Email marketing has become a crucial tool in running your business. Growing your mailing list and gathering subscribers is something everyone wants and needs in order to expand. And as the need for email marketing became greater so did the number of tools designed to make the whole process easier.

In this article, we’ll be looking at one such tool called MailPoet. So, if you’re new to this sort of business management (or are simply looking to switch things up) and are in the market for WordPress email software, read on and see what MailPoet can do to help you.

The MailPoet plugin

An important thing definitely worth noting is that MailPoet is a WordPress plugin, so you can get your emails sorted through your WordPress dashboard. It features an integrated drag-and-drop email design tool, and while those have become quite common, more often than not they won’t be integrated into your WordPress site.

You can use MailPoet to create newsletters, signup forms, manage and gather your subscribers as well as segment them into more mailing lists if necessary. There are also a lot of customization options and the plugin is relatively easy to use.

Installation and Getting Started

The first thing you’ll have to do is purchase a code for the plugin, and you will typically have to wait about 24 hours for your site to get verified (to make sure it’s not spam). Once your site is verified, go to the Plugins tab on your WordPress Dashboard and click Add New.

Search for MailPoet and install it on your site. When that’s complete you’re going to see the MailPoet icon above “Plugins”.

In order to get your Premium version going, open the plugin and click on “Settings”, there you should see the Key Activation option in the far right.

Go back to where you’ve purchased the code, copy it to your clipboard, paste it in the right place, and voila, you’re done.

Features

1. Importing contacts

If you already have some previous contacts and subscribers you would like to transfer to MailPoet all you have to do is click on “Subscribers” and then find the import button.

This is going to give you three options. You can import your contacts directly from there if you’re a user of MailChimp. If you do not use MailChimp you can either paste your contacts’ data into a text box or you can upload a file that you’ve previously downloaded with all of your contacts already there.

When you’ve finished with that, click on “Subscribers” again and they should all be there. You can manage them from here and move them into separate mailing lists if you need to.

2. Creating emails

When you first click on “Emails” it’s going to provide you with the options of creating either a newsletter, a welcome email, or a post notification. You can also edit the things you’ve previously started quite simply by hovering over them and clicking “Edit”.

Whatever you choose to create first, you can either do it by picking from a wide selection of pre-made templates or you can make one from scratch. It’s up to you. The customization tools for the templates are extremely easy to use and allow you to change as much or as little as you want.

Here you can add or remove content from your newsletter, this includes texts, images, buttons, social media accounts, post links,  footers, etc.

There is also the option to add more columns to the template if you wish to have more information in it. And in the Styles tab, you can change the font size, color, and alignment.

There are also two color sliders that can change the color of the newsletter’s background and the global background according to what you want. 

After you’ve finished designing your perfect newsletter, just select a list of clients to send it to, add your sender and reply address and you’re settled.

When creating a post notification, you can select how often and at what time you want it to be sent out.

3. Signup Forms

This is where MailPoet gets really great for people with zero experience in coding or design. The form editor features a handy drag-and-drop design tool so that you can customize your forms any way you wish. There is also an option to choose from a vast array of premade templates or build a form from scratch.

When creating a signup form, you can choose to make it a pop-up, slide-in, a fixed bar, or place it below pages, whatever works for your brand.

If templates are not your thing and you wish to make something completely unique for yourself, skip the templates and go straight to the editor.

Much like the email editor, the signup form one also provides you with a myriad of customization options, such as changing the background, font, border, error message style, color, and font. You can choose the form placement and create custom CSS. There’s also an option to upload images as your background, so the possibilities are really limitless.

When you’re done with crafting the perfect form, you can either manually type in the details of everyone you wish to send it to or just use one of your premade mailing lists.

4. Stats

With this feature, you can track the response rate for your emails in real-time.

When you open the “Emails” option in MailPoet, you will be able to see the total number of people you sent an email to and how many of them opened it. Along with this, you can also track your engagement by individual subscribers. You can check this by clicking “Subscribers” on your dashboard.

Once that’s open, you can see the number of subscribers in total, those that remain unconfirmed, people that have unsubscribed at some point, and inactive people. By clicking on each of those stats individually you can see exactly how many emails you sent, the number of opened emails, clicked and unopened ones.

Other Features

• MailPoet fully integrates with WooCommerce and you can use it to inform your customers of new products, or even activate a feature that sends you emails every time a certain product is bought.
• MailPoet will allow you to automate two different types of emails, welcome emails, and post notifications. A welcome email is a one-time message and you can choose to have it sent to a new subscriber right after they subscribe or have it sent out later as a little reminder. Post notifications keep your subscribers up to date with what’s on your site and you can choose to send one out daily, weekly or monthly depending on how often you post.
• If someone is continuously not clicking on what you’re sending, it becomes spam for them and you. But if you go to “Settings” and then click “Advanced” you can choose the option to stop sending your emails to inactive subscribers, either after 3, 6, or 12 months.
• Create any number of lists you are in need of, segment them if you wish, and when you make a form, attach it to a specific mailing list meant just for that one form.
• Load your blog post and attach it to the newsletter you’re sending out, save that as a draft or send it right away

Fees

AppSumo is currently offering 3 deals on MailPoet, all one-time purchases. The only difference between the deals is the number of subscribers.

The Single plan costs $49 and allows up to 5,000 subscribers per website. The Double plan costs $98 and allows up to 10,000 subscribers. And finally, the Multiple plan, which allows up to 15,000 subscribers per website costs $147.

There is also a version of MailPoet that you can get for free, but if you do decide to take this route, you’ll only be able to have up to 1000 subscribers and some of the features will be missing.

Conclusion

While this tool might not be for everyone, it offers many fantastic features that make it very user-friendly and efficient. Having a tool of this sort right on your WordPress dashboard is a breath of fresh air and makes the entire process of email marketing breezy.

Its email editor is elegant and very easy to use. Plus, it integrates well with third-party apps and does a lot of work for you using automation and design templates. The only two drawbacks of this tool would be that its form editor might be a little simple for some and that the scheduling is limited.

Overall, MailPoet is a very useful WordPress plugin many would enjoy using. It’s simple, it multitasks and it automates. What more could you ask for!

The post Easily Create and Manage Emails From Inside WordPress With MailPoet appeared first on WP Pluginsify.

The issue here is that you can’t really have 20 people working on just emails every day, and that is where a plugin comes in handy.

You should find a great plugin that is going to take over the workflow and do all of the emails on its own. Maybe the most important thing that a plugin can take care of is the periodical updates that need to be sent out to all of your subscribers.

For a human, this would be a tedious task to do. So, why not find a plugin that does everything for you, automatically, once a specific trigger has been set off.

Also, the other benefit of using an email plugin is that you won’t be spending a whole lot of money on email marketing campaigns.

Now that we know what we can accomplish with an email plugin, the only issue that remains is to decide which one to use. Here are some suggestions!

1. SendFox

SendFox is going to be the first plugin that I talk about. This plugin is very simple to use and understand from the get-go. It has a simple and clean user interface and there isn’t a whole lot of complicated features just laying around.

With it, you can easily automate a lot of things, in just a few clicks of a button. You can create an automation that will send a welcome email as soon as someone subscribes to your newsletter or they simply create an account. Another great thing is that you can also add links that will lead your subscribers to some of your more successful content. This way you will ensure a steady flow of visitors on a daily basis.

When you start creating emails using this plugin you will be pleasantly surprised with all of the ways you can edit and structure the emails. From changing colors to adding pictures there is nothing that you can’t do with your email campaigns using this plugin.

2. FluentCRM

FluentCRM is one of the most popular names in the email plugin category. It comes with the ability to do email marketing automation within WordPress. But unlike other plugins, it doesn’t connect WordPress sites to any SaaS servers. Instead, it utilizes email sending services like Amazon SES, MailGun, SendGrid, etc.

FluentCRM provides users with a block-based email composer that makes it easy to craft beautiful email templates. It has native integration with Fluent Forms and FluentSMTP to collect leads and ensure faster yet reliable email deliverability. In addition, the plugin automatically integrates with popular WordPress plugins like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, LifterLMS, Learndash, MemberPress, WishList, Paid Memberships Pro, WPFusion, etc.

After collecting leads, FluentCRM can show complete contact profiles that include the contact’s general information, communication history, purchase history, and many more. FluentCRM also provides the users with multiple options to segment their contact lists and run targeted email campaigns, email blasts, email sequences, etc.

But the true potential of this plugin lies within its email marketing automation functionality. If you’re running an online store, membership site, online course site, blog, you can set up various trigger-based behavioral emails, follow-up emails, and many more with FluentCRM’s visual automation funnel builder.

3. Mailchimp

You have probably heard about this plugin before. This is also a great tool especially if you are using WordPress since it now acts as a bridge between your Mailchimp account and your WordPress account.

The great thing about this plugin is that it is completely free for you to use and creating an account is also completely free. Then again there are some limitations to the free plan, so if you are a big company or business you can opt for one of the premium plans.

The plugin is able to send out great email campaigns to whoever you have on your mailing list. It is also great if you have a lot of mobile users on your site since this plugin is very nicely optimized for them.

4. HubSpot

Here we have yet another great plugin for WordPress using which you can create great email marketing campaigns in a matter of minutes. You can create forms and all kinds of pop-ups which will help increase the number of people on your mailing list with ease.

The other great thing that this plugin offers is the option to add a chat tool using which you can engage even further with your visitors increasing the chances that they are going to subscribe to your mailing list.

Also, if you are feeling lazy, you could always use a chatbot that will answer simple questions that your visitors may have (this is especially great if everybody from your team is offline or away from their workstations).

5. Mailster

This plugin is not as cheap as the other ones, but it is really helpful and handy. The plugin is a great way to create effective email campaigns that are also mobile-ready. It has a great drag-and-drop builder using which you can create the perfect email campaign in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, without any fuss.

Also, considering its features and pricing, this plugin is more suited for big businesses that have already established themselves.

6. MailPoet

And last but not least is MailPoet. MailPoet is a great free WordPress plugin using which you can manage a whole lot of things on your site. You can manage your subscribers and you can also very easily import your existing mailing list from your CRM or any other marketing tool for that matter.

The only downside of this plugin is that it is free for you to use only if you have below 2000 subscribers on your site. So if that is not the case, you’ll have to become a premium user.

Verdict

Whichever plugin you decide to go for, I guarantee that you will be satisfied. The only thing that you have to be on the lookout for is whether the plugin is mobile-friendly and whether it has a lot of features and tools using which you can create great-looking email campaigns in a matter of minutes.

I will once again recommend that you check out SendFox because it will provide you with a whole lot of features that are very well polished and work perfectly.

The post Top 5 Email Plugins for WordPress That Will Help Keep Your Subscribers, Followers, and Fans in the Loop appeared first on WP Pluginsify.