We’ve discussed the benefits of email marketing many times on this blog. But what’s not been discussed all that often is how you build up and run your mailing list in the first place. By far the easiest way is to let visitors sign up on your website. If yours is a WordPress site, there are some excellent options that not only let visitors sign up, but also let you design, manage and monitor your email campaigns.
Best of all, many of the plugins are completely free, at least while you get started. Let’s have a look at some of the best newsletter plugins that won’t cost you a penny.
Mailchimp
If you’ve ever looked into setting up a mailing list, you’ll no doubt have heard of Mailchimp, one of the biggest marketing companies in the world. Whereas it’s normal to visit mailchimp.com and manage your email campaigns from there, you can also run it directly from your own website’s back end thanks to this nifty plugin.
Just set up your forms and start taking subscribers, then use it to compose and send emails to them. Two million WordPress site owners have it installed, so it’s definitely a trusted app. It’s free up to 2,000 users, which should give you enough time to try it out and see if you want to go premium.
Newsletter
The imaginatively named Newsletter is another solid performer in the field. Use it to design your form page so users can subscribe then it will manage your database, let you design your emails using drag and drop, then send them out and view analytics to gauge performance. It’s completely free and has been installed 300,000 times, although there’s a premium version that enhances functionality – and supports the plugin’s developers, of course.
MailPoet
Email marketing is all about getting your words’ worth, and MailPoet is a function-packed way to get up and running, no matter how well versed you are. Poetry puns aside, it’s a great plugin that’s trusted by 100,000 users and growing.
It comes with a host of optimised templates so you can genuinely compose and send emails in minutes, or design your own. It’s free for the first 1,000 subscribers, but is well worth paying for as your numbers grow.
MailOptin
MailOptin is focused on creating and growing your email lists rather than sending out the emails themselves. It has tons of features, and integrates with all the main emailing solutions, including Mailchimp and MailPoet, plus more than 30 others, or you can use it alone with the standard WordPress mailing solution if you want.
The focus on growing your list is what you’ll want it for, however, and it does it through features like pop-ups and calls to action that your site’s visitors can’t miss. So far it’s been downloaded more than 30,000 times, but that number is sure to grow, just like your list.
Professional installation
Gooey can help you out in two ways with your mailing list if you manage it through WordPress. First, we can help install and set up your plugin thanks to our WordPress expertise. And second, we can design custom HTML email templates that you can use with the solutions above, so you really stand out from the competition. Why not get in touch for more info?
