Simple Contact Form With Auto Reply
[This post was first published on blog.polydojo.com]
Today, most websites and blogs have contact forms. But unfortunately, only rarely are well made. They tend to be long and dense. Sometimes, they don't even work. In this blog post, we'll discuss how you can build forms that are easy to fill.
We'll talk about building a contact form for your website or blog. Contact forms can serve as import lead generation channels; and when implemented correctly, they can considerably boost sales.
Empathy Is The Key To Better Forms
Thinking about our own needs comes naturally to us. When it comes to contact forms, businesses tend to many questions. They may ask for the prospect's name, address, industry, company size etc. From the business' perspective: more questions ⇒ more information ⇒ greater chance of closing more sales.
However, from a prospect's perspective, filling a long form with lots of buttons and toggles can be rather tedious. Instead of filling the form, they may simply choose to abandon your website and move on. To quickly understand what we mean, take a look at Wrigly's contact form below:
From the perspective of someone who wants to contact Wrigly, what's your opinion about their form? Does it invite you in? Or do you feel pushed away? Even if you were to start filling the form, how likely would you be complete it?
We have nothing against Wrigly. We have no statistical data about their website visitors or contact form submissions. But if I were to make an educated guess, I would say that it's is quite possible that the form is barely ever submitted.
Keep Your Forms Simple & Minimal
While building a form, if you find yourself asking the question, "What more should we ask?", please stop and think. Do you really need to ask for more information? You probably don't. Form building is not question-asking competition. (The exception, I suppose, is if you are creating a quiz/exam form.)
Instead, ask yourself the opposite question: "Which questions/fields can we remove?". This will help you eliminate unnecessary fields that would otherwise clog-up your form and repel respondents. You can choose to follow this rough rule of thumb: fewer the questions, more the submissions.
A Simple Contact Form
This form has only three fields. Enter your name and email address; type your message, and you're done! Compare your initial reaction to this form, with that to Wrigly's contact form.
Note: This simple contact form is available as a one-click-setup template on Polydojo.
Adding Email Notification & Confirmation (AKA Autoresponder)
When the form gets submitted, won't it be nice if the respondent is automatically sent a message, thanking them for contacting us? The message would also serve as a confirmation that we've received their submission.
When the above form is submitted, two emails are sent. An email is sent to you, confirming that we've received your submission and you submission is emailed to Polydojo's support staff.
Note: In Polyojo, setting up such emails is very easy. Go to Forms > (Your Contact Form) > Integrate. Add the Email Confirmation integration to setup an automatic confirmation message that will be sent to the respondent. Also add the Email Notification integration to get the submission emailed to yourself.
Thanks For Reading! (And Fill The Form!)
Please use the comments area below to communicate your thoughts. Alternatively, you may also fill-out the above Contact Us form and we'll surely get back to you.
---
Image Credits:
1. jessica45, via Pixabay
2. Screenshot from Wrigly's site
3. Screenshot of Polydojo's Contact Form
Today, most websites and blogs have contact forms. But unfortunately, only rarely are well made. They tend to be long and dense. Sometimes, they don't even work. In this blog post, we'll discuss how you can build forms that are easy to fill.
We'll talk about building a contact form for your website or blog. Contact forms can serve as import lead generation channels; and when implemented correctly, they can considerably boost sales.
Empathy Is The Key To Better Forms
Thinking about our own needs comes naturally to us. When it comes to contact forms, businesses tend to many questions. They may ask for the prospect's name, address, industry, company size etc. From the business' perspective: more questions ⇒ more information ⇒ greater chance of closing more sales.
However, from a prospect's perspective, filling a long form with lots of buttons and toggles can be rather tedious. Instead of filling the form, they may simply choose to abandon your website and move on. To quickly understand what we mean, take a look at Wrigly's contact form below:
From the perspective of someone who wants to contact Wrigly, what's your opinion about their form? Does it invite you in? Or do you feel pushed away? Even if you were to start filling the form, how likely would you be complete it?
We have nothing against Wrigly. We have no statistical data about their website visitors or contact form submissions. But if I were to make an educated guess, I would say that it's is quite possible that the form is barely ever submitted.
Keep Your Forms Simple & Minimal
While building a form, if you find yourself asking the question, "What more should we ask?", please stop and think. Do you really need to ask for more information? You probably don't. Form building is not question-asking competition. (The exception, I suppose, is if you are creating a quiz/exam form.)
Instead, ask yourself the opposite question: "Which questions/fields can we remove?". This will help you eliminate unnecessary fields that would otherwise clog-up your form and repel respondents. You can choose to follow this rough rule of thumb: fewer the questions, more the submissions.
A Simple Contact Form
This form has only three fields. Enter your name and email address; type your message, and you're done! Compare your initial reaction to this form, with that to Wrigly's contact form.
Note: This simple contact form is available as a one-click-setup template on Polydojo.
Adding Email Notification & Confirmation (AKA Autoresponder)
When the form gets submitted, won't it be nice if the respondent is automatically sent a message, thanking them for contacting us? The message would also serve as a confirmation that we've received their submission.
When the above form is submitted, two emails are sent. An email is sent to you, confirming that we've received your submission and you submission is emailed to Polydojo's support staff.
Note: In Polyojo, setting up such emails is very easy. Go to Forms > (Your Contact Form) > Integrate. Add the Email Confirmation integration to setup an automatic confirmation message that will be sent to the respondent. Also add the Email Notification integration to get the submission emailed to yourself.
Thanks For Reading! (And Fill The Form!)
Please use the comments area below to communicate your thoughts. Alternatively, you may also fill-out the above Contact Us form and we'll surely get back to you.
---
Image Credits:
1. jessica45, via Pixabay
2. Screenshot from Wrigly's site
3. Screenshot of Polydojo's Contact Form
Your rule of thumb "fewer the questions, more the submissions" wasn't obvious for me. But I guess it eventually made sense. Interesting article, this.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting.
DeleteYes. The idea that fewer questions would attract more submissions isn't obvious at first blush. But as you start to consider it, it seems sensible.