As a business owner, are passionate about your business and get all gooey inside over the prospect of landing new customers. But one thing you did not sign up for was contact form spam; emails that come from your very own website and land smack at the top of your very own inbox.
You love and nurture your website as the centerpiece of all your marketing efforts. All your CTA’s (calls to action) are perfectly designed to entice visitors to contact you for more information, schedule appointments, bring in repeat business and so much more. The leads arrive, one by one, and you are very happy. Happy until . . . that first contact form spam lands in your inbox and you start down a stress-filled emotional road with no end in sight.
The 9-step emotional reaction to contact form spam
Before we solved our problem with contact form spam, we would go through these nine emotions, step-by-step, on a regular basis. It was exhausting. So we finally did something about it…
Emotion #1: Anticipation
Oh wow! I got another lead!! Yippee!
You had that contact form designed just for this purpose. You live and breathe to get emails from your contact form because it brings with it the joy of building a new business relationship with someone who is also excited to work with you. It sits there looking all pretty and important. “Click me” it croons. So you do. And that’s when things really start falling apart, according to mental health experts.
Emotion #2: Confusion
“Wait. What? Who is this? What do they want?” The email is from your very own website but it seems like it’s addressing you as the customer, instead of the reverse. An oddly written paragraph, or two, is attempting to sell you something . . . instead of asking for information about what you can do for them.
Emotion #3: Disappointment
It dawns on you, duh, that this is not a real lead! SPAM. Bummer. You always believed that your spam box was there to solve the spam problem but it turns out that those tools are mere catchalls for generic spam. For the most part, they do pretty well but it can’t filter out contact form spam. Why? Because it’s addressed to you so your email client thinks you want it.
Emotion #4: Anger
“I am a really busy person. I simply don’t have time for this! How dare they use my contact form. Grrrrr.”
Emotion #5: Loss of focus
You can’t remember what you were doing before this spam arrived? You want to focus and move the spam to your spam box, but no. Let’s say, for purposes of this blog, that this particular spam email is from someone claiming to represent wealthy investors who have an “interest” in buying your business. It’s cleverly loaded with flattery, and without even knowing what you do and how you help our customers, you fall for it. You feel flattered but you are not alone. Many contact form spam victims get sucked into promises of wealth, the glamour of ranking #1 on Google, threats of your website expiring, or free articles for your website. “How can I lose?!” The mind drifts into the bank account, now filled with millions, or billions, of dollars. Dreaming. Then you snap out of it and head into emotion #6
Emotion #6: Acceptance
This emotion only lingers for a few seconds. Then the next one sets in.
Emotion #7: Paranoia
OMG, you opened spam when your IT guy has told you NEVER to do that. You sink into the quicksand of the worst of all 9 emotions. You clicked on spam most likely unleashing a roving hoard of evil viruses upon the inner sanctity of your computer.
Emotion #8: Feeling stupid
Your defenses slump as you contemplate a fate worse than getting that virus. Now you have to confess to your IT guy what you have done. Most people usually put this call off and hope for the best because of the expense and the shame.
Emotion #9: Defiance
That’s it. You’ve had it. You are not going to take it anymore!! You click the spam button on the email and immediately begin to wonder, “how can I prevent this type of spam in the future?”
Then you remember reading this very blog post about contact form spam. You feel relief that your spam problem will be solved because there is a way to block contact form spam!
At Chroma Sites, we offer a three-layer spam-fighting system that will have your favorite spammers panicking when they can’t reach you anymore. This amazing contact form spam blocking technology is included in all of our website management services. It’s time to take your inbox back! Check out our website management packages now.
