Newsletters in WordPress – Yeah!
I'm writing from WordCamp Reno today and while here, I heard a presentation where they mentioned some amazing plugins and options for creating newsletters from and for your WordPress visitors.
Here's my Friend's Story
Before I give you the list, I want to tell you the story of my friend. You know, the kind of story that starts with, “I have a friend…” because it's easier than saying it happened to me. This never happened to me. I swear. I just happen to know all the details.
So we created a web site (I mean, my friend did) and then found a great free plugin that would allow them to create a newsletter mailing list. Then they went into WordPress and authored their newsletter and send it out.
After a month, something happened. The IP address of the server was placed in some list and suddenly every single email, newsletter or not, was rejected by tons of mail servers everywhere.
So while there are great newsletter plugins in WordPress, using your WordPress site/server to send mail isn't what I recommend.
So what should you do?
Here's my suggestion. Grab this single plugin for emailing out from your site. You can configure it to use dedicated delivery services, like SendGrid or Mandrill.
Now, if you're thinking that your newsletter will be used to send your posts to readers in their inbox, then check out my summary on how to do it using RSS and MailChimp.
But if you want to create non-post related newsletters, there are a couple of others to check out:
- WYSIJA Newsletters – Think of it as MailChimp inside your WordPress installation.
- ORBTR – Think of it as expensive marketing software for your budget.
Either way, my recommendation is still to to send mail thru a dedicated mail provider.