In this post we are going to discuss several lead generation plugins for WordPress.
Why do you need leads
Leads are individuals who have signed up to your email list and those whom you can market to again. Once a visitor arrives and does something on the site like form submission you can have a lead. This lead can be sent emails and used to connect over and over again with them.
These opportunities to return to the site when a new post is published or anything else gives you more chances to market to them.
When running an ecommerce store or retailing a service generating leads means more opportunity for you.
Even as beginner you can generate leads from the audience. When collecting emails add them to subscriber list with their permission.
It’s time to see how to generate leads with your WordPress site.
WpForms
WpForms is the first one that comes to mind. With the plugin create drag and drop forms and attach them anywhere on the blog.
There are 3 million sites that run WpForms.
There are over a 100 pre built form templates that you can use to build those forms. Customize the forms with a drag and drop form builder interface.
There’s both a free version and paid versions to choose from.The free version has a number of features built inside. The drag and drop builder offers plenty of customization options. There are basic form options available and extra templates like newsletter signup form and suggestions form is also included.
The forms look great and load well both on mobile and on desktop. They are fully responsive.
Here are some lead generation templates:
Email signup forms
Content forms
Event registration forms
Quote forms
Contest forms
Questionnaire forms.
Despite the license you own these features are commonly available on all of them:
With all the versions there’s absolutely zero restrictions on the number of forms you can create
There are six editable form templates listed and more for pro and elite licensees.
Ability to use conditional logic to control field visibility.
Create forms with multiple pages on them
- In built spam protection to prevent bots from signing up
- Inclusion of file upload feature to accept files from forms.
- Many advanced field types that are out of the norm
- Store view and manage form entries from the dashboard.
- Multiple form entries and confirmation optionsSend form entry emails to recipients
- Integration with constant contact and more integration options with plus pro and elite
Getting started with Wpforms
Getting started with Wpforms couldn’t have been any easier. There’s a walkthrough video and if that were not enough a wizard that guides you through each step to create your first form.
Creating your first form with Wpforms
To start, begin by assigning a name to the form. Then choose the Simple contact form template. Or start with a blank form. However using a template is generally the better option.
The first step involves giving your form a name and choosing a template.
Once you pick a template, you can access the form builder screen. Here’s where Wpforms is better because modifying the form or the template doesn’t require any deep technical knowledge. It’s easy.
Contact Form 7 is an alternative to WPForms, but its form editing experience doesn’t compare to the drag-and-drop builder of WPForms.
With contact form 7 adding each new element means click on its button and including the same inside the editor. Adding these label fields one by one with formatting means its clumsy and there’s little option for implementing any grand visual changes.
The user interface makes it easy for even a first time user to pluck and paste any element from the left hand.
The WPForms editor makes it easy to see everything — fields, settings and the form — on one screen.
The contact form template uses the name, email and messaging fields followed by the submit button. With Wpforms lite add as many more fields as you want. Include dropdown and checkbox fields too.
CREATING A CONTACT FORM WITH WPFORMS LITE
Approaches to interfaces aside, creating a contact form with WPForms couldn’t be easier. Simply give your form a name, and then choose the Simple Contact Form template. You also have the option of starting with a blank form. However, using the prebuilt template is the recommended option here.
Creating a Contact Form with WPForms
The first step involves giving your form a name and choosing a template.
Once you’ve chosen a template, you’ll be taken to the form builder screen. This is where WPForms pulls ahead of the competition. While Contact Form 7 does provide a basic prebuilt contact form, if you want to modify that form in any way, things start going downhill quickly — especially for non-technical users.
Contact Form 7 Editor
Contact Form 7 is an alternative to WPForms, but its form editing experience doesn’t compare to the drag-and-drop builder of WPForms.
The above screenshot demonstrates the Contact Form 7 form builder interface. Adding new form fields requires you to click on the corresponding button. You must then add the field labels, along with any formatting. While adding new form fields isn’t rocket science, there’s definitely room for improvement on the user experience that Contact Form 7 offers.
This is where the creators of WPForms saw an opportunity, and, once you’ve experienced the user interface of their plugin, you can immediately see why they decided it was time for a better option.
WPForms Form Editor
The WPForms editor makes it easy to see everything — fields, settings and the form — on one screen.
With WPForms, the contact form template includes name, email and message fields, as well as the submit button. This should be enough for most users. Although even with WPForms Lite you can add a few more fields to your forms, such as the dropdown and checkbox fields. When you’ve finished
There are also integrations available with CRM services as well as email marketing platforms to name a few.
When somebody submits a form, they get an email notification. Turn this off if you don’t want such alerts.
WPforms stores the completed form data in the WordPress database.
Send notifications to different receipts with WPforms. You can send inquiries to specific persons in the sales team and also their supervisors.
The pricing model
Wpforms uses freemium pricing model with a listed free version.
As you need more features the lite version won’t suffice and there are 4 different WPforms licensing options to choose from. The free version however has functionality to add contact forms to the WordPress site.
Premium features
The free lite plugin is limited to just a contact form template and basic options. The premium version gets more templates and the number increases if you are a PRO or Elite user.
There are also 100 extra form templates.
The basic templates aren’t very great in offering functionality and is about the same quality as you’d find for free templates from elsewhere.
With the pro or elite license there’s access to 100 prebuilt forms that offer a wide range of functionalities saving you time when creating forms.
The Wpforms license also gives you access to more number of fields say payment fields
Almost any of the premium versions gives ready access to newer fields including payment options. There’s also fields for accepting user ratings.
Other fields with the premium version include file uploads, date and time and signature fields as well.
The cost is just $39/50 per year.
OptinMonster
OptinMonster is easily the most heard of name in the world of lead generation plugins.
With it creating high converting popups and sign up forms is easy as pie. Turn abandoning site visitors into subscribers and also customers.There are tons of features including the exit intent technology.
When people are leaving the site exit intent shows them a popup that gives you a lead out of a visitor.
There’s also customized popup messages for each page you can create that is bound to increase the number of conversions possible.
Also show visitors spin the wheel or yes or no popups. These add an element of gamification to popups.
This holds the potential to boost conversions further.
The professional templates included are dime a dozen. With these templates. Just create the lead forms with the drag and drop editor.
Use the tool to generate more leads. You can use the content locking feature to joining the email list if they want to read the full content. One site that I know of using this feature is the MarketingProfs website.
A a click to call button for generating phone leads. Show discount codes and more.
Billed annually the price whittles down to just $9 per month. For more advanced features like exit intent and yes/no forms there’s the pro plan priced at $29 per month.
There are several features that I like
Lightbox popups
Slide In Optin forms
Mobile-Friendly Popups
Below the content opt-ins
Floating bar optin forms
Sidebar optin forms
and more
These forms can be customized with the drag and drop editor. Change colors, fonts, images and text for all the optins you are creating.
High converting optins
The tool OptinMonster comes with plenty of features all of which can boost conversions.
Exit intent shows you optin forms when the user is about to leave the website
Scroll based triggers display popups and forms when the user has scrolled down a page and reached a particular spot.
Page level targeting helps you create targeted optins for different pages.
There’s also easy a b testing for different optins to test which one gets you the most conversions.
Time based triggers- It shows a well-placed offer at just the time during the visit.
Built in analytics shows how the optins are performing. This helps you find the best way to optimize the strategy.
You can also show the target campaigns to visitors based on their geo location as well.
The 2 step optins display a popup form when visitor clicks on image or a link.
The inactivity sensor targets inactive visitors and convert them to subscribers.
A full screen call to action is the best option to gain attention. It’s a splendid tactic and no other tool does it better than optin monster.
Most lead generation tools on the market redirect people to other pages. These doorway pages are a blackhat technique that can result in penalization.
You can see a fullscreen welcome gate or interstitial without redirecting any users. This is the safest way to display full screen all to action.
The drag and drop builder helps you create high engaging welcome gates that can boost the conversion rates through the sky.
There’s another feature called Monster Links that adds 2 step optins to any link or image on the site.
There’s also visual effects called MonsterEffects that can make the optins much more engaging and interactive as well.
The effects are created in a manner to catch visitor attention and boost conversions by adding css effects to the popup. There are over 26 built in css3 animation effects that you can apply to popups.
The effects are beautiful enough to gain instant attention. The popups are also more lively and improve user experience on the site.
OptinMonster is one of the best tools to power up conversions.
Plenty of features
Some cool features of OptinMonster are:
The drag and drop builder lets you build optin forms in minutes and doesn’t drag out the process much.
OptinMonster has 8 campaign types to display attention grabbing offers including lightboxes, full screen welcome mat, slide in scroll, floating bar, countdown timer.
With campaign triggers its possible to display the right campaigns to the right person at the apt time. Optinmonster provides campaign triggers more than any other lead generation solution like exist intent, scroll trigger, inactivity sensor and more.
The campaigns you create can be highly targeted based on traffic source, based on page or section of the website, geographic location and device usage of the visitor.
Integrate email marketing services to Optin monster is another feature.
There are detailed stats and analytic reports that help you see how the lead generation campaigns perform.
A/B test the lead gen ideas and use what works best.
Easy to Use
With optinmonster it’s easy to identify and create a lead generation campaign from scratch. It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or expert. Create beautiful optin forms. No coding or design skills needed.
The interface is clean and this makes creating optin forms a breeze. The various tools are all easy to use. The templates are easy to get started with and that absolves you of the need to start from scratch where you barely know what you are doing.
The integration is complete with most email marketing services helping you create a working lead generation campaign.
Be it a small blogger or a sizeable business entity OptinMonster can match your need.s
It’t not a wordpress plugin but a hosted platform. This is not a popup plugin meaning it doesn’t slow down the site no matter how far along you go with the tool and the kind of campaigns you are running./
Thrive leads
You must have heard of Thrive themes and all the other WordPress tools and plugins that Thrive offers. With Thrive you have an optin form builder using which you can growth your email list.
Thrive leads offers a drag and drop interface using which to create optin form.s Popup lightboxes, stick forms, 2 step optin forms and more.
There’s also a bunch of basic targeting and a/bt testing options that gets you more conversions on the WordPress site. The targeting options are limited but still a lot more than other plugins. Thrive leads is a wordpress plugin and can be a significant drag on site performance.
The lightbox form
The lightbox form is one of the most popular forms from Thrive leads. It’s displayed in the browser window with a dark background that hovers over the rest of the page. The forms are displayed after a trigger gets activated.
There are plenty of popup triggers. When a user has gone through certain part of the page, the popup can be triggered, when they have been on the page for sometime. When they are about to exit and so on.
In this ribbon form the ribbon is displayed on the top of the page and the page content gets pushed far down. The visitors can hide the ribbon or you can remove the ribbon after sometime. This is a great way to attract people to the audience.
You can also set up triggers for the ribbon form as well. Control how often it gets displayed and for how long.
In-Content Form
In content forms can be inserted into the content wherever you feel is right. As a reader enjoying the content they might want to sign up and more.
Screen Filler Form
Another form type is one that fills the entire screen. These forms are nearly impossible to ignore and fills the full browser window. On triggering the form users a lightbox window to hide everything else on the page. This leaves only the call to action.
Here’s how the pricing fares
The license is $67 for 1 site and $97 for 5 different sites and $147 for 15 sies.
There’s also a membership option for $19 a month that throws open access to all paid plugins and themes.
Bloom
Elegant themes bloom is another cool plugin to use.
Create beautiful optin forms with the plugin. There are over 100 templates and 6 display types to choose from. Customize optin forms and give them a personal unique feel.
Create optin forms by connecting them to 16 different email marketing services. All forms are responsive, and retina friendly. They are readable across devices.
Bloom was built as a WordPress plugin and it can significantly cause a drag on the website performance.
The yearly access is $89 a year wit which you get divi, extra, bloom and monarch and support on all of them. $249 gives you lifetime updates, unlimited websites and more.
Grow your list to 2000 or more subscribers for free with Mailchimp
With mailchimp for wordpress plugin, add subscribers directly to your email list from the WordPress site. It’s a plugin build by ibericode so don’t confuse it as an official plugin.
With the plugin create basic forms or integrate other forms to your site. Add comments, contact or checkout forms as well.
There are addons like mailchimp top bar, activity and user sync and captcha to name a few.
These basic wordpress forms are easy to add.
Which is the Best Lead Generation Plugin for WordPress?
From the list of tools Opin monster appears to be one good lead generation plugin. There are a number of features you can use.
The tool is useful for converting abandoning visitors to email subscribers.
It works on WordPress blogs, Shopify stores, html pages or others.
With this you have a WordPress specific solution that connects forms to email services.