Level up your small business website part one: Custom forms

Building custom forms into your website is a great way to generate new business, better service your existing customers, and generally make your life as a business owner easier. We really believe in unlocking the power of your website to better leverage your business and streamline processes. Here are a few popular options for custom website forms, but to be honest, this is just the beginning of what your website can do.

Lead Gen

Lead generation forms are essentially tools to collect information from potential customers or clients that you can then follow up on. It captures basic information, such as a name, phone number or email address and provides the customer with some useful content or information in return. 

There are a number of different formats a lead gen form can take. 

For example, it could be that you have a PDF download on how to successfully plan a wedding and to download the resource, a user just needs to enter their email address and name, and they’ll go on your mailing list. Once on your mailing list, you can provide them with regular content updates, so that when the time comes for them to actually hire a venue for their wedding, you’ve already established trust and come to mind. 

Some lead generation forms can be a little more specific and direct. 

For example, you can create a survey that generates a calculated response based on the user's answers, which gives them some insight into a problem they may be facing. They enter their details to get their answer. And, you now have their information to follow up with and hopefully convert into a valuable client. You might be able to give them a call or email about how you can specifically help them based on their answers. 

The best lead gen forms are the ones that speak directly to your ideal client. 

Provide them with some value and insight into your services and gives you the details of someone you would really like to work with. You can include lead generation tools anywhere within your digital presence, from social ads, to blog posts and landing pages, as well as your website itself.

Quote Generator

We’ve recently discovered the power of custom in-built quote generators, by building one for ourselves. Best suited to businesses that offer a set of tailored services or products, quote generators can be built into your website as a way for potential clients in their research stage to efficiently gather information on what you offer. 

A custom quote generator serves two purposes. 

The first being, of course, to inform the user exactly what you can provide and for how much. Second, it takes out a good chunk of your administration time. You now have the general details of what the customer is after, so there’s no going back and forth over email unnecessarily. You know what you’ll need to provide them from the start, and so you can provide a higher level of service. You also eliminate the tyre kickers and time wasters, those who aren’t really interested in your service and those that will try and get your services for less than their worth. The result - efficient communication, higher quality leads and higher quality clients. 

Application forms

There are definitely third-party tools that can do this for you. But how easy would life be without the fiddly plug-ins, broken code and extra inboxes to check? By building any application forms into your site itself, you have control over what goes where and can streamline your administration processes immensely. You can also integrate payment gateways if required. A good example would be if you need customers to pay a deposit to secure their place in one of your programs, why not integrate payment into the form, so you don’t have to chase them up after? 

Internal forms

There’s more to your website than just the homepage. Your website has the potential to be an absolute powerhouse of business tools. Again, the possibilities are endless. A recent example would be a system we built for a festival, which allows vendors who would like a stall to not only apply through the website, but also upload any insurance documents, fill out all necessary information once approved, and make payment for their space. The website both acts as a means to attract potential vendors, but also takes and process applications, documents and payments. Of course, not all of this is accessible to the public, only to who you need it to be. 

How do I get this magic on my website?

You could find a third party for each of these things, and there are definitely many out there. But then you’d be managing multiple tools and accounts, as well as designing, engineering and embedding all these different things. Not to mention, the flexibility of such products is very limited. You have to search for a product that suits your needs, rather than have a product designed for you that fits perfectly. This isn’t always possible through site builders such as Squarespace or Wix. And even with a developer, WordPress sites have limited capacity for high-functioning custom tools. 

Alas, there is a solution. 

This is why we build all of our sites into a custom CMS, allowing us to work with you to engineer tools that generate revenue and streamline business processes. We'll design the thing to suit you and by having everything in the one place, your website and all the magic features within it are managed by the one team. If you’d like to know more about what custom forms can do for your business, get in touch today.