This guide builds a registration form for a fictional event, a small-business marketing workshop held in Atlanta, but the steps apply to any form: contact requests, applications, orders or feedback. Allow about 20 minutes for your first one.
Step 1: Define what you need to know
List the information you will actually use. For the workshop: name, email, company, job title, mobile number for day-of updates, dietary requirements and whether the person wants the recording. Every extra field lowers completion, and state privacy laws such as California’s CCPA/CPRA encourage collecting only what you need.
Step 2: Open the form builder
In your Mailpro account, open the online form builder and start from a blank form or a registration template. Add your logo and brand colors so the form is recognizably yours.
Step 3: Add fields in US formats
- Phone: label it “Mobile number (+1)” and accept 10-digit numbers.
- Address: use a dropdown for state and a 5-digit ZIP code field.
- Dates: show the expected format (MM/DD/YYYY) to avoid confusion with international respondents.
- Time: if you ask for preferred times, state the time zone, for example “Eastern Time”.
Step 4: Use branching logic
Show follow-up questions only when relevant. If someone answers “Yes” to dietary requirements, display a text field; if not, skip it. Branching logic keeps the form short for everyone.
Step 5: Add consent and privacy wording
Add a checkbox for future marketing emails, unticked by default, with a sentence explaining what people will receive. If you will send day-of updates by text, that is informational, but you still need the person’s consent to text them; to send marketing texts later, add a separate checkbox with the written-consent language the TCPA requires. Link to your privacy notice. For the details, see permission to send email campaigns in the US.
Step 6: Connect responses to your contacts
Choose the list where registrants should be saved. With form-to-contact synchronization, each submission creates or updates a contact, ready for a confirmation email and a reminder the day before the event.
Step 7: Customize the confirmation
Write a thank-you message that confirms the date, time (with time zone) and venue, and tells people what happens next.
Step 8: Share the form
Publish it with a link, embed it on your website or include it in a newsletter. Our guide to sharing forms covers each option. For a local event, also consider a QR code on printed flyers.
Step 9: Track and export
Watch completions in form statistics and export responses when you need a badge list or catering count.
Common pitfalls
Forms fail most often because they ask too much, look broken on mobile or leave people unsure what happens next. Required fields should be truly required, error messages should explain what to fix, and the submit button should say what it does, such as “Reserve my seat”.
Before you publish
Test the form on a phone, submit a response yourself and check that it reaches the right list. Mailpro stores responses in Switzerland, outside US jurisdiction. For more on what forms can do, return to online forms for US organizations.