Online forms and surveys collect data that many companies use to provide answers to business questions. This analysis often comes as charts and graphs, as our built-in Analytics show. Filtering data using Results Filters lets form owners pinpoint the conditions for more accurate analysis.

Creating filters allows for segmenting the results in either broad categories or specific groups. Examples of some popular filters include:

• Show only complete results (filter out incomplete ones)
• Date filters (before, after, or between dates)
• Results from specific domains (emails containing ‘edu’ or ‘gov’)
• Order volume (greater than 10 units)

Companies of all sizes use customer input to influence company decisions. Providers of products and services use feedback gained from customer surveys. These surveys may be informal questions asked via email or phone, or formatted in an online survey. The design of each survey question can influence the answers. Follow these tips to gather quality data and avoid skewing the results:

• Start with the answers
• Use the right items
• Don’t ask leading questions, avoid bias

A past article talks about personalizing emails and the more success it brings. Using the same concepts to personalize forms and surveys will also increase engagement. The more engaged form visitors are, the more likely they are to complete the form.

An obvious way to personalize the form is to use the person’s name and email address, and other ways for less-obvious personalization include:

• Screening questions
• Funneling previous answers
• Follow-up items
• Custom Success Pages & Notifications

Many forms and surveys rely on email to reach their audiences. Lead generation forms collect information from potential customers and typically an email follows. That email contains more links to order forms, follow-up information, or surveys. Form owners who rely on email views and clicks use these techniques to improve email response rates:

1. Focus the email topic
2. Maintain the email list
3. Be clear about privacy

Lead generation forms are a specific kind of form that puts potential customers in the sales funnel. Examples include contact forms, surveys, event sign-up forms, and contest forms. Many organizations rely on forms and surveys to attract customers and organize their information. Here are 4 essentials for making lead gen forms work as best as they can:

• Keep it short
• Be specific
• Allow opt-in and out
• Focus on privacy

We previously wrote about sending an email containing Pre-populate links to forms as an easy technique for repeat orders. The Pre-populate links can contain the specific user’s information that pre-fills the basic info. The same techniques can apply to a landing page index form that directs users to other forms based on form answers.

This idea allows form owners to create a form to act as a ‘home page’ with choices for visitors to select as the next step. Choosing the next form and clicking the submit button forwards the visitor to the correct next form. Extra content can pass through the Pre-populate link, too.

Formsite’s Workflow feature lets form owners connect forms and pass information between them. This allows for creating a chain of forms with persistent information. Passing answers to previous questions enables common workflows like:

• Approvals
• Repeat orders
• Updating information

Form owners can build these common workflows using the built-in Workflow tools. Not all cases need the online forms Workflow feature, though, and some can do most of the same using other Formsite features.

Formsite forms collect form submissions and saves them as results. Each new submission creates a new result row in the Results Table. To collect results, form visitors view and complete the form.

Getting visitors to the form requires either embedding the form on a site or displaying the form’s link where visitors can see it.

Some ways of getting form results include:

• Sending the form link to an email list
• Posting the form link on an article or social media post
• Use the form’s QR code on printed material
• Display the URL provided by a URL-shortening service

Forms for events are essential at all stages. Examples include event registrations, sample requests, follow-up requests, and post-show surveys. A commonality across all successful event forms is being clear and easy to use.

Events of all kinds share common form needs, like what information to collect and how to grab a visitor’s attention. Those combined attributes make up the concept of ‘engagement’. Making an engaging event form doesn’t have to be rocket science.

Form owners should examine forms receiving fewer complete results than expected. Form visitors can abandon long forms when they’re too long, too hard to understand, or too much effort.

Increasing the forms' completion rates can be a simple matter of simplifying long or complex forms. Use these 5 tips for increasing completion rates for long forms.