Email Forms

Email Forms

Term: Email Forms

An email form is HTML that is used to capture data such as first name, last name, organization, address, phone number and email address.

An individual would fill out the email form online and the information entered would be sent to the organization electronically.

Some forms can be quite complex. They may offer options for the email to be sent to a specific department such as customer service, human resources or sales.

One benefit of using email forms is that the underlying email addresses used by an organization are not shown in the public HTML page. Therefore, the email addresses cannot be captured by spiders that are trying to harvest email addresses on websites in order to add them to mailing lists for unsolicited spam.

We have created basic contact forms. However, we have also created forms that can have fields change based upon selections on the form. For example, on one of our forms, when an individual checks a box to indicate that they are interested in becoming a dealer for the product, the form automatically displays additional fields that are needed in order to consider the application.

An email form may be unsecured, if it does not matter if someone else captures the information. However, in this day and age it is often desirable to use a secure web HTML form that will stop "prying eyes".

Simple, free scripts allow an email to be sent to one or more recipients. However, to obtain the maximum benefit from a web form there logic can be programmed based on how the form has been completed.

For example, we have situations in which an email form can request that a catalog or CD is sent. In such cases, we can use the form to acquire data and store the information in a database for easier mailing. Also, there can be situations when you want copies of an email form to be sent to individuals using "blind copies".

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