVester, provides advanced features that make it possible to generate leads directly into Salesfirce from any of your existing website online forms, without the hassle of reprogramming, manipulating or replacing them!
FormVester is a free application that can be found at the AppExchange Directory, check it out if you are interested in an alternative and advanced web-to-lead form solution.
Posted by: Sebastien Lhomme | June 13, 2007 at 12:13 PM
Very interesting. Useful for any kind of company who care for its prosperity.
Posted by: Jezebelus | June 18, 2007 at 04:55 AM
Foreseeing a particular need and catering to it is what makes successful marketing with internet affiliate program. Design the affiliate product portfolio so that it has products that have future demand. A steady income means your program should bring profit in present and future. Catering to future needs gives the edge of reaping early benefits.
Posted by: Internet Affiliate Program | April 08, 2009 at 07:59 AM
If you are using or considering Web-to-Lead for your CRM check out our add-on Searchent Web Lead Analysis. It works in conjunction with Google analytics to track key Search marketing data through your entire sales lifecycle! http://www.tinyurl.com/searchent
Posted by: Jim Thompson | April 17, 2009 at 07:51 AM
I noticed it sends you to another URL after the submit. Is there a way for the page to stay put with just a small thank you notice afterward?
Posted by: Ken Reth | May 20, 2009 at 04:16 PM
If you are looking to lead through web presence , SEO is the best method to be adopted , it generates you good profits .
Posted by: SEO Services | August 21, 2009 at 11:32 PM
The truth is, less than 5% of Visitors to a website will perform the registration action needed and complete a web form. There is a powerful technology that can drive this to 20% to 30%.
Salesforce.com leads from VisitorTrack (http://www.netfactor.com/sforce.htm) is an automated process to capture details about the anonymous business Visitors to a website. Then, this record is transferred into Salesforce in real time - without any Visitor registration. Here's how it works:
- VisitorTrack silently monitors and tracks the businesses Visiting a website
- Details about these Companies are compiled: name, address, website, sic codes, key executives and their details - names, titles, phone, email address
- High activity website Visitors are identified based on who they are and their behavior while on-site (important to distinguish between the 1000's that Visit a site to those who are the best sales and marketing "targets")
- The data for these high-activity Companies are then dropped into Salesforce in real time - with no Visitor registration or salesforce user actions
VisitorTrack is like caller id for a website, and offers a Free Trial of their product
Posted by: C Jeffers | August 31, 2009 at 08:01 AM
Foreseeing a particular need and catering to it is what makes successful marketing with internet affiliate program. Design the affiliate product portfolio so that it has products that have future demand. A steady income means your program should bring profit in present and future. Catering to future needs gives the edge of reaping early benefits
Posted by: Make Money on Internet | October 22, 2009 at 09:37 PM
Great help. Interesting info thank you.
Posted by: Adelaide Course | November 08, 2009 at 08:11 AM