Momentum Episode 1:
Online Forms: We Use Them Too!

Three two one.

Maintaining momentum is key if there's one thing we're all working towards, it's progress moving forward whether in your career, your personal life, or your own business.

We're all looking to grow in various ways but what helps you get there, especially when it comes to our ever increasing dependence on technology in virtually every facet of our lives?

In a world that continues to be shaped by digital systems, how can you not only keep up but continue to elevate yourself and your business beyond your barriers and then maintain that trajectory?

Hey everyone, welcome to the first episode of Momentum, a podcast by Jotform where we begin to answer these questions by talking about the things we do and come across every day as marketers in the world of tech.

Our hope is that you can take away some kind of value from these conversations and potentially even apply what you hear to your own ecosystem of work, life, marketing, technology, or business.

I'm your host Elliot Sprecker and today I'm here with Jotform's Vice President of Marketing Communications, Chad Reed. Thanks for joining us Chad on this inaugural installment of our podcast series.

Yeah, I'm excited to be here. It's fun to get this kicked off and we've got some great topics to get into. Happy to be on the inaugural journey.

Awesome, it's great to have you. Well, let's get right into it. As Jotform's first podcast, I figure it's fitting we talk about what Jotform is known for: online forms.

Specifically, how we use them ourselves both in a professional and personal capacity and some of the rather interesting use cases we've seen with some of our clients.

But let's start with the basics Chad, why would you say people need online forms?

You know, that's kind of a loaded question.

It is purposefully because people need online forms for different reasons and if you look at Jotform's users, they're really spread across the board in terms of why they need online forms.

I think the general sense is people need information collected and they need that information organized, sorted, and accessible for when they need it later.

That's why they need online forms. You can make a case for replacing paperwork or creating efficiency in their system.

They need online forms because it makes their life productive, gets rid of waste, and makes their data accessible.

I don't think a lot of people realize how many touch points online are through online forms. So many websites you go to, almost anything you do on the internet has an online form involved somewhere.

Especially if you're paying for anything, collecting info, or trying to learn anything, it's really kind of everywhere.

Until I started working for Jotform, I really didn't realize that myself personally. So yeah, it's really interesting to think about on a broad scale.

How would you say that obviously it's 2021, we got through 2020, how do you say COVID-19 has impacted the trends we've seen with online forms?

Because it's definitely been quite a year for Jotform.

I think COVID-19 obviously took away people's ability to do in-person workflows and to collaborate in person and to collect information in person.

So online forms kind of had their moment in the sun in 2020 and into 2021 because people had to find ways to replace that online.

People who were traditionally using paper for things like registration forms or to collect signatures, it just wasn't a possibility anymore.

It ushered in the need to make that possible and good. It's a good thing that online forms are here.

If it was 20 years ago and this pandemic had hit, I don't think people would have had a much more difficult time being able to work remotely.

Obviously, with all the lack of tools, online forms are just a way to keep people working.

If a small business didn't have online forms before COVID-19, they really needed online forms to stay in business once COVID-19 started more so than any time before.

You want to talk a little bit about HIPAA compliance and our Coronavirus Responder program that we kicked off in 2020? I know that's been good for us.

Yeah, Jotform was really well positioned as well as any company was going to be during COVID-19.

Partly because a couple years ago we launched HIPAA compliance for online forms that enables healthcare practices to collect patient information or any organization to collect patient information through Jotform forms.

So if it's medical history forms, bill pay, or prescription refill forms, Jotform already served that purpose.

During COVID-19, especially as practices were moving online and to telehealth, they needed a way to do that.

Our response was to launch the COVID Responder program which was almost a year ago.

The program offers free unlimited HIPAA compliant accounts to people on the front lines doing what they can to combat COVID-19 in whatever capacity.

Whether healthcare providers serving affected people or nonprofits doing good in their communities, we cast a broad umbrella for that.

We've had a lot of applicants and users accepted into the program who are taking advantage of those free accounts.

It's something we're really proud of and happy to see organizations doing incredible things in the wake of this global catastrophe.

Yeah, we have some pretty cool use cases you can check out on our blog. It's definitely one of the more rewarding aspects of this job.

Sensing that we're actually doing some good and enabling people and organizations in communities to help others is pretty cool during these difficult times.

You jumped in, Elliot joined the company right in the middle of the pandemic or actually maybe not the middle but somewhere in that time.

Jotform is basically a pandemic tool because you pretty much joined during the summer when it was really raging and you joined as a remote employee.

This is a rare instance where we're seeing each other in person after a long time and with less interesting problems like testing.

I still haven't met most of my co-workers but maybe someday.

Let's pivot to how we use online forms here at Jotform internally in a professional capacity.

Yeah, we use it a lot. If there are forms on our website, that's clearly a point where we're using Jotform, like consumer-facing forms.

For example, our enterprise sales page has a sales lead form that goes to our team, obviously powered by Jotform.

Requests or contact forms on our blog to get a hold of an author are Jotform forms that lead directly to the author.

Personally, I use it a lot. It was a funny way to get acquainted with the product. At first, I tried to creatively think of ways to use Jotform.

Now it just comes to me because I use Jotform daily. I think about how a process can be made easier by using Jotform or I just create a form and get to it.

We work asynchronously with many global offices which means a lot of email and inbox clutter and long emails.

Once it comes in your email, how do you take action on it? If you want to put it into a project management system like Asana or Trello, you have to do that manually.

If you're using a Jotform request form and have that information routed to your Asana or Trello account, it makes the process really easy.

We have request forms for almost every specific task within the marketing department like design requests, copywriting requests, content requests, video requests.

They populate different project boards and keep our engine going. Jotform is critical to that.

It also sends me alerts on my mobile app whenever I have a request coming in, even on weekends or evenings.

It might not be healthy but you can always turn it off. It's invaluable to our productivity.

Meanwhile, during onboarding, you suggested I use Jotform as much as possible to get familiar with it.

I found it to be a super helpful tool that can streamline many workflows. I use those request forms pretty much daily when I need to request copy or graphic design.

We use our own product a lot which makes us genuine spokespersons for it. I'm definitely a power user.

One thing I realized early on was that power users of Jotform don't create just one type of form. Usually, there's an entry point or a need that prompted them to create an account.

Once they're in, they branch out and use it for many things. They find their way to a paid plan which opens up more possibilities.

I would pay for my Jotform account if I had to, but as an employee, I have admin access.

People often find us because they need a specific online form but realize how versatile online forms are and the many features we offer.

For example, we released Jotform Tables last year, an online spreadsheet database to interact with, manipulate, and export data from forms and submissions.

I use it for collecting webinar registrants and formatting data to upload to Zoom. It's a really good tool.

People don't understand how much there is to do with Jotform until they get familiar with the platform.

How do we use them externally in a personal capacity? This isn't professional Jotform internal workflows but personal use.

Honestly, quite a bit. One scenario was our softball team.

Managing any recreational sports team is horrible. People have commitments, move, or flake.

Jotform really helped our recruiting efforts substantially.

Finding consistently women to play on the co-ed softball team was really hard.

I created a recruiting form with all the information I wanted from potential athletes like position, self-evaluation, equipment, and residency.

Using Jotform, I collected every possible thing I could need from an athlete without back and forth.

I distributed the form on neighborhood sites like Nextdoor and Reddit to get a targeted list. People were receptive and excited.

Self-evaluations helped prioritize calls to fill needed positions quickly.

The Jotform mobile app allowed me to automatically add contacts from submissions to my phone and easily send text messages to follow up.

We had more people show up than needed on game day but keeping them for the whole season was another problem.

It was awesome and I made some good friends that way even though we haven't played in a while.

Back in college, I was on a racquetball league and we needed two girls on the team to get a grant but never got it because they didn't attend enough practices.

Did you use Jotform for some facet of your wedding planning?

I did my research and my major contribution was collecting addresses which is really important.

Who has addresses anymore? It's not a thing. I didn't know a single address of any guest before the wedding.

We used Jotform to formalize the attendee list for over 110 people, which saved tons of time and headache.

I created a simple address form and sent it through various channels like email, Facebook, and social media.

Using a form is like a funnel catching information from everywhere into one central place.

Once we had all the addresses, we downloaded them as a CSV and uploaded them into Zola for the invitation system.

It's worth mentioning how easy it is to share an online form link on any platform to get a lot of people on board.

You essentially turned your wedding into excellent marketing for Jotform and spreading its awareness to those 110 people.

That's a good segue to online forms as branding opportunities.

Forms are often one of the first touch points customers have with an organization online.

Online forms are a vital part of branding and it's important to customize them to reflect your brand's look and feel.

Jotform makes it very easy to customize forms with your colors, aesthetic, and fonts unlike some competitors with standard forms.

Capitalizing on that first touch point that online forms often are is valuable for any brand.

We do that for Jotform when people submit requests for partnerships or case studies.

Online forms are their own form of branding and it's important to customize how you want to reflect your brand.

From a hiring standpoint, I emphasize the look and feel of hiring forms because it conveys a lot to applicants.

I use Jotform for hiring too, replacing phone screens with form screens to save time scheduling calls.

It's great to get information in a form, easier to access, and share with others like our CEO when needed.

Jotform integrates with calendars to avoid double booking interview time slots which saves time and back and forth.

I remember getting screening forms and selecting time periods when I joined the company, which was my first real use of Jotform.

It's an interesting and cool first touch point for prospects and a way of using online forms as branding.

We also use forms for interview scheduling, take-home challenges, and internal evaluation forms for candidates.

Branding is super important because we're showcasing our product and making forms representative of the company.

Many forms have background images of people on the team and are an important branding form as a first touch point.

What are some interesting use cases we've seen with Jotform users?

The coolest part of my job is exploring these use cases and sharing user stories and case studies.

Back to the roots is a cool organization using Jotform for a grow one give one mushroom program where submitting a mushroom picture results in a donation.

Using online forms for mushroom pictures is not common but it's a really cool use case.

When developing case studies, we find interesting organizations using Jotform in normal or fascinating ways.

We have a disproportionately large subset of photographers using Jotform.

Photographers use Jotform for session agreements, model consents, and payments to help get paid easier.

Photographers and mushroom farmers are just a couple of the use cases with Jotform.

We pretty much ran out of time today but hope you enjoyed our conversation around online forms and learned something of value.

Be sure to join us next time when we'll probably talk about work from home etiquette, which is a big one these days.

Thank you so much Chad for joining us and take care guys, we'll see you next time on Momentum.

Thanks for having me.