Email marketing is tough. What to include? When do you send them out? How do you come across as non-Spammy McSpam? With so much to think about, often design and functionality are overlooked. Luckily, with the help of an email marketing plugin, you can get assistance with automation, visuals, organization, and much more.
Before we get started, you should know that all of these email marketing plugins have terrific reviews, thousands of users (sometimes millions), and are up-to-date.
They also cover the full spectrum; from opting-in, to helping you create long-term loyal subscribers.
By the end of this article you’ll hopefully be able to identify the subtle differences between them all, and know which will work best for your list.
Plus, I’ll be going over what to look for in a good email marketing plugin, and various email service providers.
It will then be up to you, fellow email marketer, to decide which plugin to try.
Soon, you’ll be delivering your email more efficiently than your local postal service (if they ever delivered mail digitally, that is).
What All Good Email Marketing Plugins Should Address
Some plugins can send a newsletter directly within WordPress, others have very attractive opt-in forms, and some offer easy customization.
So… what do you look for when deciding?
A few questions you can ask yourself are:
- Will this work for the purpose I want it to?
- Is this something I can set up on my own, or will I need someone else to do it for me?
- Will the free version work? If not, how much of a budget do I have for an email marketing plugin?
Also, look at the reviews — both positive and negative. All of the plugins featured in this post have a 4.5-star or above-average reviews, which is great!
But still, dig around a bit more at some of the negative remarks. You can also ask questions on each plugin’s method of communication, whether that be with support, a public forum, or live chat.
Plus, considering these are all free, test them out first. You will discover your likes and dislikes — ultimately leading to a comfortable decision when deciding on what plugin to use.
From there, you may feel more inclined to upgrade to any pro options, if needed.
Time to Deliver
Here are nine amazing free email marketing plugins. Even though they’re all free, all offer upgrade options for advanced features. Included is a price range of the premium costs. Depending on your use, an upgrade may, or may not, be needed.
Luckily, none of these require any postage.
The HubSpot all-in-one marketing plugin includes all of the essentials. Everything from the striking responsive newsletters, automation, pop-ups, and more makes this plugin a distinctive choice compared to many others. This plugin is perfectly tailored to grow businesses. Plus, it has over 100K users and a 4.5 average star rating. Spot-on!
Key Features:
- Easily create responsive newsletters to distribute to your contact database with their drag and drop email builder. You can build your own or select from over 20 pre-designed templates.
- You can send automated emails when a visitor to your WordPress site fills out a form or sends you a live chat message. Beyond that, all emails are automatically logged in your CRM and keep track of open and click rates.
- Feature attractive forms & popups on your site with their drag and drop builder. Or, you can integrate with other WordPress forms and popup builders.
- The analytics are built-in to make it easy to understand which sales and marketing actions are successful and which ones require some more work.
Premium Price Range:
The email plugin is free to download and use for up to 2,000 email sends per month. Upgrades are available starting at $50 and up to $3200 per month when billed annually.
Hustle by WPMU DEV is our free email, social share, popup, and opt-in marketing plugin. Hustle allows you to quickly grow your email lists with popups, slide-ins, widgets, and shortcodes.
This is a perfect plugin for individuals, growing businesses, or any company that wants to dance their way to having effective email marketing. It’s groovin’ to over 80K downloads and a 4.5 average user review.
Key Features:
- Simply integrates with all of the popular email services when you connect your account. You can then create automated email campaigns, welcome messages, or add to a specific list when a user opts-in.
- A groovy smart exit-intent that detects when visitors are about to leave your site. It will then display a pop-up or slide-in to grab their attention.
- It can breakdance around the block. Your pop-ups and slide-ins will still work around ad blockers.
- You can easily measure performance and results with three metrics that help you make better marketing decisions; including stats on form displays, forms submitted, and conversion rates.
Premium Price Range:
You can get advanced features with Hustle Pro. It includes 24/7 support and other premium plugins with a WPMU DEV membership. Try it FREE for 7 days. After that, membership is only $49/m for everything (including hosting)!
Sendinblue Subscribe Form and WP SMTP is another all-in-one email marketing plugin.
Everything is easy to use, clear, and organized. You can get a nice email newsletter set up in just minutes.
It has advanced capabilities to handle small, midsize, and big businesses looking to enhance their email marketing efforts. Plus, they offer support and are regularly updated.
It can’t be blue considering it has over 50K users and 4.5-star average reviews.
Key Features:
- Subscription forms that allow you to customize accordingly and integrate them into your pages, posts, or sidebars.
- You can manage your contact lists with segmentation, which will enhance your campaign performance.
- Email marketing campaigns are delivered with beautiful newsletters. They’re all mobile-friendly and are created with a drag and drop builder with your own customization or their template library.
- Automation enabling in WordPress that will auto-install the script on your website.
Premium Price Range:
This plugin does use Sendinblue’s API to synchronize contacts, send emails, and get stats. The free plan is for up 300 emails per day, otherwise, you’ll need to upgrade. Various plans start at $25 to $66+ per month.
MC4WP: MailChimp for WordPress by ibericode is made specifically to help grow your MailChimp lists and create better newsletters.
Their attractive opt-in forms integrate with any existing form on your WordPress site; specifically your comment, contact, or checkout form.
If you’re currently using MailChimp for your email lists, it’s a great option that’s catered to their service. This chimp comes in with a solid 5-star review and over a million downloads!
Key Features:
- Install attractive signup forms that are quick and easy to set up and use with your MailChimp account. It takes less than a minute to sync your MailChimp account and get up and running.
- You can integrate with numerous other plugins, such as Ninja Form 7, BuddyPress, WPForms, MemberPress, Events Manager, and WooCommerce.
- They have a knowledge base that is updated daily.
- It’s developer-friendly for adding additional code snippets and customizing.
Premium Price Range:
You’ll need a MailChimp account, which is also free for a list of up to 2000 subscribers. There is an upgrade option with this plugin that features multiple forms, advanced e-commerce integration for WooCommerce, email notifications, and more. The price range for upgrading begins at $59 to $149 per year.
Newsletter by Stefano Lissa & The Newsletter Team is a newsletter and email marketing plugin for list building, tracking emails, and is easy to use.
Once you have it installed, it’s practically ready to go. The main feature is the drag and drop builder. You can easily arrange your newsletters with this feature and provide attractive results.
With over 300K downloads and average 4.5-star reviews, it makes this plugin news(letter) worthy.
Key Features:
- You can have unlimited subscribers without having to resort to email service (e.g. MailChimp). They’re all updated directly in your WordPress dashboard.
- There is an unlimited amount of newsletters you can send that include tracking.
- There’s customization with the opt-in feature. You can choose single, double opt-in, and even a privacy checkbox for EU laws compliance.
- It is compatible with every SMTP plugin.
Premium Price Range:
There are premium options that include one-to-one support, WooCommerce integration, reports, and more. The costs for premium starts at $65 to $249 per year.
MailPoet is a marketing plugin that provides sign up forms for newsletters, subscriptions, and emails.
What’s nice about this plugin is that you can schedule your newsletters, send them right away, or automate it to send notifications whenever there’s a new blog post.
The plugin was developed in 2011 and trusted by over 100K poets and has a 4.5-star average review.
Key Features:
- The newsletter subscription options are nice to have when you’re looking for ease and automation.
- Everything is based on WordPress and can be synced with a 3rd party email provider.
- Includes a free WooCommerce email customizer.
- You can view audience engagement and more. Stats provide open rates, unsubscribes, and all the vital information for your email campaigns.
Premium Price Range:
Free for the first 1000 subscribers. After that, you can upgrade for as low as $13 to $292+ per month (depending on the number of emails).
Ninja Forms by Saturday Drive delivers a knockout plugin for email marketing. It coins itself as the most user-friendly WordPress contact form builder — and it might be right.
The easy to use drag and drop fields make creative a complex looking form quick to create. It’s an extremely up-to-date plugin and packs a punch with over a million downloads and a 4.5-star average rating.
Key Features:
- The drag and drop form builder is easy to use and perfect for someone with not much knowledge on using WordPress.
- There are over 27 different field types for forms, which makes creating them to suit your needs very obtainable.
- Unlimited forms and form submissions.
- You can export and import forms as needed.
Premium Price Range:
You can upgrade as needed with a ton of options that start as low as $29 to $499 per year. Some of the upgrades include the ability to accept payments, user management login, advanced analytics, and more.
SendPress is another easy to set up email marketing plugin that’s extremely customizable. You can arrange the subscription widget, page, or custom form exactly how you would like.
It’s perfect for anyone wanting to grow their email lists and has the essentials; such as single and double opt-in, analytics, and newsletter templates.
Though it has fewer downloads so far than the rest (8k), it’s updated regularly and is a great option to press-out your email marketing.
Key Features:
- You can have unlimited subscribers and unlimited responsive newsletters with tracking.
- Everything is code free. It has a simple editor to make editing a breeze.
- Allows for single and double opt-in.
- Tracking is included. You can track clicks, opens, unsubscribes, and more.
Premium Price Range:
You can always go PRO. Some of the pro features include API sending, custom HTML templates, spam score, and one year of updates. It starts at $39 to $399 per year.
Email Subscribers & Newsletters by Icegram does a ton as a free plugin. It was specifically created to suit the needs of regular bloggers, website owners, marketers, and developers.
In a nutshell, it has everything you need to build email lists and market out to them. Plus, you can subscribe to the fact that they have over 100K installations and a 4.5-star average review.
Key Features:
- You can create unlimited broadcasts, post notifications, email templates, and form.
- There is a subscription spam check with domain blacklists. A good feature to keep your email lists in good standings.
- The choice between single or double opt-in plus a privacy checkbox.
- There is an HTML editor to create broadcasts and post notifications
Price Range:
They have pro options that have extras; such as premium email, high security, autoresponders, and more. If you want to upgrade, their pro version is quite affordable. It starts at $9 to $10.75 per month.
Getting Good Email Service Is Not a Disservice
At this point, you’ve now seen some plugins that can work and you’ve either started or are about to start an email marketing campaign for your site. However, how do you go about picking the best email marketing software? Hmm…
There are lots of decisions when it comes to picking an email company to work with. You want to feel at ease knowing your email lists are in good hands.
Some good reputable companies, such as MailChimp, AWeber, and Constant Contact, all have the essentials. However, there are also many other options out there.
There are a few key things to look for in email software:
- Automation: Make sure that the automation provided will work for your needs.
- Campaigns: There should be options to support a wide variety of email types. That includes newsletters, autoresponders, and A/B tests.
- Editing: You want to be able to edit your email templates easily, so a good drag and drop visual editor is best for this. Anything that eliminates coding and makes it simple.
- Support: Make sure the support they offer is effective. Check for support like live chat, phone, and email and learn of their options.
- Integration: Ensure that you can integrate with whatever plugin you decide works best for your WordPress site.
Having an email software provider is nice to have beyond just using the WordPress dashboard. It’s a way to ensure your lists are stored in a safe place and can be organized more efficiently.
Signed, Sealed, Dev-livered
When developing your email marketing strategy, there is a lot to consider. Hopefully, these options presented to you today will help narrow down some specific plugins that will work well for your needs. Also, I hope you have some good ideas for an email marketing company that will work well, too.
To deliver the goods, consider signing up for our 7-day free premium trial and get access to all of our plugins (including our email marketer, Hustle), 24/7 support, security, blazing-fast hosting, and tons more.
It’s vital to have a WordPress email marketing plugin to help increase and update subscribers. Once subscribed, keep them from opting out by delivering great content, attractive newsletters, quality emails, and — yeah — not being a Spammy McSpam.
Soon, your email marketing will be tough to beat and earn a stamp of approval.
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Keep reading the article at WPMU DEV Blog. The article was originally written by Nathanael Fakes on 2020-03-24 22:21:30.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.