It’s no secret that newsletter marketing is an excellent strategy to utilize when releasing a new product or campaign to your consumers.
However, the success you see is dependent on how you choose to engage with your subscriber list all year round. If your email strategy is frequently active, you’re more likely to see higher open rates and gain a pool of nurtured leads that are up to date on every aspect of your brand journey.
Prioritizing a newsletter-driven email strategy is one of the easiest ways to stay in constant contact with your subscriber list. Businesses that release monthly or even quarterly newsletters stay closer to their audience and become a recognizable visitor within their inbox.
In fact, 73% of B2B marketers believe that newsletter marketing is one of the most impactful content strategies to utilize when informing their audience of the latest news and product/service updates.
The question is, could a powerful newsletter strategy also improve your lead acquisition?
Stick with us as we dive into the benefits of newsletter marketing and reveal some of the best plugins on the market for WordPress websites that want to automate their newsletter strategy in 2024.
Could A Newsletter Campaign Improve Your Lead Acquisition?
When crafted correctly, an email newsletter can accelerate a business's lead generation.
A newsletter can cover any topic relating to business updates and achievements, campaign and product releases, and even a blog-like discussion on something topical within the industry.
If you habitually send your subscribers regular newsletters, you instantly become a recognizable player in their inboxes. This bolsters your brand reputation and makes you the first business they think of when looking to make a purchase.
While many brands worry about inundating subscribers' inboxes with frequent updates, data by Statista suggests that 49% of consumers would be happy to receive weekly emails from their favorite brands.
If you want to nurture loyal, long-term leads, a regular line of communication via newsletter marketing is a great way to start.
In fact, 31% of B2B marketers believe that sending email newsletters alone is one of the best ways to nurture and acquire new leads.
How To Optimise Your Email Newsletter Strategy
Building an effective newsletter strategy can be difficult for brands not used to sending frequent emails to their subscribers. Crafting newsletter content is time-consuming as each communication must provide value to your consumers to keep them coming back.
With this in mind, let’s examine some of the key strategies to consider when crafting your first newsletter campaign.
Simplify your subscription process
The last thing you want to do is annoy your email subscribers, so brands just embarking on their newsletter journey must segment their current email subscribers from their newsletter subscribers.
The key here is to provide your current email subscribers with an opt-in/opt-out system. Start by sending a ‘test’ newsletter to all subscribers on your current mailing list. Use this as an opportunity to gauge your current open rate and inform your subscribers that you’re planning to release frequent newsletters. In this same email, offer your audience a chance to opt into a newsletter mailing list or, alternatively, opt out.
This puts the consumer in control of the content they receive, increasing your newsletter open rate amongst interested subscribers.
Likewise, for on-site consumers who have yet to join a mailing list, set up a clever pop-up or banner on your website that makes it easy for visitors to subscribe to your newsletter. Why not offer a discount code or a free product for those who sign up?
Know the legalities
Did you know that in most countries, there are certain email newsletter guidelines that must be followed by marketers?
These guidelines prevent buying email lists and filling inboxes with constant spam-like messaging.
Before engaging in a newsletter strategy, ensure that you’ve familiarised yourself with these guidelines to avoid any potential penalties.
Prioritise value
On the topic of spam, let’s talk about providing value to your subscribers. When crafting a newsletter, ensure that you deliver exactly what your leads signed up for.
If you’ve promised business updates, special offers,ç and exclusive blog entries, this is what you must include. Brands that use newsletters to simply advertise and promote products and services could be regarded as spam and are much more likely to be deleted from an inbox.
Measure your success
Newsletter campaigns should be constantly monitored. Every subscriber list is different, so a strategy that may have worked for one brand may not work for another.
The key here is to test different newsletter formats and monitor their open and engagement rates. Newsletter marketing can be a trial-and-error strategy in the refining stages, but when optimized, the rewards are worth the time and effort spent tweaking.
For brands with larger subscriber lists, newsletter monitoring can be difficult. This is where automation switches up the game. For brands operating on host platforms such as WordPress, investing in a newsletter plugin can help automate the process of creating and monitoring emails while efficiently managing your subscriber list.
Newsletter plugins can provide email marketers with ready-to-use templates, A/B testing features, and a detailed analytics report based on subscriber open rate and engagement.
Reviewing The Best Newsletter Plugins For WordPress
With automation in mind, we’ve collated and reviewed some of the best WordPress newsletter plugins on the market, so you don’t have to.
From all-inclusive email platforms to free newsletter builders, here are four plugins to try and integrate on your own WordPress website.
1. Newsletter
Up first we have Newsletter. This is a brilliant email all-rounder that can automate your newsletter production for consistent subscriber engagement.
With a drag-and-drop building platform and built-in reporting features for open-rate insights, this plugin can guide you through all stages of a newsletter campaign, from content creation to subscriber management.
Newsletter also offers multi-list targeting, automatically segmenting leads based on historical consumer data, location, gender and more. This allows you to send multiple versions of your newsletter to a segmented subscriber list for on-the-point targeting.
Better still, this plugin is free to trail and integrate on your WordPress website, making it a brilliant beginner tool for those new to sending newsletters.
2. Sender
Sender is a well-known email plugin used by brands worldwide. With over 1000 editable email templates, SMS optimization, and automatic email scheduling features, it’s a robust email marketing machine for businesses managing hefty subscriber lists.
Sender prides itself on helping to build your email subscriber lists as well as the newsletters themselves by offering embeddable forms and popups to place on-site that encourage sign-ups from all angles.
This plugin also offers brilliant email health monitoring, with access to a range of easy-to-read reports on topics such as open rate, hard and soft bounces, and spam complaints.
Sender is all free for businesses with less than 2500 subscribers, however, after that, plans start at just $8 per month.
3. MailPoet
MailPoet is regarded as one of the most popular free WordPress plugins for newsletter optimisation.
With the ability to automatically import all CRM data onto the platform, MailPoet excels at creating segmented subscriber lists.
The plugin’s drag-and-drop builder also allows users to create responsive newsletter designs for devices of all shapes and sizes while recommending best practices for engagement and user experience.
MailPoet is a free plugin for businesses with less than 1000 email subscribers. However, the premium version includes a brilliant analytics suite that can observe anything from open rate to link engagement.
4. Jackmail
Last but not least, let’s talk about Jackmail. While this plugin is the lesser known of the four, it continues to rise through the ranks thanks to its anti-spam features.
There’s nothing worse than a well-crafted newsletter ending up in the spam box. Jackmail leveraged a built-in SMTP server that can monitor the placement of an email and instruct anti-spam practices that prevent your newsletters from finding their way into the junk pile.
Better still, jackmail is also compatible with other WordPress plugins, such as Ninja Forms and Cintact For 7, all of which can be integrated to improve newsletter sign-ups on the site.
Jackmail starts at $69 per month, rendering it the more expensive option of the four. However, it offers a free 30-day trial for businesses looking to trail newsletter automation.
The Future of Newsletter Marketing
Email marketing is just as important, if not more important than it was ten years ago. As brands continue to adopt savvy social strategies and integrate new modes of communication into their marketing strategies in 2024, it’s vital that email optimization is not left behind.
Last year, over 59% of consumers claimed that branded newsletters influenced their purchasing decisions. Reaching out via the inbox is essential for brands looking to solidify their lead generation.
Frequent email communication builds trust and bolsters a brand’s reputation amongst subscribers. If leads continue to see your name popping up in their inbox, they're twice as likely to think of your brand first when making a purchase.
As we step into a competitive B2B/B2C landscape, email marketing will continue to heat up.
Newsletters must catch the attention of subscribers in seconds and provide value that a competing brand cannot match. Businesses that spend time on their newsletters moving forward will reap the rewards of mass lead acquisition and a top position in the inboxes of their target audience.
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