Today, I wanted to talk about Typeform automation, because I cannot be the only person that loves to automate some things. Anybody else obsessed with automatic billing or when they just draft your checking account every month? Thank you. I actually ran into a company, I think it’s our gas or electric, I don’t know, it’s one of our utility bills, that doesn’t … They don’t make it super easy to do automatic billing every month. I have to print out a piece of paper and mail it in or drop it off at the downtown office or whatever. I’m like, “It is 2018. How can every other company out there make it super easy to set up automated billing, but with you I have to to do all this work?”, which makes me sound like such a millennial. Anyways, automation, anything I can do to automate, whether it’s in my personal life or business, I’m all about it.
There is a software that I have been using for four or five years, I think, maybe longer, and that is Typeform. Basically, you just create forms. It also works for sending quizzes, surveys, all that kind of fun stuff. There are so many uses for Typeform automation. Every time I open my Typeform account, I have 30 different forms I can click on, because I use it for everything. Now, Typeform does have free plans. You can just sign up and use it totally free. I’m serious. There’s a ton of functionality on the free plan. If you want to pay for it, you get a little more functionality with logic branching, which is, if your user selects answer A they get this question, if they select B they get that question, and that kind of thing.
Rather than just talk about Typeform automation and all of its features, because I’m not going to do that, because you can just look at their website or go sign up for a free account, I want to talk about some integrations you can start using in your business that will save you so much time. For these integrations, you do need to use Zapier, Z-A-P-I-E-R. If you have not used Zapier yet, please start using it. It is amazing. It is such a fun website. Basically, Zapier creates what are called Zaps, and it’s also just automation, so you can say, “Hey, I want to connect this to this.” So, I want to connect Mailchimp to Trello. I want to connect Slack to Gmail. I want to connect Google Sheets to this. I mean, you can get text messages if it’s going to rain, I think. It’s insane the kind of automation you can set up within Zapier.
The first Typeform automation is saving Typeform entries to a Google Sheets spreadsheet.
Now, Typeform does keep a log of all the submissions you get, so you can log in, go to one particular form, and see what people answered on that form. But, it takes a few extra clicks, and if you’re like me and use Google Drive and Google Apps for everything, then it’s a little easier and faster to just hop over to your Google Drive, pull up the spreadsheet, and see all the answers.
I think the best use of this integration would be if you’re doing some kind of survey. Maybe you’re surveying your audience to see, hey, what do you want me to vlog about, podcast about, whatever? Or maybe, you are surveying past clients, because then it’s not something that you’re having to log into every day to respond to someone. This shouldn’t be how you get your contact form, because then you have to remember to go look at the spreadsheet every day. If it’s a survey that you’re like, maybe I’ll look at this once a month and I send it to clients or my audience, whatever, every so often, what’s nice is that then you can look at your answers over and over again.
If you send the same survey, the same Typeform link, for your clients all the time, it goes to this spreadsheet. After a year or two, or three years, you are going to have so much data about your clients in one place. Then, you can take that data and say, hey, a lot of my clients, when they come to me, they’re really struggling with nutrition, they’re really struggling with they don’t like going to the gym, or whatever it is that can give you really good information on maybe some new challenges to set up, maybe new services to offer, maybe new digital products to create, something like that.
This can also create copy that you can use on your website. One of the questions that I always ask my clients after working with me is, what was an obstacle or a frustration that you were experiencing that caused you to want to hire me? That question gives me so many answers that I can use in my copy, in my emails, in my website, because people will say, “Oh, I knew I didn’t understand design,” or, “I was frustrated. I was scared of messing it up,” or something. I can say on my website, are you scared of messing up your website? Are you frustrated with your website? I can use their exact language, which helps me resonate with my ideal clients even faster.
The next Typeform automation is my favorite: send email notifications or followups from new Typeform entries through Gmail.
Now, first, I want to clarify, Typeform does have a response option. You can enable this feature in Typeform and it will automatically send people an email response saying whatever you type into their little field. The problem here is that it comes from Typeform. When you see the sender name in your inbox, just says Typeform instead of Just Creatives, so it feels really automated. Now, with this integration from Gmail, it looks like it’s coming straight from you and not from Typeform.
You could use this in a few different ways. You could have it be just a simple followup, “Hey, I did get your email. I’ll respond within 48 hours. Hey, follow me on Instagram in the meantime,” or something. “Let me know if you’re having any major issues,” whatever you want to say. If you have a separate Typeform for different services, then you could really, really, customize that response. What I mean is, let’s say that you offer macro coaching, you offer a six-month boot camp, and then you offer one on one coaching. You could have a separate Typeform automation for each of those three services, so it would be tailored to that service.
Maybe you have specific questions that you need to ask for those different services. Then, with this Gmail automation, then you can have a specific email tailored to each different service. Basically, then, someone fills out your form for macro coaching, then they get an email, and it’s like, “Hey, Janet, I saw that you’re interested in macro coaching. Here’s the details. This is my next availability. If you’re interested, I need a deposit of this amount. You can set a call here, if you want to talk first. Let me know if you have any questions,” and that’s it. It sends them that information, and you don’t have to do any work.
Keep in mind, if you are talking about availability, or a wait list, or anything like that, in your email, you would need to keep that information very up to date. You don’t want to send someone a email that says, “Oh, I’m not available for six months,” and you’re over here like, “Why is no one hiring me? I have immediate availability.” Then, you’re like, “Oh, because my email says I’m not available for six months and people don’t want to wait that long.” This is a really easy way to automate those first emails and inquiries with potential clients.
Personally, I use this one time when I was on vacation, because if you set up your autoresponder, your out of office, in Gmail, it doesn’t respond to these Typeform emails. If someone fills out your Typeform, like they want to work with you one on one coaching, they’re not going to get any kind of notification like your out of office reply, because that’s just now how the Typeform emails work. So, use this instead, and it sent them a custom email, “Hey, I’m on vacation. I saw that you were interested. I’ll be in touch on such and such date. Here’s some links to learn more about me,” or whatever kind of information I needed to tell them in the meantime.
The last thing about this little integration with Gmail is really nice is you can customize those emails to put in the placeholder for their name. It won’t just say, “Hi, I’m out of town,” blah, blah, blah. It’ll say, “Hi, Janet,” or whatever. It’ll fill in the name according to what they put as their name in Typeform, so it feels really customized.
The next automation I want to talk about is you can create Trello cards from new Typeform entries.
Now, this integration could be really handy, especially if you are doing monthly check-ins with your clients, because, again, they fill out, it adds a new Trello card to your Trello board, then … A lot of people use Trello as a to-do list, or a central “Here’s all I need to work on in my business this week.” You can have a column for client check-ins as part of your weekly to-do list. Then, every time someone fills out that form and sends you feedback, you don’t have to go find it in your inbox or whatever. It’s there in Trello where you’re working on and looking at everything in your business including that client check-in. It automates it, send it right there for you, so you don’t have to copy and paste and say, “Okay, respond to Sarah’s check-in.”
If you’re using Typeform for reader surveys and you’re trying to gather some data on what people want to learn about or something, again, you can have a column for blog ideas, or video ideas, podcast ideas, whatever it is that you do to create content. Send a Typeform to your audience, say, “Hey, I want to hear what you want to hear about.” Then, all that information gets sent to Trello. Again, when you start trying to create content, and you’re like, “What do I want to talk about? What do my people want to hear?”, you can hop into Trello like you always do and just look and see, what are some ideas that people send in? Again, right there all in one place.
Now, I find that most people are either a Trello person or an Asana person. If you listen to that whole Trello bit, have no fear, Asana also integrates with Typeform, so you can do all the same things that I just mentioned for Asana.
Now, those are the three main integrations, but there are lots more. I know everyone uses different apps. We all may run our businesses a little bit differently, so I wanted to list off a few others, because who knows? I may not think of you using this particular app in a particular way, but you may find, “Oh my gosh, that Typeform integration with this app would be such a life saver.”
Here are some other automation ideas with different business apps:
- You can get Slack notifications for new Typeform entries.
- You can create Mailchimp subscribers from Typeform entries.
- You can get a text whenever your Typeform is filled out.
- You can save Typeform entries as text files in Dropbox.
- You can turn Typeform entries into subscribers in ActiveCampaign.
- You can add new Typeform entries to Airtable as records.
- You can create or update HubSpot contacts from entries.
- You can share Typeform entries via Gmail.
- You could save Typeform entries in Google Docs instead of Google Sheets.
- You could add Typeform email entries into a ConvertKit tag.
- You could create or update Infusionsoft contacts from Typeform.
- You could add Typeform entries to Aweber.
Now, again, that was not even all the Typeform automation options that are probably even possible, but those were some of the more popular.
Zapier, again, is what we’re using to create these integrations with Typeform and whatever app or service you’re using. Zapier has tons of different integrations, more than what I just mentioned, like Twitter, Google Calendar, Facebook pages, Instagram, ClickFunnels, [inaudible 00:13:11], YouTube, Stripe, Acuity Scheduling, Shopify, Pinterest, LinkedIn, PayPal, Buffer, MailerLite, Campaign Monitor, Tumbler, the list just keeps going. There’re so many apps in Zapier. Even if it’s not with Typeform, look into these different apps, see how you might be able to simplify your workflow, see how Zapier can save you more time in your business.
Last thing, if you are new to Typeform automation, I’m putting a link in the show notes. I have an affiliate link that will save you 10% if you upgrade to a paid plan on Typeform. Again, they do have a free plan that’s very, very, functional. It’s not super limited. But, if you decide you want to upgrade for more features, if you use that link, you’ll save 10%.
