Effective Contact Forms on your Website

Mistake: Not Separating Contact Forms and Brochure Requests

Does your Outdoor Website have a contact form where people can enter their personal information and send you a message? Are you trying to cover multiple selling angles in one contact form? Are you asking too much of the user? You might be.

Typical of many outdoor organizations is to build a contact form that asks the user to enter their email address, phone number, and mailing address. Many require all fields. The reasoning is that if a user enters all their contact information then you can send them brochures and other marketing materials to their home mailing address. This is a mistake.

Users who are interested in your services may have a general question before they dive in further. They have not given you permission to send your marketing mail to them nor have they requested it. Many people will visit your contact form, see that there mailing address is required to contact you, and abandon the page. Asking the user for such information makes them leery as to what you want it for when all they have is a general question.

A contact form on a Website should not require the user to enter anything more than their name and either an email address OR phone number. That way a user can easily ask questions about your service without spooking them off. They don't know what you will be doing with their mailing address and it should not be required for asking simple questions.

You also make it unclear as to whether or not you do have brochures and how someone can get one. The contact form should be used for general inquiries. Brochures should be eliminated for the logic of this feature and be it's own page. That way users with general questions can ask them and those who want brochures can specifically request them.

Better yet, you can build your contact form to ask the user if they want a brochure. If they answer "YES" then you can ask the user for their mailing address. Not only will you have a page just for requesting brochures but you also have a way for the user to request brochures on your contact form. Best of all, you are asking them.

Are you trying to kill two birds with one stone with your Outdoor Website? Is your Outdoor Website kind of confusing as to where a user should go to request different services? Are you requiring more information than necessary in order to send marketing materials to users? If so then you may be doing more damage than good. If you would like to get things straightened out then feel free to Contact Us to discuss a solution.

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