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Creating a Contact/Optin Form

by PaulintheSticks
12 replies
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I have a PHP site and want to add a contact form/optin form. Is having a prefabbed form from an autoresponder the only good option? I don't have a single subscriber so don't want to be paying $20/mo until I have a decent size list.

Any insights are appreciated.
#contact or optin #creating #form
  • Profile picture of the author M Thompson
    Originally Posted by PaulintheSticks View Post

    I have a PHP site and want to add a contact form/optin form. Is having a prefabbed form from an autoresponder the only good option? I don't have a single subscriber so don't want to be paying $20/mo until I have a decent size list.

    Any insights are appreciated.
    You have to ask yourself are you going to take list building seriously?

    If the answer is yes then you need to get yourself a good autoresponder.

    It's a sort of catch 22 ... if you build a list without an decent AR you'll lose most of the list if you try to get them to optin to an AR when you buy it.

    You could go with a free mailchimp account and upgrade later but personally the best thing I ever did was get an aweber account from day 1
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    Also, contact form and optin form are quite different animals.

    On the same domain I get occasionally 1 or 2 messages per week through the Contact form but I get tens of subscribers through the optin form. Remember, they serve different purposes:
    contact form - to talk directly to me
    optin form - to get on my list as a subscriber in exchange for the valued_____________ I gave them

    And yes, what Mark said above: you need an AR to start building the list.

    I started to build my first list by participating in a giveaway event, so it was a bit faster. I also had a (according to my present knowledge, very bad) OTO shown after the submission... Well, I didn't make a fortune with that ever but enough to pay for the first two months for my AR.

    HTH
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  • Profile picture of the author PaulintheSticks
    My question is can forms be coded into a php website just like they are coded into a Wordpress site?
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    Yes. Any HTML element can be used in a PHP file.

    I guess you are referring to the WordPress theme files which all are .php files (except the stylesheet and JS + images). If you take a closer look at them you will see they are build from html and php blocks... You just always need to close/finish one type of block before starting the other.

    However, all this talk about html and/or php will NOT change the answer to your original question:
    - contact form or optin form are not the same
    - to build a list with an optin form, you need AR service (or your own AR script, which requires a lot of technical knowledge)
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  • Profile picture of the author PaulintheSticks
    Well, I was asking about forms in general but I will need both an optin form and a contact form on my site.

    So can't I just hire a programmer to create forms where the user's info will just be e-mailed to me?
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  • Profile picture of the author e-mail2u
    i use infinite autoresponder its a free script you host yourself. you will also need virtual cron to run the responder in auto this is also free.

    both are available at Hot Scripts - The net's largest PHP, CGI, Perl, JavaScript and ASP script collection and resource web portal.
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    • Profile picture of the author PaulintheSticks
      Originally Posted by e-mail2u View Post

      i use infinite autoresponder its a free script you host yourself. you will also need virtual cron to run the responder in auto this is also free.

      both are available at Hot Scripts - The net's largest PHP, CGI, Perl, JavaScript and ASP script collection and resource web portal.

      Ah yes. Just as I thought. A free solution. Sometimes it just takes time for the right person with the info to show up. Thanks much!
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      • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
        Originally Posted by PaulintheSticks View Post

        Well, I was asking about forms in general but I will need both an optin form and a contact form on my site.

        So can't I just hire a programmer to create forms where the user's info will just be e-mailed to me?
        Originally Posted by PaulintheSticks View Post

        Ah yes. Just as I thought. A free solution.
        Hey Paul,

        Seemingly, you like to hear only what you want to hear...

        1. Contact form.
        You don't need a "programmer" for that. Just google for 'contact form using php mail' - and you will have it. PHP has a built-in function to send mail, which means you can build easily a simple contact form to let your visitors get in touch with you.

        2. Opt-in form.
        It doesn't make sense to have an optin form per se... if you don't have some kind of autoresponder service or script in the background.
        You are reluctant to go with a service. That's fine. Then run your own.

        I told you above you can run your own AR on your server. However, judging by your basic questions you seem to lack the proper technical knowledge to run it. Sorry, maybe I am wrong...

        Whether you use a free or paid AR script on your server will not make any difference when in the future you will want to move to a paid service and they will not let you to 'import' your list. Just saying... because in most cases you can NOT import your in-house list to AR services.
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        • Profile picture of the author PaulintheSticks
          Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath View Post

          Hey Paul,
          Seemingly, you like to hear only what you want to hear...
          No need to insult me. You know the old saying, If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything.

          I don't need and didn't ask about an autoresponder. I asked about form creation. I'm marketing consulting services to local businesses and doubt I will ever have a list larger than 100 names and plan to take care of the list manually...thank you very much.
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