Wow what a nice plugin
One of my clients decided that she needed to accept online sign-ups to her classes.
Not only that but she needed to send out automatic e-mails to confirm and provide additional information to them before the first class.
Oh, and she didn't want to pay a monthly fee to do this.
Sooooo, what to do. Most of what I wanted to do is available from Mailchimp with their auto-responder system. Problem is, there is a fee for the auto-responder.
After looking deeper, it seems that MailChimp has another service called Mandrilla. This integrates directly into the Mailchimp feature set and provides the auto-responder I needed but after 3 hours of research, I still didn't have a clue how to make it work right.
Finally, I had a lighbulb moment. Contact form 7 is a free plugin that solves my problem.
I was able to customize the form and it was relatively easy to create. I did spend a lot of time customizing the html on the form to make it look better but if all you need is a basic form this is a good solution.
The form mails directly to my client and stores the information in the website database in case she doesn't get an email or looses it somehow (don't laugh, she is notorious for doing this). It has an automatic reply to the customer and even allows for file transfers and if necessary can redirect them to another webpage when the form is submitted.
All in all, a pretty nice free plugin. Oh, and it is the industry standard so no worries about the plugin being hacked or having unwanted code in it.
Recent Comments
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Yes it's an excellent plugin, and lightweight too so will not give you any problems in terms of slowing your site down etc.
This is a fantastic example of how you can customize something to help you on your way, brilliant post Craig.
You can get people to design you a custom template on Fiverr.com for a few bucks too.
I know that people will do it for me. But if I do that then I don't learn. When I need something in the future it is nice to know how difficult it is for someone to do. That way, I can determine if they are overcharging or giving a great deal.
Sorry Craig, that wasn't aimed directly at you. I posted that for everybody's benefit, for those who find they don't want to get too involved with that sort of thing, or who might want to save time to get other things done later on as I am hoping to do myself.
Hey Craig:
So, is your client using Contact Form 7 to capture emails, and sending them a free gift, for example, for opting in? Are you also sending out follow up messages to all these captured emails? Is the Contact Form 7 method SPAM compliant?
Thanks for the share,
Charlie
It integrates with Akismet so no issues with spam although, you do need to set it up.
Since this is a local client she is more concerned with being able to contact people and not marketing to them.
Awesome! I have looked into other scheduling plugins but they are all premium. l will check this one out for sure! Thanks!
-Joe
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Nice tip. Starring this post for future reference