Marketing is hard.
Understanding the nuances of every different buyer type, providing content and offers they really need at the right time with the right message to catch their eye is incredibly difficult. That’s why it’s easy to understand that when someone fills out your form (success!) it’s tempting to provide them an inline confirmation that their submission has been received and move on to the next marketing activity.
But you can’t do that.
When someone completes your form, while that particular activity might be over, their journey is just beginning. You’ve got their attention. Why not hold onto it a little bit longer? Why not try to keep their attention for as long as possible?
That’s where a thank-you page comes in. While it’s important to provide acknowledgment that the form submission has been received to initiate the relationship and build trust between business and consumer, thank-you pages can be so much more than that. A truly crafted thank you page can help your prospect continue down the buyer’s journey and pose your company as the trustworthy, knowledgeable resource it is.
The first step to crafting a thank you page is obvious. Thank your prospect for completing the form. Acknowledge that they’ve taken an action and reciprocate: provide a link to the asset they requested, let them know you’ll follow up within a certain time frame, etc. Everyone wants to be heard, they want to know that they matter and the initial part of a thank-you page is key to giving a prospect the recognition they want.
However, you shouldn’t stop there. Provide them with additional, related resources. If they requested a white paper about your product, offer them a video, infographic or a demo. If the form they completed is for a demo, offer them some customer testimonials to absorb before the meeting.
Many marketing automation platforms make providing additional, fresh content even easier by allowing you to provide content based on what they user has already seen in your database. If they’ve already accessed White Paper A, you can set it up to show White Paper B, and so on. Don’t have a lot of content? Provide links to your contact page, social media, and blog. Not every resource you provide has to be gated- in fact, a best practice is to do a combination of the two.
If you want to take it a step further, optimize the thank-you page for mobile. Studies have shown that more than 65% of email gets opened on a mobile device, first. By catering to the mobile audience, you can not only improve user experience but you won’t be missing out on nearly as much traffic.
When someone completes a form they’re saying, “I’m here! I’m interested!” Just like their journey didn’t end at that one form, your job as a marketer didn’t end at that one form, so work to keep them interested and help them along the buyer’s journey. Your sales team will thank you.
