Maximise your Contact Form Signups

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What do I mean?

I mentioned this briefly last time but a few people asked me to clarify this point so I'll give you more details about what I mean.

Having an email address on your website may seem like a good idea but unfortunately nefarious software ‘spiders’ trawl your website looking for just such email addresses, in order that they can then sell these email addresses to spam lists suppliers.

Consequently, if you've had your email address in the public domain for any period of time you'll know what I mean and possibly be receiving lots of junk.

I know there are javascript 'tricks' around it but in my humble opinion, it's far better to have a contact form instead, and there are some good reasons for this:

1 – It is much easier to track inbound contacts(i.e. leads) from a contact form because they all have the same subject line and/or from address. This way you can be sure that legitimate enquiries are don’t get lost or eaten by a spam filter or into a black hole.

(Especially if it’s linked Up to an online database like the ones we provide for our customers) As you know, monitoring leads and tracking your conversion rate is essential if you're taking your online marketing seriously and so it's far easier to count(and track) enquiry forms than just a load of emails with different headings & content!

2 – You can ensure people answer the right questions and/or ensure they provide the details that you need - .e.g. age, name, gender, phone number etc. A contact form helps you format the responses you get, saving you time in having to re-ask for vital pieces of information. Of course, all this can be fed directly into your database for better management and easier automation.

3 – You can direct people to a 'thank-you' page, which can offer extra information to the client as a 'reward' for giving their email address or simply to verify their details etc.

4 – It looks more professional.

5 - You’ll get less spam as mentioned just now!

A couple more notes here.

I personally suggest you don't bother with the RESET field.

All they do is encourage people to click these buttons thinking that they're sending you their information(i.e. thinking they're the SUBMIT button) and then they lose the lot - how annoying!(and potentially expensive in terms of lost customers)

Have a field that tracks where the visitor came from(via your web analytics software) and store it as an 'invisible' field rather than asking people directly with a text input field as people invariably give the wrong information anyway and it just serves to put them off.

Getting MORE people to complete the contact form is another challenge, which I briefly alluded to here with your 'thank you' page.

In a nutshell, offer people a taste of what you provide. Offer a bigger 'freebie' the longer the contact form is, as they'll have had to be more incentivised to complete it - depending on what you're site's about.

Getting people to complete the contact form is what it's all about. And I can help!

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'till next time,

Mike Knight. MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips