Web forms, consent and the firm's mailing list
How a firm's website enquiry forms create leads in Achekam with consent wording and spam filtering, and how newsletters go to its mailing list.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
In many practices the website's "Contact us" form still sends an e-mail to info@ and nothing else. Someone forwards it to a partner, the partner means to reply, and the enquiry lives on only as an unread message. Meanwhile the firm's newsletter goes out from a separate tool, to a list exported from somewhere a year ago, with no clear record of who agreed to receive it.
Both habits cost the firm work it could have won and invite complaints it could have avoided. An enquiry that never reaches the CRM cannot be followed up properly. A newsletter sent to people with no record of agreeing to it is the kind of thing that ends in an awkward letter about personal information.
Achekam brings both into the CRM: forms that create leads directly, and a mailing list with an unsubscribe link in every letter.
A form for each purpose, each with its own address
Under CRM & SALES > Leads > Web forms, a firm designs web forms for its website. Each form has its own public address, so the firm can place a different form on different pages: one on the tax returns page, one on the audit page, one at the end of a blog post about payroll.
Separate forms make the source of each lead obvious without asking the prospect, and allow each form to ask the questions that matter for that service. A form for audit enquiries might ask for the entity type and year end; a payroll form might ask how many employees are paid each month. Keep forms short. Every extra field costs submissions.
New forms start paused. Nothing is accepted until the firm switches a form on, which leaves room to test it first.
Consent wording and spam
Every form carries the firm's consent wording, and the person submitting must accept it. The wording is the firm's own. Write it plainly: what the firm will do with the details, whether it will send marketing, and how to ask for removal. Have whoever looks after data protection at the firm approve it, and check it against the law in each country where the firm takes enquiries. In South Africa, the Information Regulator's guidance note on direct marketing explains how POPIA regulates direct marketing, including consent for electronic marketing and marketing to existing customers.
Suspected robot submissions are logged as spam. That spares the partners from chasing automated rubbish, though a firm that has gone quiet after a website change should still test its own form to be sure genuine enquiries arrive.
A new lead, or added to a recent one
A submission creates a new lead, or adds to a recent lead with the same e-mail address. A prospect who fills in the audit form and, shortly afterwards, the tax form therefore appears as one lead rather than two leads handled by two partners.
Each new lead receives a firm-wide code that is never reused. When staff enter a lead by hand whose e-mail or phone matches one already held, Achekam names the existing lead and asks before creating a second. Leads can also be imported from CSV, up to 5,000 rows at a time, which is useful when moving an old enquiry list into the CRM.
Newsletters with an unsubscribe link
Under CRM & SALES > Campaigns, a firm keeps its mailing list, designs newsletters and sends or schedules campaigns. Every letter carries an unsubscribe link. The Campaigns menu entry opens the mailing list itself.
One behaviour to know about: a lead marked "Not interested" is added to the mailing list automatically. That keeps a door open with prospects who declined for now, but it also means people who said no to a service will receive the newsletter unless they unsubscribe. Make sure the consent wording on the firm's forms covers marketing, and consider whether the first newsletter to such a contact should say plainly why they are receiving it.
Good newsletter practice for a professional firm is simple: useful content on tax changes and deadlines, sent on a regular rhythm, clearly from a named firm, with no promises about outcomes.
Spend per source on the CRM Dashboard
Forms and campaigns cost money, whether in website work, adverts or a partner's time. On the CRM Dashboard, a firm can enter what it spent on each lead source or campaign per month. The dashboard then sets leads, proposals and accepted fees against that spend.
Where no spend was entered, cost per lead is left blank rather than shown as free. An entry made by mistake is withdrawn, not deleted, so the history of what was recorded remains.
Read the dashboard source by source rather than in total. A form on the audit page may bring few leads but a high share of accepted fees, while a busy newsletter sign-up form brings many contacts and little work. Both can be worth keeping; the point is to know which is which before the next budget is set.
Setting up, step by step
- List the services you want enquiries for, and design one form per service.
- Write the consent wording and have it approved.
- Place each form on its page, then switch it on.
- Submit a test enquiry and check that it arrives as a lead.
- Enter each month's spend per source on the CRM Dashboard.
- Plan the newsletter calendar, and send the first issue to a small internal list.
Leads from paid social campaigns join the same pipeline, as described in Facebook lead ads via Zapier. For what happens after an enquiry arrives, see follow-up sequences and from proposal to engagement letter.
Pick the single page on your website that brings the most enquiries, replace its form first, and compare a month of leads in the CRM with what used to arrive in the shared inbox.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
