home In contact with Plugin e-mail wordpress. WPNewsman: Plugin for creating email newsletters in WordPress. What's available in the free version

Plugin e-mail wordpress. WPNewsman: Plugin for creating email newsletters in WordPress. What's available in the free version

If you want to increase your audience, get closer to your readers, then creating a newsletter is the perfect solution for your website.

Having a list of subscribers allows you to send them email notifications every time you publish a new post or launch a new service - all of which are invaluable and important to have at your disposal.

Fortunately, when it comes to WordPress, you have a lot of settings available for simple creation a mailing list and manage it from the admin console. While offline newsletter services (Aweber or MailChimp) are quite popular choices, WordPress users can opt for a small set of quality plugins to manage and post subscribers from their WordPress build. This approach avoids creating accounts in third-party services, logging in to send messages and, in some situations, monthly fee for a subscription.

When it comes to plugins that implement WordPress mailing list functionality, users have a few choices. For example, the WPNewsman service, which we will consider further.

WPNewsman Review

WPNewsman is one of the plugins that allows you to create a newsletter and manage a news service right within your WP site. The plugin is available in two flavors: Lite and Pro. The free version of WPNewsman Lite includes everything you need to get started. WPNewsman Pro includes additional functions, the ability to send mail messages to an unlimited number of subscribers (in the Lite version, this number is limited to 2000).

Setting up WPNewsman

WPNewsman Lite can be downloaded like any other free plugin found in the WordPress Plugin Repository. This means that you do not need to leave your site to install the plugin and add the newsletter service.

After installation, the plugin will add a new item to the console menu, from which you can access the main functions of WPNewsman.

By default, the plugin comes with two mailing lists, but it is also possible to create multiple mailing lists. Although each plugin instance only runs on one site, you can define different mailing lists for that site. For example, you might have a separate mailing list for those who need a general newsletter on an ongoing basis, a separate newsletter for a specific event or topic that is popular on your site, a new product or service launch notification.

Newsletter templates

Creating your own newsletter templates - simple task for this plugin. The editor is beautifully designed and resembles the standard WordPress post editor in its appearance, which is sure to be appreciated by beginners.

WPNewsman comes with a large number of shortcodes that allow you to personalize your posts: add subscriber name, blog name, etc. You can also insert shortcodes to display message parts that will be visible to the recipient when viewing the message in the mail client or when viewing the message on the web.

You can also download free templates for emails directly from your admin panel using a plugin. WPNewsman allows you to view the various templates available in the HotEmailTemplates.com and Campaign Monitor repositories. In these two repositories, you will always find a template that will have professional look and will match the theme of your site.

Loaded templates can also be edited to create your own view, which gives the plugin more flexibility.

Action Pages

The plugin also comes with so called "action pages". These pages are displayed to users at different stages of the subscription - for example, when a user subscribes, confirms a subscription, or unsubscribes from a mailing list. These pages can be fully edited - you can invite your subscribers to befriend you in different social networks, follow you on Twitter, etc.

Options

The WPNewsman plugin options are pretty simple. They include options such as entering settings for emails - From, email address, return address for mailing, etc. You can also choose whether to send a welcome message, subscription notification, and administrator notifications when a user has joined or unsubscribed from a mailing list.

Sending messages

When it comes to sending emails, the WPNewsman plugin offers numerous customizations. With PHP mail and sendmail (* nix only), you can create your own SMTP server or upload Gmail or Amazon SES SMTP settings. Amazon SES is a cost-effective way to send email messages to your subscribers without using the SMTP service connected to your hosting account, which is important to consider in situations where your mailing list is getting large enough and you are constantly sending emails. Amazon SES costs are very low - starting at just $ 0.10 per thousand messages.

It is also possible to regulate the delivery of letters, limiting them to a day / hour / minute.

Form constructor

WPNewsman comes with an excellent form builder that allows you to design signup or registration forms. Having a form that you can easily customize and customize is a valuable feature.

The form builder consists of a convenient drag-n-drop visual editor that makes it easy to design your own subscription form. Once you create your subscription form or choose one of the templates for this, you can easily add the form to a post or page using the shortcode that is defined for each form, display it in the sidebar via a widget.

An added benefit of forms in WPNewsman is that they can be easily switched to a horizontal view instead of the standard vertical layout. This makes forms ideal for mid-post insertion, to nudge users into logging into the system while they are still reading, rather than when they finish reading the article, as is usually the case. This feature is rarely seen in newsletter plugins, and even third-party newsletter services often do not have this capability, although in theory you could edit the CSS of the form to display it however you want it to appear on the screen.

Lite vs Pro

WPNewsman Lite, the free version of this plugin, includes everything you need to create a mailing list for your WordPress site. However, once your subscriber list starts growing, you will need the Pro features. In the premium version, you can:

Send letters to an unlimited number of subscribers (the number of subscribers is limited to 2000);
Track recipient activity using Google Analytics and Piwik
Use a built-in failure handler that keeps your list clean and checked
Get priority support

Considering that these features are undoubtedly very useful for a professional site or for a profitable site, the free version of the plugin will be enough for most users - at least in the early stages of working with the site.

The current cost of the Pro version is $ 79, which is down from $ 99. It is valid for one site or domain, includes a year of support and updates. For the latest pricing information, visit the plugin page.

Plugin disadvantages

Of course, WPNewsman plugin has excellent features, is easy to use, especially if you consider the free version, but it also has its drawbacks - in some situations it is worth looking at postal services that are not integrated into WordPress, such as Aweber.

Services like Aweber or iContact work with WordPress, however you must be logged in to manage your mailing lists and post messages - all bypassing the WordPress dashboard. Despite the need to create a separate login and use a third-party service to manage mailing lists, additional features can more than cover all the disadvantages for some users.

The lack of an answering machine function is another drawback that will push users to look for a more advanced email service. WPNewsman is primarily a newsletter creation tool. For those who wish to manage mailing lists, send a scheduled list of letters to their subscribers after registering in the system, it is better to use services such as Aweber.

Email services like MailChimp or Aweber also allow you to manage multiple mailing lists for different sites, while WPNewsman only works with one site when installing / purchasing a license. If you manage mailing lists for multiple sites, using third-party services may be a more practical solution for you.

Notwithstanding all of the above, if you run one site and want to send your mailings without any delay, WPNewsman is the perfect solution for you.

Everyone probably knows how to create a newsletter on your own blog using third-party services. But not every blogger (especially a beginner) knows that it is possible to do this without resorting to their help. The possibilities of WordPress are much wider than it might seem at first glance.

It can take a long time to figure out how WordPress is configured to meet your needs. And it also happens that the optimal solution to any problem comes after everything more or less works and you don’t want to touch something again. I did it with the newsletter by e-mail.

I find it very convenient to use the Feedburner mailing list. Moreover, both in the form of rss and in the form e-mail newsletter... But at some point I got a problem. I should have sent all new subscribers an email with a subscription bonus. Unfortunately, Feedburmer doesn't know how to do this (or I didn't understand something). It is clear that sending out manually, even if not very many letters, would not be justified at all.

In Smartresponder, for example, it is possible to create automatic mailings, but with the ability to send news feeds to subscribers in the future on this service, it is not so simple. And to create, for example, a weekly newsletter with blog news, personally for me, is a rather dreary process and for conducting such a mailing will not last long. In general, I began to look for other ways that could combine the capabilities of both smartresponder and.

I looked, looked for, took a large shovel, began to "dig". It turns out that you can create your own newsletter based on WordPress. And this is more than simple. Plugins have been written to do this for a long time. Take it and put it on - use it. Of course, such a newsletter also has disadvantages and difficulties in setting it up may arise, but nevertheless, there are no less advantages. So:

How to create a newsletter on a blog without resorting to third-party services?

¤ Plugin Suscribe2 is the most popular tool for this purpose. Thanks to him, subscribers can receive newsletters, and it is possible to choose a subscription to specific headings, and it is also possible to send notifications to all subscribers, or letters with other information. Easily customizable letter style and the ability to use code templates also become an advantage over the same feedburner. In general, the time is not far off when this plug-in will learn how to “brew coffee and pour beer”.

But this is not the only newsletter plugin. If for some reason Suscribe2 does not suit you, take a look at the newsletter.

¤ BFT Autoresponder and Newsletter - If you are planning to conduct only auto-mailings consisting of a series of letters, then this plugin may be perfect for you. The principle of its operation is such that you create a separate section for a series of letters, publish in it those articles that should be sent to subscribers by e-mail and indicate the frequency with which these posts should be sent.

¤ MailPress is another very functional email marketing plugin. On the official page of the plugin, they suggest installing special modules that expand the functionality. This allows you to make the plugin settings as flexible as possible, specifically for your needs. If you need an auto-link - you have installed the module, you do not need it - you have not installed it. The same goes for the rest of the settings.

In addition, there are other newsletter plugins. In this article, I have listed only the main, most popular and functional ones. And of course, I was not able to try everything, so it will be very interesting for me to know your opinion and feedback on these plugins.

Good luck!
With great respect,

Did you like the article? Subscribe to blog news or share on social networks, and I will answer you

8 comments on the post “How to create a newsletter in WordPress”

Tell me, how can I make a subscription without plugins so that when you click the subscribe button, you are not redirected to another site (feedburner and smartresponder) and you are not required to confirm your subscription? So that it is easy, without a bunch of problems and captcha.

To answer

Hello Julia! Signing up without plugins and third-party resources is difficult, but possible, provided you are familiar with CSS and PHP. First, read the section (How to install the "Subscribe without commenting" form).
Secondly, you can try to redirect your readers from the subscription form (you need to find the form code and install it yourself) to the registration address on your website - jcooks.in.ua/wp-login.php?action=register. Thus, you can collect a subscriber base, but you will have to send them letters yourself, since WordPress does not provide automatic mailing of letters. This can be done easier: go to the admin-settings-discussion-and put a tick in front of "Users must be registered and authorized to comment."

To answer
- thanks a lot! It's just that I already have 20 plugins, the site freezes, and I want to eradicate them. leave a couple of the most important ones, and so that redirection on services is normal, so there is a fee, thanks for the links I read now!
  
  To answer
  - I will answer with a phrase from the cartoon "Well, if anything, come in." Let's try to sort out your problems together.
    
    To answer

Good afternoon. Am I getting it right that the plugins use an internal mail server? Can plugins be connected to third-party mailing servers? There is both speed and spam protection.

Many campaigns spend a lot of money to promote the resource on social networks. This is an important and effective part of the advertising process, but a significant part of the success goes to the social network itself.

Base postal addresses , carefully collected by you bit by bit is your whole asset and it works exclusively for you.

If you regularly publish interesting materials, the mailing list will help inform the addressees who are in the mail database about this and thereby maintain interest in the blog or site. For an online store, these can be mailings about new arrivals or promotions.

Today we will discuss best wordpress plugins to collect URL collection and the formation of a database of your subscribers.

Bloom Opt-in Plugin

Plugin Bloom from the developer ElegantThemes recently appeared on the market, but has already earned popularity thanks to integrated approach which he proposes to form a subscriber database.

Over 100 different design options forms for entering an email address, different location on the page, triggers that cause the form to appear, for example, after the user scrolls down the page or after a certain amount of time of inactivity of the visitor on the page.

There is a built-in A / B testing mechanism that will identify the most effective design, place and time of appearance of the corresponding form.

Price: Included in a bundle of 87 themes for a total cost of $ 69

Thrive Leads

Thrive Leads has a huge collection of professionally designed forms, however, provides the ability to create them yourself using the built-in drag-and-drop editor.
You can place these forms anywhere on the page, in headers or directly in the body of the message. And built-in A / B testing and detailed statistics will help you pinpoint the best option design and placement specifically for your blog.

Cost: from $ 67

Optinmonster

Optinmonster- the plugin is light and fast, but a real monster in its capabilities. Instead of boring and monotonous pop-ups, users will see stylish and colorful dialogs, forms embedded in sidebars or directly in the message text. These forms and windows can be assigned separately for each specific page.

The possibility of A / B testing and various statistical reports will reveal the most effective form of attracting subscribers, and integration with services MailChimp and AWeber will allow you to immediately use the accumulated data by adding it to mailing lists.

Cost: from $ 9 per month with an annual subscription

Subscribe Pro

Subscribe Pro- very high quality plugin. As you would expect, it provides complete management of external the type and location of the form for entering an email address, and time of appearance: after scrolling a page, after a certain viewing time, when switching to another page, etc.

Another useful feature is fine cookie management. This allows you to control the frequency of the appearance of the form without causing irritation to the user.

Cost: $ 29

Ninja Popups for WordPress

Ninja popups- very popular plugin to display popup containing form for entering e-mail and subscribing to newsletters... Unlike WP Notification Bar Pro mentioned above, it was originally conceived as plugin for collecting email addresses... But due to similar functionality, it can display any other information, for example discount discounts, Special offers, act as a social lock, etc. Integration with popular mail services (MailChimp, AWeber, GetResponse, etc.) will automatically add new addresses to the corresponding mailing list.

The plugin contains over 50 ready-made themes with built-in pop-up modules, 8 design options for the pop-up itself and 74 animation effects!

Cost: $ 25

Plugmatter

Wonderful Wordpress Plugin Plugmatter generates very beautiful and effective panels with shapes to subscribe to newsletters. It already includes 10 ready-made ones, but thanks to the built-in editor, we can say that their number is not limited - you can create forms of any, even the most extravagant design.

In addition, the plugin contains an A / B testing engine and detailed reports on each form, so you can easily choose the design and layout that will bring the largest number subscribers.

Cost: $ 69

Popup domination

Plugin Popup domination very popular and used on many sites.
Its functionality is extremely wide - forms can appear when the user leaves the page, scrolls down the material or after a certain time on the page. You can link to certain pages - you can specify on which pages and which forms will be displayed. Special mention should be made of geotargeting - for visitors from different countries different shapes will be displayed.

Powerful analytic capabilities let you determine if you were right with the design and location on the page, or if you need to change something.

Cost: from $ 9 per month

Simple Signup

This very simple plugin is nevertheless very customizable. Feel free to experiment with appearance and location for the most effective results. In general, this is a great choice, especially if you use MailChimp.

By the way, Simple Signup is faithful to its purpose to the end and its activation takes place in the same spirit - you need to enter your e-mail or MailChimp ID.

Cost: $ 27

Opt-in panda

This plugin can be attributed to the so-called social castles with the only difference that to unblock content, you just need to enter your e-mail, and not share the link in social networks. Otherwise, the principle of operation is the same - you hide the main part or all of the material from the visitor and open access only after entering the relevant information (in this case, e-mail). Voilà la is another customer on your list.

If you use MailChimp, Aweber, GetReponse or other popular mailing services, then you no longer have to worry about anything - your e-mail will be immediately added to the mailing lists and another subscriber will receive regular notifications.

Cost: $ 23

Hellobar

In this review, we have already met plugins that display various pop-up notifications... Of course, this is due to similar functionality - as a rule, various interface elements can be placed in the pop-up window, including text fields and buttons. So you can use these windows to enter email addresses.
It is for this reason that the Hellobar plugin was included in this review. In addition to its wide range of design and functionality, Hellobar also has an A / B testing function to help you get the most out of this tool. attract the maximum possible number of subscribers.

Conclusion

All the plugins that I mentioned in this review are certainly worthy of your attention, but I would like to highlight two of them. The first is Bloom. Its main advantage is a strong professional team, which, I am sure, will still delight us with new exciting opportunities. The second is Thrive Leads for the best value for money (more precisely, opportunities).

But whatever plugin you choose, remember - its main goal is to create a community of subscribers to your blog or buyers of your online store. This, and only this, determines the effectiveness of this or that decision.

Hello friends, many people are wondering - is it possible to send emails directly from the wordpress blog to subscribers' e-mails without using third-party services such as feedburner and smartresponder? I can please you - it is possible, and the plugin can help with this - Wysija Newsletters (MailPoet Newsletters)

Alternative mailing

Many bloggers are switching to smartresponder, which has been gaining popularity on the net lately. There are interesting things inside this mailing service: separate mailing lists, beautiful templates for mailing, beautiful forms for subscribing, the ability to import a list of subscribers and much more. But to take full advantage of all this, you need to pay as much as 10 euros per month. Not everyone can afford it.

Recently, I had one order where I was asked to find a way to organize a mailing list for wordpress subscribers. I found a plugin - Wysija Newsletters... It turned out that it has almost all the same functions as the smartresponder, only you do not need to pay for it. And yet, a very big plus - using this plugin, your newsletter does not depend on third-party services. After all, a plugin is a program installed on your blog. And in this plugin, you can control everything yourself, and the mailing lists, and the sending process, the delivery of letters, make sure that letters are sent automatically, and much more.

add subscribers manually
import lists to subscriber base
edit mailing lists
send mailings to different subscriber lists
make automatic mailings for selected categories of blog posts
create cute letter templates
edit templates in a convenient worpdress interface
check the templates made, as many times as you want by sending them to your email
create automatic mailings like a feedburner
create mailing lists manually
add a subscription form to the site

How does this mailing list work?

To begin with, as usual, install and activate the Wysija Newsletters plugin. Immediately after activating the plugin, I go to the settings, where you can watch a short video on how to manage this plugin. The video is in English, but visually everything is clear, even for those people who do not know the language.

For a long time I will not bore you with stories - how to use this plugin, it has a lot of possibilities, I will try to tell you with the help of screenshots and comments to them what possibilities I have already discovered.

Automatic mailing is practically a substitute for regular mailing by subscription, whether it be a feedburner or a smartresponder. This mailing list has several important parameters. Mailing of letters is triggered automatically for a new record, you can set sending a letter immediately, as shown in the figure below, or set a specific time.

You can activate automatic mailing, for example, when a person subscribes to a blog. This is very convenient if you want to offer e-book to your subscribers. A person signed up and immediately received automatically your beautifully designed offer with a link to download the book.

Standard mailing of letters - assumes mailing at any time, according to any list of subscribers, which can be edited as you like, and on any topic. Very conveniently, this plugin implements ready-made, beautifully designed themes for letters.

Themes for such letters can be downloaded for free, directly from the letter editor. The editor itself is designed according to the principle of editing posts on wordpress, everything is intuitive!

Yes, and what is very nice, each letter contains a link to the version of this mailing list in the browser, in case the mail client does not display it correctly. This version of the plugin saves on the site as a separate page in the database and can always be viewed. Therefore, taking this opportunity, for clarity,I will show you one mailing letter I created for one of our projects - .

As you can see from the example letter and the picture above, you can insert into the letter itself:

content, in the form of headings, of your articles and posts, separator and social buttons.
pictures, including animated
set styles, backgrounds, headers and footers of the letter
apply various free templates, you can buy templates for letters, or create yourself.

The mailing of letters itself in technical terms can be realized thanks to this plugin in several ways, if your hosting does not have a restriction on sending letters per day, then you can use the default settings (from your site).

You can also use the Gmail server and send up to 500 emails a day. Or take advantage of a third party offer. In practice, I have not yet been able to test a mailing list with several hundred subscribers, when I carry out these tests, perhaps I will make adjustments to this article.

Next, there is a customization of the subscription form, which can be inserted into the widget or into the body of the page itself using html, php, iframe, or shortcode. Here everyone will choose something closer to him. For some reason I wanted to display the subscription in a side widget using the iframe code.

Of course, it looks simple, but the whole plus is that I have not yet worked with the styles, and after that, the subscription form can be any, as far as I have enough imagination and skill.

The plugin also involves inserting a shortcode that will display the number of subscribers for a specific mailing list. Those. if you style this shortcode, you can get your own cute subscriber counter for your site! 🙂

After all, this mailing plugin can work quite well in parallel with the same feedburner. It does not interfere. On the contrary, you can take your entire collected subscriber base and merge it into your new mailing list in this plugin.

That is where I will conclude the description of the Wysija Newsletters plugin, with the help of which you get a wonderful mailing of letters on wordpress.

By tradition - a few words about yourself. We are already finishing our stay in Tuapse near the Black Sea, and very soon we will fly to Moscow ... We haven’t been there for a year now, we need to visit relatives, friends, get a new visa and fly ... again to our beloved Asia, where you can soon find out by subscribing to our a blog about independent travel in Asia with a child.

And the daughter is already learning to walk! 🙂

It would be strange if such a popular content management system (CMS) like WordPress did not have advanced mailing functionality. But the question is not whether there is such a possibility. To begin with, remember that WordPress, even without sending letters, "likes" to access the database and, as a result, creates a serious load on the hosting server. If we add to this the mailing of letters to hundreds and even more so to thousands of subscribers, then the load on the server can "go off scale" and the hosting provider can take it for spam mailing. After that, at least he will write you an angry letter, but, as a rule, he will block your domain, until "the problem is fixed" or "switching to another tariff plan."

Note: In the load on the server, the assembly of the server itself is important. If it is built on "pure" http "Apache", then one request will be processed by one process and exceeding the load on the server is most likely. If the server is built on Nginx or Nignx + Apache, then thousands of requests (connections) will be processed by one process, which significantly reduces the likelihood of mistaking your mailing list for spam.

I will show you 4 Ways to Send Emails with WordPress. You can use them sequentially as you gain active subscribers. By active subscribers, we mean recipients of letters who actually open letters with your mailings, and not phantoms from purchased databases.

4 Ways to Send Email with WordPress - From Easy to Complex

With WordPress delivery;
Via FeedBurner;
Plugins mailing lists WordPress;
Services of mailing lists.

WordPress Email Delivery (wp_mail)

As I already mentioned, WordPress functionality allows by default to send emails with announcements of new articles to its subscribers and users (wp_mal function). You can read how to check the work of the WordPress mail service in the article ().

At the same time, in the general site settings ( Settings -> General) we assign the rights, at least, "Subscriber", so that he would receive mailings from. The appearance of the letters is quite respectable, with links to the last three articles and other catchy features (see photo).

the look of WordPress.com delivery emails 3. Another way to collect subscribers that are not explicit (you may not know about them at all), post a widget called "RSS Links" of your site. This is for those who like to work with RSS feeds. Read about.

Sending emails from WordPress via FeedBurner

To begin with, I would like to note that despite the rather outdated functionality and "poor" appearance of mailings, the FeedBurner service remains the most stable and "unsinkable" service for RSS newsletters.

Sending emails from WordPress through the FeedBurner service has been common, and even recommended, by many webmasters. But after the closure of Reader, the service stopped in its development and, as a result, it becomes uninteresting. Although many continue to subscribe with FeedBurner delivery.

FeedBurner Widget

Confirming feedBurner subscription

Email delivery by WordPress mailing plugins

I note right away that when a large number subscribers, all mailing plugins can overload the hosting service and be perceived as spam mailing. Strive to find a plugin with settings for the frequency of sending letters, somewhere between 20-25 letters per hour.

Sending letters by instant mailing services

Sending emails to thousands of subscribers;

Controlling the appearance of letters;

Beautiful, "catchy" page with a subscription form.

For example, such mail services for mass mailings:

Note: Western counterpart of Smartresponder, Mandril mailing service. (http://www.mandrill.com/). It is synchronized by the "wpMandrill" plugin and will override the wp_mail function.

Conclusions of the article

Thus, sending emails from WordPress is possible in other ways as well. In any case, it is important to be able to choose the methods of sending your announcements, news and letters. You have the opportunity to choose a mailing method that is available and useful for you, while assessing the load on the server.