What is Gravity Forms?

Many people (mostly other WordPress developers) know about Gravity Forms.

What is Gravity Forms? It’s essentially a plugin (think “app for WordPress websites”) that allows WordPress website developers (and it may work for other types of Content Management Systems other than just WordPress, but since I don’t use any other CMS, I don’t know for sure) to use and modify highly interactive and “conditional logic” forms of all kinds.

How It Works

So, let’s say for example, you’re a lawyer and you’d like your website to have a contact form that can screen potential new clients for your practice. Rather than get e-mails from everyone with a legal question or wants to “pick your brain,” you can use the form to ask conditional questions.

An example of this might be that someone goes to your law practice or law firm website, they see the form and begin to fill it out. The form could ask them what they believe their legal issue is. A drop-down list could appear allowing the user to select what they’re issue or problem is about. Based on their answer, you can have another sub-question or even informational content, appear to address it. If someone says they suffered a physical injury of some kind, it could lead them to a section referring them to a personal injury attorney if your area of expertise is patent law, for example.

Or if you’re a lawyer who specializes in tax law, rather than fielding questions about other areas of law or giving directions to your office over and over every day, you can simply use the form to ask questions, and then only permit clients with tax issues (and have a realistic ability to pay for services) to contact you. The form serves as a  “velvet rope” policy that can screen your clients, refer them to others, or refer them to appropriate content.

Gravity Forms allows for those uses and many more that most people (business owners and developers alike) are not aware of. And even though many web developers and programmers know about GF, very few use it for anything other as a basic contact form. By limiting what they can get from it, they also limit their Return On Investment.

Contracts

Another great purpose of Gravity Forms, other than the very basic traditional contact form, is that you (or your developer) can use it to send clients contracts and require signature electronically, just as you sign for FedEx or UPS packages now. Since the form can track date, time, server, IP address, and also require entry of time, date, website (and hence IP address) and require personally-identifying information, it appears as though it could carry some weight behind it. I’m not a lawyer, and don’t know for certain if a form requiring electronic signature, and has some different levels of verification would be admissible in court (and much of that would also depend upon how the form is set up, conditions, and City and State, too, I’m assuming).

Even if the form itself and e-signature doesn’t hold water in a court of law, it certainly at the very least gives forth the impression that your business is serious about what it does enough to try to implement a contract. The terms and conditions can be supported or repeated in e-mail conversations or exchanges, and at the very least, all of this shows the client that you care enough to have systems and processes in place to facilitate a better functioning.

If you’re a WordPress consultant or web developer such as myself, know that you will be the only web developer to use contracts, valid or otherwise, in the vast majority of instances. And if you work in a different service profession, you, too, will most likely be the only person using an electronic signature, simply because as common as smartphones are today, most business owners still see websites as “one and done” single items and see internet marketing as a mystical unknown equation. Using a form to collect visitor intelligence, to screen desirable clients from those who just want to ask questions and kick tires and ask you if their business idea could possibly work some day, will save you countless hours of time, relieve stress, and help streamline processes.

Not only have I used Gravity Forms as a secure and safe contact form, to take payments, to onboard new clients, to screen potential clients, to teach workshops, I’ve also used it to send introductory onboarding documents describing how we work as a digital marketing agency (the biggest factor being wishing to use e-mail for most correspondence and communications – which can be an issue for some who simply aren’t internet users). I’ve also used it to send out contracts, proposals, technical support “tickets,” and for other sites. I’ve seen Gravity Forms used to generate legal documents, as a technical support ticket generating device, to screen, as an online quiz, to build classified ad sections, and other uses as well.

Ultimately, it comes down to being open to ameliorative change that can help streamline functions and operations, and not being afraid of technology, but rather seeing it as a tool that can make life easier…and business more profitable.

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