When growing a business, web forms are an essential tool to capture information on possible clients and future sales. WordPress web forms are generally simple to install, yet there are times when this tool can generate problems for a business. If a WordPress form stops sending notification emails, business potential is being lost when this issue isn’t corrected. Avoid losing leads by adjusting your WordPress form traffic with the following methods to fix the business problem.
The primary reason business emails are not being delivered are related to possible web server corruption. Once a client enters their information into a WordPress web form an email should be generated and sent directly to the website owner’s email address. Instead, the corresponding email is rejected because of the current web server. Web server rejection is a result of the server being associated with spam activity, putting it on a black list. Thus, all emails coming from this server are automatically blocked and business growth is slowed. Changing the host provider of the server may seem like a quick solution to this issue, but by swapping providers the problem may not be corrected if the new hosting provider has spam issues.
One process of correcting the loss of possible leads focuses on a detailed approach. The WordPress account must be reconfigured and sent through different servers. Specifically, sending the web form through a different IP address which has been verified as a trusted source. The most trusted servers are SMTP generated. This will increase the amount of deliverable messages closer to 100%. Another suggestion to improve deliverability is having an SPF record created on the domain name of the WordPress website. The SPF record allows third party websites to query the WordPress domain to verify its trustworthiness for sending emails. Having an SPF record query does take time but is a solid approach for guaranteed lead capturing.
The faster approach to correct the loss of leads is through WordPress itself. One should download the SMPT plugin, install and activate on the new SMPT server. There are many authoritative SMPT servers to choose from, but the key to server choice is getting the WordPress site authenticated. The process to being authenticated takes time because the SMPT server needs to verify the site will not bring any spam or corrosive traffic to their network.
Both of these strategies can be used in unison and must be tested for verification. The desirable approach is to set up the WordPress SMPT plugin before finding a trusted SMPT server. Once both of these services are acquired, configure each for beta testing. Send test emails to friends, family and other owned email addresses. Testing will clarify and filter out issues with deliverability. The goal is for all web form information to reach the owner’s email inbox and avoid automatic deletion. The more testing that is completed the better tuned the web form can become while waiting for the authentication process to be complete. All business owners should aim for 99% deliverability rate and these techniques will correct the problems with WordPress form lead generation.
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Hi Sally, thanks for the great article, very useful – tell me the SMTP plugin you talk about is it this one? http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smtp/ or another one that you would recommend?
Yes, it’s that one.
You would always lose leads. The point it what you do in order to improve things.
Thanks Nikolay, yes it’s the minimisation of lost leads that is important!
Isn’t it possible for the form to save a list of emails generated that the site owner can access?
This way a manual action may be able to save a problem situation. It’s one alternate way (not the best) to deal with this kind of problem.
I’m not 100% sure on that. I haven’t tested every feature to it’s full extent.
I would be grateful if anyone with more experience could answer LarryL’s query.
I’d imagine it’s definitely technically possible, whether or not the code exists as a plugin, or a feature of an existing plugin is gonna have to be answered by an old fashioned Google search!
I would peruse the forums on WordPress directly as a starter. I have found very useful information when managing a business page there. Also, I found communicating with customers another way to find feedback. In the past, I have had clients state they are not receiving my emails – which prompted me to investigate further.
Lastly, I used a separate email service which provided separate plug-ins, etc to add to WordPress. This helped as a secondary source with more tracking/troubleshooting options.