An email list is integral to client communications as it allows you to easily reach engaged customers as well as prospective clients. According to research by Emaildelivered, marketers in 2012 increased their email marketing costs by 60% and achieved an ROI of 4,000%. Whether you are promoting a new product or service or releasing the latest news about your company, using a subscriber list is an efficient and cost-effective way to disseminate your message to a large audience. To develop or expand your email list, consider integrating an email marketing service with your WordPress website.

What Can Integration Do for You?

There are two main benefits to connecting your WordPress website with an email marketing service:

1. Simplify List Signup

   If you want to convert your website visitors into email followers, you need to create an effective call-to-action to attract people to sign up for your email list and then make it simple for people to take that action. You may implement a subscription form so that users can easily sign up for your external email list. Depending on which plugin you choose, you may be able to increase the number of opportunities for people to subscribe by adding signup checkboxes to other forms on your website.

2. Manage Email Distribution

   Although WordPress contains a built-in feature that allows you to send emails, it is much better to use a dedicated email marketing service when you want to carry out bulk mail distribution. Today, email providers are becoming much more aggressive at protecting their users from spam and from other unsolicited emails; consequently, it has become more difficult for marketers to cut through the traffic and avoid being caught by spam filters. An email marketing service has mechanisms in place to ensure that your emails are not flagged as junk; therefore, distributing your email through such a provider increases the odds that your email will be delivered successfully to your intended recipients. For more information, WPBeginner has a great article on why people should not use the out-of-the-box WordPress mail function to distribute newsletters.

What Are My Options?

MailChimp and Aweber are popular platforms for email distribution and both have integration options for WordPress.

MailChimp has an official plugin that allows you to create a basic subscription form. If you want more functionality, you can head over to the company’s Integration Directory where you will find a list of online applications (e.g., content management systems, e-commerce platforms, and social media) that are compatible with its service. The directory also includes a collection of MailChimp-tested plugins. MailChimp for WordPress is a popular plugin that allows users to create visually appealing signup forms as well as add a signup checkbox to any form (e.g., contact form) on your website. Additional plugins with varying functionality are available for download on WordPress.org.

Aweber also keeps a helpful list of compatible services. If you would like to integrate Aweber specifically with WordPress, the email provider has an official WordPress plugin that you can download and install on your website. Alternatively, there are 110+ plugins available on WordPress.org.

Ultimately, it is up to you to decide which provider to use. For more details, here is a comparison of the two platforms.

Final Thoughts

A user demonstrates interest in your company when they sign up for your email list. Finding opportunities and tools to leverage that interest will bring you one positive step forward to achieving your marketing goals. It makes business sense to create an interface between your external email list and your WordPress website. It helps expand your email following and ensures deliverability.