There are two kinds of forms you might add to your website: a Contact form and an Email signup form. Each has its own purpose. After fielding questions from new clients about these two kinds of forms recently, I decided to explain the difference.
But first, how is a form different from regular text on your website?
A form is a design element on your website that visitors interact with by adding information such as their names and email addresses. A form also includes descriptive text to explain the kinds of information being requested.
What distinguishes a form from regular website text is its fields, which often look like rectangular objects on the form. Fields may be text fields where visitors type information directly or they may be selection fields that offer several pre-set answers that visitors choose from. When a visitor fills out the fields and sends the form by clicking a button, the information collected in these fields is passed on to a hidden system process that organizes and stores the information provided by this visitor.
The Contact form’s purpose
The Contact form, usually placed on a page named Contact, gives people a way to send you an inquiry, suggestion, or comment. It’s convenient for your website visitors because they don’t need to open a separate email program to communicate with you. Instead they stay on your website and fill out the form to send the message.
The Contact form is connected to your business email address. Once the form is sent by the visitor, you receive an email from your website host that compiles all the information the visitor provided. That email gives you all the information you need to follow up with the visitor.
A Contact form has an advantage for you too. It usually has fields for name, email address, and a message, but you can add custom fields to gather more information from a visitor, as described in “How to add a Contact form to your website."
A Contact form is usually added to a page as a website design element. If you use an external form program like Jotform, the form may also be placed as code,
The journey of a Contact form
The Email signup form’s purpose
An Email signup form is only placed on a website if you already have an email marketing program. A program like Squarespace Email Campaigns, MailerLite, MailChimp, or Constant Contact is a program that stores email addresses and names of your mailing list subscribers. It also gives you a design and editing tool for creating and sending mailings.
The email marketing program is a separate program that connects to your website, but isn’t part of your website. The only connection between the two is the Email signup form. The signup form is either a design element or is provided as code from your email marketing platform. You place the form on your website either as a website page form or as a pop-up. It automatically connects to the email marketing platform.
The Email signup form only asks for an email address and, if you choose, the person’s name. When a visitor subscribes to your mailing list by filling out and completing the form, the information provided is sent to the email marketing platform for storage.
Unlike a Contact form, the subscriber’s information is not sent to your business email address. The subscriber’s information goes directly to the email marketing platform, which adds the subscriber to your mailing list. The next time you send a mailing, the new subscriber automatically receives the mailing.
The processing of a new Email signup form
So which forms do you need on your website?
For all new websites, I recommend creating a Contact page with a Contact form on it to give visitors a quick and easy way to send you a message.
By contrast, you only add an Email signup form when you need to connect your website to an email marketing program. The signup form gives interested visitors a way to add themselves to your mailing list automatically. Maintaining a mailing list and sending regular mailings to your subscribers is a business marketing decision. It can be helpful if you offer events, classes, or have other news that changes frequently. It also gives you a more predictable way than using social media to give clients and potential clients news about your business.
