Your website is a marketing investment for your business. Just like any marketing you do, your website is successful when it provides a steady flow of new customers to your business each month.

Most small businesses acquire online sales leads via web forms that visitors fill out right on their websites. Forms are a super solution for getting information from your online visitors because they are extremely convenient and easy to use. When it comes to allowing your best prospective customers to reach out and request something from you, you always want to make it really easy.

But what’s often overlooked is what happens after a visitor fills out your form. Most often, they see a simple confirmation message. This is usually because most web form builders provide this as the default confirmation message setting.

Unfortunately, this simple confirmation message leaves a lot to be desired. Think about it. Is this really how you want treat your best online visitors? It’s sort of like ending a conversation by simply walking out of the room. Lame.

Instead, take advantage of this great opportunity – an engaged visitor currently on your website – by replacing your confirmation message with a dedicated thank-you page.

Here are four BIG reasons why a dedicated thank-you page is better than a simple confirmation message.

1 – Tracking marketing results

If you use web-marketing tools like Google Analytics or BoostSuite, you need to have a separate thank-you page to properly record the completion of the form – aka a “marketing conversion.”

When you only have a confirmation message, many measurement tools are not able to tell you how many people people actually completed your form. You also may not be able to look at other numbers like how many visitors saw the form, but failed to fill it out. Or what pages visitors who submitted the form looked at before they reached the form.

All of this is valuable information when you want to optimize your website for more marketing conversions. If you don’t have the data, it’ll be that much more challenging to improve.

2 – Keeping visitors engaged

Don’t assume that a visitor’s website session ends immediately after they submit a form.

Visitors who submit forms are your BEST website visitors. If you only have a confirmation message, your visitors essentially become stranded after they submit a form. Take advantage of this opportunity to guide your visitors to more information that you want them to read. Think about things that you want them to know before you follow up with them.

On your thank-you page you can provide links to suggested reading like testimonials, case studies, or even detailed product pricing. Or give them the opportunity to sign up for your email newsletter so your business will remain top of mind for a while. If they don’t end buying from you today you can at least keep in touch with them and maybe they’ll buy from you at a later date.

3 – Providing a personal experience they’ll remember

What’s better? A simple confirmation thank you message, or the chance to build a real connection between your business and your website visitor? Thank-you messages come from businesses. Thank-you pages come from a real person.

When you replace a thank-you message with a thank-you page you get more space to really show your personal appreciation. Use this extra space first to provide a real “THANK YOU.”

One of my favorites is to write a thank you communication in the form of a letter, closing with your full name and real signature. If your website editor and form tool can support it, customize the letter with the visitor’s name and other information they provided.

After really thanking them, use the remaining space to make a special offer that regular website visitors don’t get. Consider showing a coupon, links to interesting content, or a button that allows them to follow one of your personal profiles on social media.

4 – Acknowledging your company received the request

Have you ever filled out a form, clicked submit and then wondered if the form actually went through? I sure have. Those little online confirmation messages can be hard to see.

When you have a dedicated thank-you page it offers another level of confidence to your visitors that their message has been successfully delivered. For you, it prevents getting the same message from the same visitor over and over again as they keep pressing the “submit” button out of confusion.

Remember, when a visitor fills out a form on your website it’s just the start of what will hopefully become a long relationship between them and your business. They’ve raised their hand and become one of your most highly valued website visitors.

If they see a personalized thank-you page instead of just a simple thank-you message they’ll know that you received their message, they’ll feel appreciated, and they’ll feel prepared to begin working with your business. Now that’s what I call a competitive advantage!

Have you created a really great thank-you page on your website? Do you have other reasons why businesses should use thank-you pages instead of thank-you messages? Leave your comments below.

Daniel Smith is Co-founder of BoostSuite.com, an easy-to-use tool that allows small business marketers to get more results from their websites on their own. If you need more help attracting new visitors to your website and turning more of those visitors into new sales leads and customers for your business, try BoostSuite for free and put the power of web marketing in your hands right now.

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