Regardless of what side you come down on in the raging “Email is obsolete!” debate, it is still a great tool (and no longer exclusive to large businesses) to encourage engagement, promote products, increase sales, and keep the relationship alive.
If done correctly, email marketing is extremely lucrative:
- Marketers: 89% say email is the primary channel for lead generation. (BtoB Magazine)
- Millenials and their devices: Spend 6 hours a day checking mail, 88% of them do it on the smartphone. (Adobe)
- People who pay attention: Over 50% people actually read most of their mails, 65% of all respondents prefer mails with images. (HubSpot)
Since businesses and marketers love WordPress anyway (A majority of 16 million+ websites built on WordPress are for businesses – Torquemag), we will take a look at some of the best plugins, tools, and apps for integrating email marketing with your WordPress websites.
Note: Stats for each plugin/tool are taken from one of two sources (depending on where they are available). Active Installs are taken from WordPress.org (available only for plugins stored in WordPress Plugin Repository), and live websites are taken from Trends.builtwith (only for services and apps)
1. MailChimp for WordPress
- Authors: Danny Van Kooten (of Ibericode) and Harish Chouhan
- Price: Free core plugin (up to 2000 subscribers), all Premium add-ons available at $49 (single site) to $99 (5 sites)
- Stats: Over 400,000 active installs
MailChimp’s WordPress counterpart is packed with features, all of which give you as many ways to create and implement sign-up forms on your WordPress website as you could get.
You get to create you opt-in forms or simply leave the forms to WordPress default comment/registration forms and popular plugins (it’s compatible with Contact Form 7 and Ninja Forms).
It also integrates well with sites using plugins like EDD, WooCommerce, Events Manager, BuddyPress, etc.
The coup de grace for this plugin is its beautifully UX-optimized mobile forms with super-sleek touch-friendly interfaces and conversational tone. It has features like instant automatic email-notification-to-subscriber (fully customizable ‘Thanks for subscribing’ mails) and analytical reports, which make MailChimp a must for marketers on WordPress.
2. MailPoet Newsletters
- Authors: MailPoet team
- Price: Free core plugin (up to 2000 subscribers), Premium plans (based on number of sites) available ranging from $99-$399/year
- Stats: Over 300,000 active installs
Another well-loved email marketing plugin on WordPress is the WYSIJA, aka, MailPoet Newsletters.
It has all the basic features (create/ send everything from emails, newsletters, notifications, auto-responders, etc. in an easy drag-and-drop interface). It comes with a nicely optimized sign-up form widget. It has easy 2-step subscriber-list import, packs its own arsenal of lovely newsletter templates and more.
The pro version offers more detailed stats on newsletters and subscribers. Features like bounce handling and spam score testing make it a necessity for anyone who doesn’t want to stoop to being a nonsense spammer.
3. Newsletter
- Authors: (Tech-trio) Stefano Lissa, Michael Travan, and codename: webagile
- Price: Free core plugin, all Professional extensions available at $39.95 (on ‘self-owned’ blogs) and $97 (on any website/blog)
- Stats: Over 200,000 active installs
Newsletter pays attention to details.
It keeps track of subscriber stats and ‘Subscriber Preference’ features for well-tuned targeting. It has opt-in forms (with privacy checkboxes for EU compliance). It has a nice interface to create and customize your subscription widget/ page/ or form.
It has amazing themes, can send HTML/Text versions of image-laden mails, and does everything after carefully checking the ‘Diagnostics Panel’ to keep you from overstepping any lines (blog mailing capacity).
It’s the little things that matter and Newsletter knows it. It’s one of the classier, easier-to-use solutions out there.
4. SumoMe List Builder
- Authors: AppSumo Team
- Price: Whole family of apps (including the List Builder) is available in all three plans. Free Beginner plan. Starter and Pro plans (with additional AppSumo features) ranging from $10-$100/month
- Stats: Over 100,000 live websites
- List-Builder is the Plucky Girl of SumoMe app-family (which is already known for its highly user-friendly interfaces and a chic style).
It has smart features like trigger delays on modal (never throws the subscription form at first-time visitor without letting them read the content first). It’s fully optimized for mobile (neck-to-neck with MailChimp in this regard). It integrates well with other popular email marketing services (think: Campaign Monitor, SailThru, MailJet, etc.).
It has split testing features for your mail, advanced display rules (for device type), and the usual AppSumo features (common to all SumoMe apps).
SumoMe’s List Builder is brilliant and bafflingly easy to use; perfect for all businesses out there.
5. OptimizePress
- Authors: OptimizePress team
- Price: Available only for personally owned sites (no ‘Developer/Agency’ plans), prices ranging from $97-$297 for 3-30 sites.
- Stats: Over 75,000 live websites
This is less of a list building plugin and more of an “army of features every marketing website creator would want”.
It lets you “create almost any kind of pages for your business inside WordPress” and edit/customize them with in real-time. To expedite this creation process you get readymade templates and custom elements.
It integrates smoothly with other email marketing platforms, Google Analytics, KiSSMetrics, etc. It has brilliant engagement features (‘drip-feed’ content, secure sites and delivery portals, and more).
Next time you need to create special marketing pages on WordPress, turn to OptimizePress. It will help you do it in a quick and hassle-free way.
6. Icegram
- Authors: Nirav Mehta, codename: putler, and Store Apps Team
- Price: Free core plugin, free and paid add-ons available
- Stats: Over 10,000 active installs
Apart from manic sign-up placement rules (popups and practically any part of the page), it also features strict targeting rules and a ‘Unique Headline Generator’ when you’re stumped for ideas. It’s compatible with auto-responders.
The entire plugin, from the design customizer (which works with your website’s theme/plugins shortcodes for layout and styling) to targeting configuration, is easy to learn and use. It integrates with other plugins and services and has more smart-content-control features than most competitors.
Icegram, frankly, is deceptively smart and loaded.
7. SendinBlue Subscribe Form and WP SMTP
- Authors: SendinBlue team
- Price: Free. Premium plans ranging from $7.37/month to $1,946/month (pre-tax) based on number of mails sent every month.
- Stats: Over 5000 active installs
Referred to by CodeinWP, SendinBlue’s Mailin is an “all-in-one email marketing plugin.”
It has subscription forms, smart marketing campaign features, statistics, and more. You get great control over newsletter/email design, easy management of contact list and campaigns, exhaustive stats on deliveries, CTR, and more.
Mailin is a complete plugin and does exactly what it says: it gives you an easy way to manage subscription forms and email.