When I first started doing freelance design work, I set up my site so that prospective clients could come see my previous work (portfolio), see who I was (about page), and get in contact with me (an email address only).
But, as I tried to streamline my marketing and sales process, I realized that one thing I lacked was lowering the bar for people to get in touch with me. I’m a big fan of trying to make it easy for the customer to contact, or buy, or get support.
So I found a free WordPress Contact Form plugin that enabled prospective clients to email me directly from my website.
The result: I’d estimate inquiries and sales doubled …
Of course, the referrals I was getting from past clients helped a ton. But just allowing them to make the first contact through an easy-to-use email-based form was a breakthrough for my fledgling freelance business.
And about 95% of the time, most clients just wanted to communicate with a real person, get a feel for the design process, ask some questions and establish some trust and rapport … all via email. The other 5% asked for a phone call, which I worked into my schedule of course.
So here are two free Contact Form plugins based in WordPress I recommend:
- http://chip.cuccio.us/projects/contact-form-ii — Super simple, easy to use
- http://green-beast.com/blog/?page_id=136 — More options, more complex, but great
To use the plugins, just upload it to your plugins folder, activate it from the plugins tab, you’ll need to insert one line of code (in the readme instructions), set some basic configurations and you’re good to go.
So if you’re trying to get your freelance business off the ground, get and use a good contact form … it’s free and unless you’re just inundated with work, it’s an easy way to fine tune your marketing and sales strategies.
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