Lead Capture is Broken: Here's How We're Fixing It
We as buyers have grown to expect more from our online experiences with all the modern apps and websites with great UX, yet when we have to navigate the world of buying B2B services or software, it feels like we’ve been thrown back to an earlier era of the internet.
Lead capture is arguably the most crucial part of any lead-generation process for businesses that acquire customers on the Internet because there’s so much trust at stake at the very moment when someone decides to pursue a business relationship with a vendor.
While the lead generation process has evolved in lockstep with technological progress, developing best practices for print, radio, television, telephones, and the internet, it’s surprisingly remained unchanged for the last decade or so, when the modern martech stack emerged in the market.
Consider this: over the last decade, advancements in web technology have given us applications that update in real time, giving us what we want almost immediately. Rich, contextual information is available at the tip of our fingers, notifications trigger based on our behavior as users, and the entire experience has an overall fluid feel.
Compared to that, the average B2B website feels like it missed an era of web development, with lead capture still being a mix of forms, gated content pieces, and chatbots.
The problem then, is that we as buyers have grown to expect more from our online experiences with all the modern apps and websites with great UX, and yet when we have to navigate the world of buying B2B services or software, it feels like we’ve been thrown back to an earlier era of the internet.
And quite literally so: the present reality of lead capture forms, gates, long reply times, etc. has emerged from the simple world of static landing pages and easy-to-use CMS systems like WordPress. While these might fit our needs as sellers, the lead capture process doesn’t meet our needs as contemporary buyers.
In other words: the lead capture process is broken. And at Captiwate, we want to fix it.
The Old Lead Capture Process and How It’s Broken
If we look at the typical B2B webpage, our buying process would look something like this:
- We arrive via search or click on a paid ad, and start showing interest in the services offered
- We start browsing the website, read some blog posts, and case studies, check the pricing page, etc. but
- Sooner or later we’ll find ourselves staring down a piece of content that’s gated, needing not just our contact information but all sorts of other firmographic data so the website can qualify us
- If we want to see the product in action, again we typically would look at a contact form or a demo booking page that wants our contact information.
Once we jump through all the hurdles presented by the vendor, there are still two things where we might just decide to run for the hills - or to do business with their competitor:
- Is the too-eager gated content, where we start receiving emails or sales calls as soon as we were foolish enough to give the website our contact information OR
- We get ghosted because the lead qualification process decides we’re not worthy of anyone’s time.
If by some twist of fate, the vendor didn’t completely burn our trust with A or B, most companies still take multiple hours to even days to reply to an inquiry, long after our most interested phase has passed, and we have either forgotten about them, or worse, went and bought from the competitor who bothered to answer in a timely manner.
This setup is for the comfort of the seller, and not the buyer, and the lead capture process ends up annoying them instead of enticing them, hurting our bottom line and our reputation as well.
Worse yet, while this process may seem deceptively simple, it’s in fact quite expensive to maintain. This lead capture system is actually supported by:
- Multiple sales reps to do qualification calls,
- Account executives who hold multiple, longer sales processes together,
- CRM + Lead scoring systems and specialized operators who have to maintain them.
Looking at it this way, this is a sad state of affairs, even if it’s understandable to a degree. Most companies would go with something simple that just works, and the above lead capture process has served its purpose well enough for over a decade. It’s simple enough to start with a skeleton crew and can be scaled with manpower (and buying additional seats).
Only once we zoom out and look at how the technology around us has progressed far, far beyond such simplistic solutions can we begin to understand the tectonic shift that has occurred in buyer behavior. And to say it doesn’t affect B2B buyers is to say that all humans have a “B2C” and a “B2B” mode, which is a stretch of fantasy at best, and a very, very costly mistake at worst.
Even in B2B, we have seen trailblazer companies completely re-design not just their websites, but their sales process to fit the needs of buyers. Interactive product demos, template libraries, and self-serve buying processes, all backed by good product usage analytics and savvy sales and marketing teams have taken the B2B world by storm.
Think of companies like Asana, Canva, ClickUp, or Notion just to name a few who have come out of the PLG revolution demonstrating that you can let go of your content gates and contact forms - and still build solid businesses which are a pleasure to buy from.
But PLG was only the beginning, and the B2B lead capture process is due for an overhaul outside of the world of SaaS as well.
The Captiwate Way of Doing Lead Capture
We know that contemporary buyer wants to buy at their own pace when they are ready, and once they have 90% of their buying journey behind them. We also know that they expect information to be available at their fingertips and that they expect a white glove treatment and respect, both with their time and privacy. When it comes to B2B, we know that they’re busy people with busy schedules and if we don’t give them the time of day, they’ll be more than happy to take their business elsewhere.
To meet their demands - to sell the way that they want to buy - we have to completely overhaul the lead capture process.
Instead of throwing up hoops that they have to jump through, and getting to them when we have the time (if we deem them worthy), we can turn our website into a live sales channel.
Using Captiwate, we get real-time information about who’s visiting our website and their behavior, like if they’re browsing our resources pages or are they looking at the pricing.
We can use this data to alert our sales staff that a hot prospect is visiting the website, and we can engage with them via chat or a live video call while they’re the most interested, giving them the information they want in a respectful, personal manner.
Not only do they not have to give us their contact information as both the chat and the live call are done through the website, but by contacting them while they’re still online, we guarantee a live buying experience that they can’t and won’t forget.
This is the highest point of engagement, and most companies drop the ball by being slow to respond to inquiries. The Captiwate way guarantees more business, because visitors qualify themselves based on their interests, and we can match them to our ICP profiles in the background.
The live chat and call are then there to allow for a truly personalized buying experience, connecting an inquiry with a professional who can help them on the spot.
The result? More leads and more business through a better buying experience that’s built on the modern way lead capture should be done.
Conclusion - The Future of Lead Capture Is Here
The writing is on the wall: traditional lead capture is a relic of the past, built for seller convenience rather than buyer experience. As B2B buyers continue to demand better, more immediate experiences, companies face a choice: adapt to the new reality or watch as more agile competitors capture their market share.
Captiwate represents more than just a new tool – it's a fundamental shift in how we think about lead capture. By eliminating friction, respecting buyer privacy, and enabling instant human connection, we're not just updating an old process – we're redefining what's possible in B2B sales.
The question isn't whether the traditional lead capture process will change – it's whether your company will be ahead of the curve or playing catch-up.
Ready to transform your website from a static lead form into a dynamic sales channel? Sign up for free and try the tool yourself, or book a demo below, and get started within 5 minutes.
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