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Using Online Forms and Surveys in Your
Business
Paul Teague
Coming up today …
• Why use online forms?
• Why use online surveys?
• The basics: Google Forms (free option)
• Survey Monkey (free & paid versions)
• WuFoo (free and paid versions)
• Social media surveys
• How to add online forms to your blog or web site
• Form fields
• Using email marketing software for forms
• Form export and sorting options
Simple Polls
You can make fast, simple
and effective polls/surveys on
Google+ for free
Simple PollsFacebook Groups only – used to be available on pages
Simple PollsSimple to create straightforward surveys …
Simple Polls
Paid option for Twitter and more …
Why use online forms?
• They’re most commonly used to capture
‘Contact Us’ information
• They may be used to register for a
newsletter
• In the ‘bad old days’ of the web, you had
to hand code these – it was a devil of a
job, believe me, I’ve done it!
• Nowadays, like everything else online,
you can achieve this simple and easily,
and most often for free
• There are many services online which
will help you to do this, I’ll be showing
you the ones that I use – or have used –
myself and which I can recommend
• None of this requires anything more than
basic technical skills
Google Forms
• Very few people seem to know that this
service even exists!
• It’s free
• I use it a lot, it’s very straightforward to use
• It integrates nicely with a spreadsheet view
so that you can do ‘pretty things’ with your
data
• It’s not great for handling large amounts of
data, only in so far as it gets a little difficult to
wade through … but to be fair, that’s true of
other services too
• You can use Google Forms for simple
‘contact us’ forms, but they can also be used
for complex surveys too
Simple Form
Share options
• Embed in a blog or web site
• Alter the form width and height to make it fit on the
page nicely
Share options
• Share the form via a web link (you don’t even need
a blog or a web site)
• Share via Google+, Twitter or Facebook
• Send the form via email
• Add collaborators
Share options
• Use the link shortener if you intend to share the
form anywhere, it’s much neater
• Just check the box to auto-shorten
• See my form at: http://paulteague.com/forms1
Form options
From the top menus we can:
• View our response
• Change our theme
• View the live form
Form FieldsQ: When is a form not a form?
A: When it’s a survey!
Google Forms gives you many field options, meaning
that you can move directly from simple forms to
detailed surveys
What is a form field?
Form fields are data fields you use in
your forms and landing pages to gather
information.
They can be a variety of types (text,
checkbox, etc.) and are tied to either
default fields or custom fields.
Source:
1.Form Fields Overview - Pardot
2.www.pardot.com/faqs/forms/form-
fields/
Form Fields
• You can ‘lock’ essential form fields so that the form
cannot be submitted without key information ie an email
address
• Don’t lock too many fields, only the essentials
• The data that is supplied will be viewable by field ie it will
be ready sorted for you
• Text field: This is a short text area, used for name/email
address/telephone number etc
• Paragraph text field: This is where the response will
need to be much longer
• Multiple choice field: Create multiple choice fields
• Tick box field: Allow form users to check applicable
boxes
• Choose from a list field: Creates a neater, drop down
menu
Other Form Options
• Images
• Videos
• Page breaks
• Section headers
• Grids
• Dates
• Times
• Scales
See it here: http://paulteague.com/forms3
If you use Wordpress …
Get it at: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpgform/
Why use the plugin?
• No coding, you just need to cut and paste the link
• You can easily place the form on any page on your
blog or web site
• It uses something called a shortcode ie [wpgform
id='2205'] rather than having to touch any code
• It removes the Google Forms border
• It allows CAPTCHA use to discourage spammers
• You can set it up so that you receive an email
notification when a form is submitted
• You can set it up so that the sender gets a confirmation
• If you’re really clever you can adjust the CSS to
customise the styling
• This is a great plugin if you use Wordpress!
WuFoo
• This is advanced form creation and analytics – but it’s
still really easy to use!
• WuFoo is owned by SurveyMonkey
WuFoo
Sign up for a free account and log in
Creating a new form …
Notice that the basic principle (ie use of fields) remains the same
Free accounts …
WuFoo form building …
WuFoo form building …
Notes: You can specify
text/numbers, but all other choices
are available in Google forms
Notes: Much more flexibility here, with
more custom fields (max 10 on a free
account). File upload is pretty advanced
and very useful (but paid only). Likert is
the same as a Grid in Google Forms. You
can remove a section once added, just
click on that section and you’ll see a red
‘minus’ icon.
Form Manager
1: Form entries
2: Edit the form
3: View live form
4: See analytics
5: Set up notifications
6: Rules (advanced!)
7: Payments (paid feature!)
8: Share the form – via link,
social media or on your web site
9: Protect (paid feature!)
10: Duplicate (time saving
feature!)
11: Delete
Notifications …
Amazing Analytics!
Share …
Sharing via link – or even better, a shortened link, is always the easiest
option
Share …
Also share via your social media channels where these
are available …
Share …
Add to your blog of web site using the ready-made code (just cut and
paste) or, even simpler, use the WuFoo free Wordpress plugin and grab
the shortcode …
Wordpress Plugin …
Get it from: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wufoo-shortcode/
Wordpress Plugin …
Simply drop the WuFoo shortcode anywhere onto a
Wordpress page or post …
Share …
If you use the full embed code, the iframe option in
the Advanced area is usually more trouble-free than
the default option …
WuFoo Reports …
Report Builder …
Report Builder …
This is nice!
We get much more control over the format of our data …
The report can then be managed very easily …
Why use online surveys?• They’re really easy to use
• You can set them up and use them for
free
• In the ‘bad old days’ of the web, you had
to hand code these – don’t even think
about it!
• Nowadays, like everything else online,
you can achieve this simple and easily,
and most often for free
• None of this requires anything more
than basic technical skills
• The information is much easier to sort
and sift if you use a decent service
• It’s easier to share the surveys and get
replies this way
Great advice!
You have to work at getting a decent response!
Creating A Survey …
What Will Your Survey Ask?
Options …
There are many, many
options available to you in
SurveyMonkey.
Several of them you’ll
recognise from Google
Forms, some of them are
new.
Net Promoter Score …
Because you’re bound to ask me what it is
Options …
Logic is locked out on free accounts,
question bank is a very handy, time-
saving feature
Options …
You have complete control over how your survey
looks – this is great for free!
Finished Survey …
1: Company
name
2: Web link
3: Limit
responses
per person
4: Allow
response
editing
5/6:
Upgrade
only
7: Ways to
share the
survey
Share/Embed Options …
After using a straightforward share link, embedding will
be the next most-used option.
Popup invitation/Popup survey are nice, but they’re
advanced and one for your webmaster (if you have
one)
Embed Code …
It looks horrible, but just cut and paste it …
Facebook Share …
On a free account you only get 3 x ‘collectors’ so choose
carefully!
‘Collectors’I’d go for web link, website embed and Facebook …
Survey Results …
Export Results …
Detailed Results …
Add Contacts …
Mailchimp Integration …
Mailchimp integrates with SurveyMonkey
allowing you to send professional looking
surveys to your subscribers.
Mailchimp Integration …
Connect with
SurveyMonkey and
Authorize
Mailchimp Integration …
Access Mailchimp via the web link ‘collector’ as shown above.
Mailchimp Integration …
Select the subscriber list that you want to send the survey too …
Mailchimp Integration …
This is the template format that Mailchimp provides for you to
customise …
Mailchimp Integration …
This is the email that your recipients see … they just click on the
yellow button to access the survey.
Mailchimp
Email marketing tools can be used to create
forms too, and they have multiple fields available
GetResponse
• http://paulteague.com/survey1
• http://paulteague.com/survey2
GetResponse
Tip: If you start paying for survey services, check out if it would be
cheaper to buy an integrated email/survey service instead
Extras!
https://wordpress.org/plugins/si-contact-form/
Access all of the slides from today, as well as
lots of useful URLs and resources, via this link:
http://paulteague.com/forms
Next steps …
