How to Use Contact Form 7 For WooCommerce Email Marketing

Probably the most common (and underused) use case for Contact Form 7 in WooCommerce is placing it on a regular contact page. Learn how to build successful email marketing automation in WordPress and WooCommerce with Contact Form 7 free integration for ShopMagic!

You know, just to give your customers a must-have contact channel. Nothing more.

Let me tell you this: it’s a HUGE wasted opportunity to use it’s marketing power.

It’s actually simpler than you might think, and I will show you exactly how to transform it into a marketing powerhouse.

Don’t get me wrong – there are no secret marketing options in CF7 itself.

CF7 is incredibly versatile and kind of genius in its simplicity – it does just one thing but does it very well.

It gives you a simple tool to place forms in your store and connect with your customers. No complications or unnecessary configuration. Just like ShopMagic, it doesn’t need lengthy integrations or external accounts setup.

But with the right tools (explained in this article), it’s more that easy to turn it into a new marketing channel and increase your sales.

Contact Form 7 Emails Explained

Where do CF7 emails go

Contact Form 7 sends your customers’ messages directly to your inbox, leaving no trace of this operation in your database. That means submitted forms’ data is also not accessible in your WordPress dashboard (but there is a way to change this).

Instead of storing data in your database, CF7 just passes it straight to the email recipient  – no “middlemen”.

Many WordPress plugins and WooCommerce extensions are well known for their ability to clog up your database with gazillions of records.

Normally, you’d expect that a plugin involved with filling forms and sending emails will store the customers’ data and/or message content somewhere in the database.

Here’s where CF7 is different.

The Contact Form’s approach is great for your database hygiene and keeping your website light, but might be limiting your marketing and customer research potential.

If you need to save your contact form submissions in WordPress, you can use the Contact Form 7 Database Add-on or the Flamingo plugin.

Email settings

All email settings are placed in the “Mail” tab in the “Contact” menu in your WordPress dashboard, added by Contact Form 7.

Below, you will find a list of all settings related to emails in CF7. For more general settings, you can view the official Contact Form 7 documentation.

“Mail” tab

• To – set the recipient’s email address
• From – set the email sender name that appears in your inbox
• Subject – set the email subject
• Additional headers – additional email settings, like specifying the reply-to email address or adding BCC email addresses
• Message body – actual email content that will be sent to your recipients
• [Checkbox] Use HTML content type – enables HTML support in your messages
• File attachments – if you’re using attachments in your forms, you can also add them to messages
• [Checkbox] Use Mail 2 – enable sending the second email that can be used as an autoresponder (by default it’s set to your customer’s email)

“Additional Settings” tab

Although it isn’t created strictly for changing how emails work in CF7, it provides several email-related options.

Here are the code snippets that can affect your messages:

demo_mode: on –  turns on the demo mode for the chosen form. After turning it on, the only action that will happen after submitting the form will be displaying the “completed successfully” message. It also disables storing form submissions with the Flamingo plugin.

skip_mail: on – disable sending messages after successful form submission. This setting doesn’t affect other services like Flamingo.

do_not_store – stops other services (like Flamingo) from storing your submitted forms’ data

Extending Contact Form 7 email marketing capabilities

Contact Form 7 is definitely lacking options that would let you conveniently edit or customize your emails and build relationships with customers who leave their contact information through forms.

Below you will find a couple of ideas how to enable extra marketing opportunities with a plugin like ShopMagic.

How to add formatting

If you’re using the ShopMagic plugin for Contact Form 7 – WooCommerce integration, you can easily format your messages just like you would in a Word, Google document or regular WordPress post with a built-in editor.

While it’s not strictly a “marketing” feature, proper formatting can do wonders for your email readability and brand perception.

Here is how a formatted message and an editor looks like with ShopMagic:

And here’s how it looks like without the formatting options and a WYSIWYG editor (if you like to see the source code):

Not easy to read or edit, right?

Although CF7 supports HTML in its email messages, it might be hard to use if you’re not at least comfortable writing HTML.

That’s because CF7 doesn’t offer any WYSIWYG editor, so any HTML tags you use will appear as… well, only HTML tags.

To actually see how your email content will look like, you would have to use a great dose of imagination, an external editor, or test contact forms and send the messages to yourself.

Use your WooCommerce templates

Keeping your communication and brand assets consistent is crucial if you want to be seen as professional and differentiate yourself from your competition.

Do your emails sent after form submission and after transactional emails look different?

That’s actually what happens if you’re using default CF7 emails in your WooCommerce store.

If yes, then you are actually losing an opportunity to improve your brand recognition and reduce cognitive friction for your customers.

ShopMagic, on the other hand, lets you use the same WooCommerce template you’re using for transactional emails, like email after order.

Create follow-up sequences

All messages sent by CF7 are delivered instantly, without an option to delay them or send follow-up messages to build relationships.

Follow-up emails are a great way to keep up the communication and stay on top of your customers’ minds.

Fastest way to add a follow-up message (or a whole sequence) is to use a WooCommerce email marketing plugin integration for Contact Form 7 and lets you trigger messages after form submissions.

Where to use CF7 in a WooCommerce store

You can use forms to know your customers better and give them an opportunity to ask questions directly, even outside your regular contact page.

Placing contact forms on the following pages is a great way to use their potential for marketing.

1) Product page

Product pages should be one of your priorities when it comes to optimizing for conversions.

And one of the worst conversion killers is uncertainty.

That’s what your customers might feel when they are presented with not enough data about your product.

You may be sure that if it happens, they will not make the purchase.

So, how can you reduce anxiety, answer your customers’ doubts directly, and learn more about them?

Place a contact form on your product pages. Ideally, below the fold or near the “FAQ” section, not to distract the more convinced buyers.

2) Order confirmation page

Placing a contact form directly in the checkout process would be a major distraction and a recipe for low-sales disaster.

But placing a contact form AFTER the purchase? It can actually be a great opportunity to let your customers ask follow-up questions. Another option is to ask them to subscribe to your newsletter and marketing communication.

ShopMagic lets you easily send marketing emails to your customers or add them to an external Mailchimp mailing list.

3) Delivery and payment options page

Additional costs depending on payment option or lack of customer-preferred delivery options are main reasons for cart abandonment.

A contact form placed on a page describing your payment and delivery options can help you learn about your customers’ preferences and fight objections even before abandonment happens.

Summary

In this article, I summed up the most important information about using Contact Form 7 emails to level up marketing in your WooCommerce store.

If you’re already using CF7, I hope that the information presented will give you a few ideas to try right now.

Still not using Contact Form 7? Give it a try, and remember to add ShopMagic to use its marketing potential to the fullest.