Analysis

Last Updated on March 27, 2025 by Neil Murray

Table of Contents #

Potential #

I believe CF7 Skins (with the Visual Editor) could in time be used by around 20% of CF7 users.

Neil Murray

To get to that point, millions of people that use CF7 need to hear about CF7 Skins & decide to download the free version.

Usage of the free version brings sales of Add-ons when:

  • Users have a more complex need beyond what is available in the free version
  • They are willing & able to spend money to solve their current problem.

We have some user awareness via 20k+ 30k+ active installs but it’s not only growing slowly.

We need to increase usage of CF7 Skins from 20,000+ to 100,000+ active installs to be sustainable.

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Opportunities #

  1. Form API started by Gutenberg team (Nov 2023)
  2. WordPress adding Full Site Editing (Jan 2022)
  3. WordPress switching to Gutenberg/Block Editor from Classic Editor (Dec 2018)
  4. Contact Form 7 (CF7) does not include a drag & drop visual editor
  5. Making CF7 forms look good is not easy
  6. CF7 is translated into 58 languages (Yoast 41, Jetpack 40, ACF 9)
  7. Contact Form 7 has poor support
  8. Contact Form 7 has terrible documentation
  9. Many users don’t understand how to use CF7 well
  10. 1000’s of people have a problem using CF7 every day
  11. Many themes on codecanyon include CF7

Refer: Opportunities

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Analysis #

Strength / Good

  • 30,000+ 20,000+ active installs
  • CF7 is biggest plugin on WordPress
  • CF7 author is known & predictable
  • CF7 Skins has systems for:
    • Development
    • Documentation
    • Testing
    • Websites
    • Support
    • Team operation & training

Weakness / Bad

  • Free plugin usage has declined to below 30,000 installs
  • Testing – manual only
  • Insufficient Developer hours (only 4-12 hours need 30+)
  • Don’t complete development tasks in reasonable time
  • Constantly miss development deadlines
  • Current team only works with significant hours by NM (though Sastra requires negligible support)
  • All Documentation stopped

Opportunity / Do

Threat / Risk

  • Changes in CF7 code – often happens without notice
  • Recruiting suitable staff
  • Support – OK

Other

  • NM not to do anything we can hire someone else to do
  • NM working as Engineer can easily pay for hiring others

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Growth #

Our main challenge is to increase usage of CF7 Skins amongst CF7 users.

Long term daily CF7 Skins downloads is a reliable measure of CF7 Skins growth.

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Usage #

For growth, millions of people that use Contact Form 7 need to hear about CF7 Skins & decide to download the free version.

Contact Form 7

Our main target audience is people already using Contact Form 7. Contact Form 7 is the largest plugin on WordPress with 50,000+ downloads per day.

In time, general WordPress users might see Contact Form 7 + CF7 Skins as a viable free alternative to the many other WordPress form plugins, but that is not our focus at this stage.

Refer: Compare CF7 with CF7 Skins

CF7 Skins

CF7 Skins is a significant Contact Form 7 extension with 20,000+ active installs. To be sustainable we need 100,000+ active installs.

CF7 Skins usageCurrent2X3X4X5X
Active Installs2000040,00060,00080,000100,000
% of Contact Form 7 usage0.15 %0.30 %0.45%0.60 %0.75%
Downloads – Daily75150225300375
Downloads – Weekly6001200180024003000
Google Analytics – Page Views – Daily450900135018002250
Google Analytics – Page Views – Weekly225045006750900011250
CF7 Skins usageCurrent5X10X20X
Active Installs20000100,000200,000400,000
% of Contact Form 7 usage0.15 %0.75 %1.5 %3.0 %
Downloads – Daily753757501500
Downloads – Weekly6003000600012000
Google Analytics – Page Views – Daily450225045009000
Google Analytics – Page Views – Weekly2250112502250045000

This indicates increasing usage of CF7 Skins amongst Contact Form 7 users has great potential & should be our main focus.

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Funnel #

Sales of CF7 Skins Add-ons comes from existing Contact Form 7 & CF7 Skins users.

Contact Form 7 users

Installation of CF7 Skins (free version) comes from Contact Form 7 users when:

  • Become aware of CF7 Skins
  • Decide it offers advantages to Contact Form 7
  • Add it to other Contact Form 7 extensions they have on their website

Sales of CF7 Skins Add-ons comes from Contact Form 7 users when:

  • Users have a more complex need beyond what is available in Contact Form 7 & CF7 Skins (free version)
  • They prefer to use a Contact Form 7 extension rather than switch to one of the other WordPress form plugins
  • They are able to spend money to solve their current problem (mostly for client websites)

Using a Contact Form 7 extension:

  • allows continued use of other free & premium Contact Form 7 extensions
  • avoids learning one of the other WordPress form plugins

We are confident CF7 Skins offers the following significant advantages to many Contact Form 7 users:

  • Drag & Drop visual editor for Contact Form 7 forms
  • Styling of Contact Form 7 forms

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Flywheel #

Turning the Flywheel by Jim Collins

  1. Contact Form 7 users become aware of CF7 Skins (via Form API)
  2. CF7 users install & use free version of CF7 Skins
  3. Some users have a more complex need beyond what is available in the free version
  4. The users prefer to use a CF7 extension rather than switch to one of the other WordPress form plugins that offers the extra features they now need
  5. These free users are able to spend money to solve their current problem (mostly for client websites)

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Sales #

CF7 Skins usageCurrent2X3X4X5X
Active Installs20,00040,00060,00080,000100,000
Downloads – Daily50100150200250
Downloads – Weekly400800120016002000
Sales No. per week – 0.2%0.801.62.43.24
Sales $ per week4080120160200
Sales $ per month160320480640800
Sales $ per year200040006000800010000
Average Sale – $50 & Sales – 0.2%
CF7 Skins usageCurrent2X3X4X5X
Active Installs20,00040,00060,00080,000100,000
Downloads – Daily50100150200250
Downloads – Weekly400800120016002000
Sales No. per week – 0.5%246810
Sales $ per week100200300400500
Sales $ per month400800120016002000
Sales $ per year500010000150002000025000
Average Sale – $50 & Sales – 0.5%
CF7 Skins usageCurrent2X3X4X5X
Active Installs20,00040,00060,00080,000100,000
Downloads – Daily50100150200250
Downloads – Weekly40080012016002000
Sales No. per week – 1%48121620
Sales $ per week2004006008001000
Sales $ per month8001600240032004000
Sales $ per year1000020000300004000050000
Average Sale – $50 & Sales – 1.0%
CF7 Skins usageCurrent5X10X20X
Active Installs20,000100,000200,000400,000
Downloads – Daily502505001000
Downloads – Weekly400200040008000
Sales No. per week – 1%4204080
Sales $ per week200100020004000
Sales $ per month8004000800016000
Sales $ per year1000050000100000200000
Average Sale – $50 & Sales – 1.0%

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Goals #

We measure how well we are increasing usage of CF7 Skins to find and focus on changes that make a difference.

Contact Form 7 users

Increased usage of CF7 Skins amongst Contact Form 7 users is our main focus.

  • Download CF7 Skins (free version)
  • Click on CF7 Skins Ad

CF7 Skins users

  • Pricing page

Refer: Growth – Goals

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500% Ideas #

We need to increase usage of CF7 Skins from 20,000+ to 100,000+ active installs to be sustainable.

To do that our main challenge is to increase awareness of CF7 Skins amongst CF7 users to get rapid growth & do that sooner rather than later.

We’ve tired lots of things that people generally recommend to increase product awareness – however none of these have had any noticeable effect.

As a result we are at this stage no longer interested in any ideas that might bring a 5% change in daily CF7 Skins downloads.

Instead we are only interested in ideas that might bring a 500% change (i.e. 20,000+ to 100,000+ active installs).

Once we’ve started to see rapid growth, we can & should look again at the many things people generally recommend to increase product awareness – but not before (it’s a distraction from what we need to do).

The only idea we have at this stage that meets this criteria is the Form API.

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Promotion #

We focus our Promotion on making Contact Form 7 users aware of CF7 Skins.

Contact Form 7 users

We believe the major issue affecting CF7 Skins usage is lack of awareness. Once Contact Form 7 users become aware of CF7 Skins it’s not a difficult choice for them to install the CF7 Skins (free version).

We are confident CF7 Skins offers the following significant advantages to many Contact Form 7 users:

  • Drag & Drop visual editor for Contact Form 7 forms
  • Styling of Contact Form 7 forms

Our promotional activities associated with the Contact Form 7, help make Contact Form 7 users aware of CF7 Skins.

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Publication #

Our aim is to become widely known as a subject matter expert amongst Contact Form 7 users. We plan to do this by:

  • Writing regular blog posts
  • Commenting on relevant articles on other blogs
  • Submitting articles to other blogs
  • Writing articles & recording videos that help people:
    • solve problems they have using Contact Form 7
    • use Contact Form 7 more easily & better
  • Participating in video & podcasts

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SEO via blog articles #

Text.

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Commenting on relevant articles on other blogs #

Text.

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Form API #

See Promotion – Form API.

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WordPress News Blogs #

Text.

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WP Tavern #

Text.

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YouTube #

Text.

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Increased usage of CF7 Skins amongst Contact Form 7 users is our main focus.

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Other #

WordPress LinkedIn Group #

Make Contact Form 7 users (novice, intermediate & advanced) aware of CF7 Skins by:

  • asking interesting & useful questions about Contact Form 7 & forms in general in group
  • answering questions & introducing CF7 Skins

Refer: I have been using the plugin “Contact Form 7” for years for my projects. Nevertheless, I am not happy with it.

NOTE: CF7 Skins provides a good solution to the key problems that long term users see with Contact Form 7.

  • Not visual drag & drop UI
  • Styling of CF7 forms

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WordPress Meetups #

Text.

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CF7 Help Widget #

Add Widget in Admin Home page.

Example form LightStart – Maintenance Mode

Content:

  • CF7 Troubleshooters
  • CF7 Pocket Guide
  • CF7 & CF7 Skins Blog Articles
  • CF7 & CF7 Skins Tutorials
  • CF7 Skins Showcase
  • CF7 & CF7 Skins University
  • CF7 & CF7 Skins Support (Freshdesk | Discourse | …)

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CF7 Troubleshooters #

Text.

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CF7 Pocket Guide #

Text.

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CF7 Skins Showcase #

Text.

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CF7 & CF7 Skins University #

Email series (Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced).

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Planned Initiatives #

We need to increase usage of CF7 Skins from 20,000+ to 100,000+ active installs to be sustainable. We have started on the following initiatives to help achieve this:

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CF7 Skins Pro not required to use other CF7 Skins Add-ons #

We initially required purchase of CF7 Skins Pro to get access to all other CF7 Skins Add-ons. With time we’ve concluded this is not helpful & just adds unnecessary confusion to purchasers.

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Renaming some CF7 Skins Add-ons #

Along with making CF7 Skins Pro no longer needed to use other CF7 Skins Add-ons, we decided to rename some Add-ons to better describe what these Add-ons do. We also fixed some license issues during these changes.

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Separate CF7 Skins from CF7 #

These initiatives move CF7 Skins towards becoming a stand-alone plugin.

Our plan is to add features to the CF7 Skins UI which match other WordPress Form Plugins. Then we don’t need to depend on CF7 to improve the overall usability of CF7 Skins for users.

We should move CF7 Skins towards a stand-alone plugin.
When this becomes a block, all functionality will happen at the block.

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Hiding list complexity in Visual Editor #

CF7 Skins puts all form fields within HTML lists to make styling easy & consistent. This gives great control but is challenging & confusing for novice WordPress users.

This initiative hides the HTML lists as the default option & makes working with CF7 forms easier for novice WordPress users.

For advanced users the HTML lists can be made visible to give greater control when necessary.

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CF7 Skins Form Block #

The CF7 Skins Form Block will no longer need to connect to Contact Form 7 for form functionality – this can & should all come from the Form API.

This is an advantage for CF7 Skins, which is just switching from Contact Form 7 to the Form API for form functionality.

By contrast, existing form plugins already have all this existing form infrastructure, which they will need to continue to support.

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CF7 Skins is good enough #

Further to our discussion at 500% Ideas, we’ve also concluded that CF7 Skins is good enough to get a major increase in awareness. It’s not product quality that stops awareness, it’s just a lack of awareness.

We’ve tired lots of things to increase product downloads through improving the product – again none of these have had any noticeable effect.

We have seen that not fixing bugs will lower downloads until the bug is fixed.

As a result we are at this stage no longer interested in any product improvements that might bring a 5% change in daily CF7 Skins downloads.

We need to first to see clear signs of a major increase in awareness of CF7 Skins, before spending any more time or money on product improvements – see 500% Ideas.

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Form API #

The Form API is a generational opportunity for all WordPress form plugins:

  • Nothing this significant has happened to forms in WordPress before & is likely to ever happen again
  • What has previously been plugin territory is possibly being added to WordPress core
  • WordPress form plugins that embrace & lead this change will likely do well.

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My Thoughts #

I’ve written some thoughts on this:

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Progress Stalled #

Progress on the Form Block has largely stalled since it’s inclusion as an experiment in the Gutenberg plugin in Nov. 2023.

This provides us with an opportunity to restart & lead this initiative. I estimate we just need to keep working steadily on the Form Block for around 3 to 6 months. It’s likely that others will become involved during that time.

Importantly we can use this time to greatly increase awareness of CF7 Skins via Promotion.

If we start making regular suitable Pull Requests, Gutenberg team members & others will respond.

It is already clear there is strong interest & support for this initiative. The topic is also very likely to be of great interest to popular WordPress influencers.

Also finally it does not ultimately matter if or when the Form Block is added to WordPress core. It’s better for us if it does make it, but the promotional opportunities are already enough to justify this initial commitment.

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Promotion #

The Form API provides a great opportunity to increase awareness of CF7 Skins.

The Form API is a major initiative that is likely to be interesting to blogs & podcasts focusing on WordPress for a long period of time. By contributing to the Form API we earn credibility to write & speak regularly on this topic.

Our aim is to become widely known as a subject matter expert on the Form API. We plan to do this by:

  • Writing regular blog posts on blog.cf7skins.com
  • Commenting on relevant articles on other blogs
  • Submitting articles to other blogs
  • Participating in video & podcasts
  • Recording videos explaining the Form API & reporting on progress

CF7 Skins should get major benefits from this promotion even if the Form API never makes it into WordPress core.

Our promotional activities associated with the Form API should help make WordPress users in general & Contact Form 7 users in particular aware of CF7 Skins.

Refer: Promotion

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Mechanics #

All Form API Articles will initially be published at blog.cf7skins.com:

  • site already has good results from Google
  • existing pages provide solid basis for growth
  • it’s wasteful to not use the advantages this site already has to look for other opportunities

My goal is to increase unique page visits from 400 to 2000 per day.

Posted articles:

  • link to posted articles from GitHub Issues & Pull Requests (provides better way to explain context)
  • used as basis for contact with WordPress influencers

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If Form API Promotion Works #

Before I publish my first article on the Form Block/API I need to:

  • make 1 successful Pull Request
  • have a second article ready to publish

To make sure I’m ready for increased CF7 Skins daily downloads I need to:

  • be checking & responding at Freshdesk every day
  • have someone available to assist with Support (otherwise work will slow on the Form API)
  • be able to deal with website issues quickly
  • quickly issue updates for bug fixes

When we get sustained increased page visits & downloads we need to again start doing the things that help bring increased steady growth:

With sustained rapid growth, the many things people generally recommend to increase product awareness, become much more worthwhile. For example a 5% growth on 2000 page visits per day is 100 extra people ( for 400 page visits per day it’s only 20).

Nice to haves:

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Ride the Wave #

The Form API possibly bring a major wave of change in WordPress form plugins, if it is added to WordPress core.

Through contributing to the Form API we can:

  • Learn from the Gutenberg team how to create a compelling block based form plugin
  • Be one of the first form plugins to offer a viable form block in the Block Editor
  • Help many WordPress Contact Form 7 users to change to building their forms directly in the Block Editor
  • Ensure the Form API is extendible in way that allows form plugin authors to produce commercial Add-ons

This also fits well with our other Planned Initiatives to setup CF7 Skins as a more clearly separated plugin from Contact Form 7.

The CF7 Skins Form Block will no longer need to connect to Contact Form 7 for form functionality – this can all come from the Form API.

This will also remove the problem of unknown changes in Contact Form 7 causing issues in CF7 Skins plugins.

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Continue support for Contact Form 7 #

But it makes sense to continue to provide close support for Contact Form 7:

  • Open existing Contact Form 7 forms directly in the CF7 Skins Form Block
  • Style Contact Form 7 forms with CF7 Skins Styles

We have a useful base (20,000+ active installs) amongst Contact Form 7 users that is the easiest source of people to switch to the CF7 Skins Form Block. It makes sense to start awareness there.

By contrast, getting attention from WordPress users in general, among the large number of WordPress form plugins is very difficult. There is a lot of well resourced competition.

It’s definitely possible that users of other existing form plugins will switch to using CF7 Skins to get the advantages of creating forms directly in the Block Editor (especially over a longer time frame) – but it’s a harder task than getting existing CF7 users.

Contact Form 7 is still the biggest form plugin on WordPress. By targeting this massive niche (existing Contact Form 7 users) we are focusing on something all the other WordPress form plugins can’t do as well.

By choosing to try to ride this wave of change, we give CF7 Skins a chance to a become a major form plugin within WordPress. If we don’t do this CF7 Skins will fade & die over time.

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User Feedback #

CF7 Skins users

Text.

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Language other than English #

Contact Form 7 is translated into 58 languages (Yoast 41, Jetpack 40, ACF 9).

  • Translation
  • German/Japanese/Spanish/Italian – DONE
  • French/Hindi/Portuguese/Chinese (Taiwan)/Dutch

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Add-ons #

Repurpose existing plugins #

Use GPL code from existing plugins to more quickly add more Add-ons to CF7 Skins:

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Further reading:

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Notes

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