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Revealed: Why Building an Email List is so Important Today (6 Reasons)

Plenty of bloggers and business owners don’t realize the importance of building an email list when they’re first starting out. That said, most people change their minds when they see the impact email lists can have on someone else’s traffic and revenue.

Over the years, we’ve built an extensive email list on WPBeginner and our other brands. It helps us share useful tips, the latest news, upcoming sales, new product features, and much more. You can also create an email list for your site.

In this article, we will share the top reasons why building an email list is important (with real case studies) and show you how to start building your email list step by step.

Why building an email list is so important

In this beginner’s guide, we will cover the following topics:

By the end of this article, you should have answers to all your questions about building an email list.

What Is an Email List?

An email list is a special list of names and email addresses of people who gave you permission to send them updates and promotions from your business.

You can build your email list using email marketing software and send an email blast to everyone with your blog updates, online store, or other business services.

We recommend using Constant Contact or Brevo to get started.

Why Is Building an Email List Important?

According to marketing statistics, email marketing on average sees a 4400 percent return on investment (ROI) for businesses in the USA.

Because email subscribers joined your email list from your website and verified their identity by clicking on a link (double optin), they are extremely interested in what you have to offer. This is why they are more likely to convert into paying customers.

In our business, an email list gets 10 times more conversions than social media campaigns.

This makes sense if you think about the reasons that make email an incredibly powerful communication channel:

1. Email Is Personal

Email allows you to land in a user’s inbox. There is no ranking system limiting your reach. It is very direct and personal.

2. Email Is Purposeful

To get updates from you, a user fills out a form to sign up for your email list and confirm their email address. Someone doing this much work is obviously interested in hearing from you, and they are much more receptive to your message.

3. Email Is Targeted

As we mentioned earlier, the user has already shown interest in your product or content. Since you already know what they like, you can deliver them highly relevant offers to get better results. This is called segmentation, and we will cover it later in the article.

4. You Own Your Email List

You do not own Facebook, Twitter, or Google. Your social media campaigns and SEO efforts can go to waste when these platforms change their policies. On the other hand, you own your email list, and it is not influenced by the decisions of other businesses.

5. Email Is One-on-One

People read emails in the privacy of their inbox. The message is not on a public timeline or newsfeed. This way, they can ask you questions directly and privately with confidence. This helps build trust and connection.

6. More People Use Email Several Times a Day

You may have heard that Facebook has 2.9 billion and Twitter has 217 million daily active users. What you may not have heard is the number of people using Email every day.

Every internet user has at least one email account. There are over 4.5 billion email accounts registered by internet users worldwide. That’s over half the population of Earth.

This is precisely why every smart business in the world has an email list.

Big brands learned this lesson a long time ago, and that’s why they spend thousands of dollars on social media campaigns to get people to sign up for their email lists.

They understand that email marketing is the best long-term investment with a much higher return because people will continue to get their message at a very low cost for a longer period of time.

Social Media vs. Email Marketing

Now you’re probably thinking, wait a minute. What about social media?

In fact, we have been asked several times isn’t email marketing is kind of dead with social media taking over everything.

The best way to answer this question is to look at the information Twitter and Facebook ask you before you create an account:

Enter email address to create a Facebook account

Yup, it’s an email address.

These companies know that emails are the most direct and reliable way of getting in touch with their customers.

Even if you sign up using your phone number, they will keep asking for your email address to help you find friends, password recovery options, and most importantly, to send you targeted email messages.

Here is a view of the social tab in a typical Gmail user’s inbox.

Social emails

All these emails are from big social media platforms, so they can engage you with the content on their platform and get you to visit their app or website again.

All social media platforms are building an email list because they are smart business owners. This helps their valuation when selling their business.

While social media is a great way to reach your audience, it’s important to keep in perspective the timely nature of social media platforms.

They come and go.

Not too long ago, we had MySpace, FriendFeed, Google Buzz, Plurk, and countless others. Most of them are either dead now or irrelevant.

Today, we have Facebook and Twitter, which are prominent, but not everyone enjoys these platforms. Some people prefer Instagram, Pinterest, WhatsApp, Snapchat, LinkedIn, etc.

Basically, your users are all over the place on different platforms. However, studies show that 99% of consumers check their email on a daily basis.

We are not saying that social media is not important. It is, and you should explore every opportunity to reach your audience.

However, you should spend more time and effort on something that guarantees higher results.

What Experts Are Saying About Building an Email List

Don’t take just our word for it, listen to what all top marketing experts are saying about email marketing:

Out of all the channels I tested as a marketer, email continually outperforms most of them.

– Neil Patel – Crazy Egg and QuickSprout

Getting an email address is the first critical step to figuring out who my reader is, and hopefully in the future, my customer of some sort.

– Joe Pulizzi – Founder Content Marketing Institute

If you’re not building an email list, you’re making a HUGE mistake.

– Derek Halpern – Founder Social Triggers

Email is the most predictable driver of growth and sales in our business. I prefer email marketing over all other traffic channels.
– Syed Balkhi – Founder WPBeginner

Many expert marketers say their biggest mistake was not building an email list when they first started out.

With all the reasons above, we hope that you’re convinced that building an email list is important for all businesses.

Now, you might be wondering, how do I build an email list?

This brings us to the next section.

What You Need to Start Building an Email List

By now, you know why building an email list is so important and why ignoring it can be a HUGE mistake.

So, let’s take a look at what you need to start building your email list.

3 Things You Need to Build an Email List:

  1. A website or blog.
  2. An email marketing service.
  3. High-converting opt-in forms

All three of these are fairly easy to set up, and none of them require programming or design skills.

For the sake of this article, we will only be focusing on the last two items on the list. If you don’t have a website or blog yet, then see our step-by-step guide on how to start a blog or how to make a website.

Choosing the Best Email Marketing Service

There are tons of email marketing services out there. Often, beginners use the free option to save costs, which is understandable. However, some of these free platforms are not the best. Why?

Some platforms mislabel themselves as “email marketing service” when, in reality, all they offer is a free blog subscription via email. This allows your users to receive an email update every time you publish a new blog post.

But that’s not true email marketing. Here are some of the downsides of using a free blog notification service:

  • You can’t send out private email newsletters. To send an email, you will have to publish a new blog post, which means that the information you want to share will have to be publicly available first.
  • You can’t personalize the email message. It will be delivered in the same format, often with no branding or personalization.
  • You can’t categorize subscribers by interests, demographics, or content type.
  • There is no reporting. You don’t know how many people got the email, what percentage of users opened it, and how many of them clicked on your links.
  • If you later try to move to a paid service, your users will have to re-confirm their subscription. Many of them will not do it, and you will end up losing subscribers.

This is why we ALWAYS recommend using a professional email marketing service right from the beginning.

Yes, they cost a little bit of money, but they are an investment in your business that pays huge returns.

The benefits of professional email marketing services are:

  • You can send private mass emails to your subscribers.
  • You can see subscriber activity and group your subscribers based on actions they take.
  • You can run A/B split tests to see which email subject line, content, and offers work best with your subscribers.
  • With reporting tools, you can see which country you have the most subscribers from. You can adjust your time zone preferences and send emails at the right time.
  • Last, but definitely most important, you can see the email addresses of all your subscribers.

There are hundreds of professional email marketing services available. To make it easy for you, we have compiled a list of the top email marketing services based on ease of use, cost-effectiveness, features, and performance.

For small businesses, we recommend using Constant Contact because they are one of the largest email marketing services in the world.

They offer a 30-day free trial. This gives you plenty of time to set up and start seeing the results. At the end of 30 days, your email list will likely be paying for itself (cost $12 / month). Use our Constant Contact Coupon to get 20% off.

Constant Contact

If you’re looking for something more advanced that includes powerful marketing automation, then we recommend using HubSpot, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), or ConvertKit. They are both very popular among business owners, and they come with free trials as well.

Once you have signed up with an email marketing service, the next step is to add opt-in forms to your website to allow your users to subscribe.

Growing Your Email List and Getting More Subscribers

Did you know that more than 70% of visitors abandoning your website will never return? It’s true, just look in your Google Analytics and look at the percentage of new vs returning visitors.

That’s why you need to convert every website visitor into an email subscriber before they leave, so you can send them relevant messages to bring them back.

An average internet user spends just a few seconds looking at a website. This gives you very little time to engage them. If your email signup forms are not noticeable, then users will leave without ever subscribing to your website.

The biggest mistake that we see beginners make is not strategically placing high-converting opt-in forms.

Some WordPress themes come with built-in sidebar widgets, but they don’t convert as well.

Your email marketing service may also provide you with codes to embed in your theme, but that requires you to know how to code.

This is why we recommend our users to use OptinMonster. It is the most powerful conversion optimization software that helps you convert abandoning website visitors into subscribers and customers.

OptinMonster

With its WordPress plugin, you can easily build an email list with OptinMonster.

Instead of adding boring signup forms to your sidebar, you can easily create high-converting opt-in forms like lightbox popups, floating header and footer bars, slide-in scroll boxes, fullscreen welcome mats, inline forms, and more.

OptinMonster optin forms

But, what makes OptinMonster really powerful is the behavior automation and personalization features. OptinMonster allows you to automatically show different opt-in forms based on where the user is coming from, which page they are visiting, and what they are doing on your website.

For example, the Exit-Intent® feature tracks your users’ mouse behavior and shows them a targeted opt-in form at the precise moment they are about to leave. This helps you convert abandoning visitors into subscribers.

That’s why influencers like Michael Hyatt, Neil Patel, and Social Media Examiner use exit-intent on their websites. It helped Social Media Examiner add over 250,000 new subscribers in 7 months.

Nicolas Gagne, a small business owner, combined Constant Contact with a single exit-intent optin to grow his email list by 500%. This helped him triple his revenue from his online store (see the full case study).

There are tons more case studies and OptinMonster reviews that you can read as well.

Get started with OptinMonster today!

Note: OptinMonster was started by WPBeginner’s founder, Syed Balkhi, because he wanted to get more email subscribers, faster. It helped us increase our email signups by 600%. Due to many requests, we released this tool to the public, and currently, it’s the most recommended lead generation software on the market.

Aside from OptinMonster, another tool you can use to quickly grow your email list and social media followers simultaneously is using a viral giveaway plugin like RafflePress.

It allows you to use giveaways to turn your website visitors into brand ambassadors. As a result, you get more traffic, email subscribers, and social media engagement without buying any paid ads.

Give it a try.

List Building Strategies and Resources

Having the right tools is crucial, but knowing how to use them properly is what makes the most difference.

In your email marketing strategy, the most important thing you should plan out is segmentation.

What is email list segmentation?

Email list segmentation is the process of grouping your subscribers, so you can better personalize your emails based on interest.

It helps you get higher open rates and click-through rates. This definitive guide to email marketing has all the information you need to segment your email list like a pro.

If you want to start growing your email list quickly, then see our tested and easy tricks to grow your email list faster.

If you’re not sure how to create an opt-in form, then see this 63-point checklist for creating a high-converting optin form.

Content upgrades are the highest converting opt-in forms. It’s a technique where you offer bonus content at the end of your popular blog posts. These usually convert 5 times higher than a regular opt-in. Here are some content upgrade ideas that you should check out.

To easily create a content upgrade, you can use a tool like Beacon, the best lead magnet software. Beacon comes with pre-made templates and a drag-and-drop building for making ebooks, checklists, workbooks, and more.

Beacon drag and drop lead magnet creator

We have a complete guide on how to effectively use content upgrades in WordPress.

There are a lot of different ways to capture email leads, and we have covered them in detail in our beginner’s guide to lead generation in WordPress.

Conclusion

It does not matter what kind of business you run, what kind of website you have, or what industry you are in.

If you have a website and you want to turn your visitors into returning customers, then you need to get them on your email list.

We hope this article helped you understand why building an email list is important and helped you get started on the right foot. You may also want to see our guide on how to add web push notifications to your website and the best email capture tools.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. See how WPBeginner is funded, why it matters, and how you can support us. Here's our editorial process.

Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

107 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
    You can get more details about the contest from here.
    Start sharing your thoughts below to stand a chance to win!

  2. Adams Green

    I must say, this is a very important blog that you’ve managed to publish!

    • WPBeginner Support

      Glad you’ve found our content helpful :)

      Admin

  3. Ella

    Can I earn from an email list even if they don’t click my links

  4. Garrett

    Is it better to create a series of email drafts first? To have a series of content ready to email out, after visitors join your list? Otherwise, somebody joins the list and never receives an email to engage them.

    Should you pre-create 10 or so emails before enrolling with an email marketing service and before doing sign-up forms all over your website?

    Just curious as to the ideal task order, when starting out from zero.
    Thanks.

    • WPBeginner Support

      That is a personal preference question, to start you only need one email repaired to let users know that they signed up and you can grow from there.

      Admin

  5. Jerry Whalen

    I have been working on a long term project and I am just beginning to check out the transition options. The information you have provided lets me know that actual functionality is on the horizon! Thanks for the boatload of information!

    • WPBeginner Support

      GLad our guide could be helpful :)

      Admin

  6. Wenting Xie

    So many interesting ideas!

    • WPBeginner Support

      Thank you, glad you like our ideas :)

      Admin

  7. chamil

    I get tons of knowledge from this web site. thanks for the article .its realy useful to beginers like us.

    • WPBeginner Support

      You’re welcome, glad you’ve found our content helpful :)

      Admin

  8. Kathy Rowland

    Just switched to Constant Contact and very interested in OptinMonster. Thank you for the info here. Kathy

    • WPBeginner Support

      You’re welcome, glad you’ve found our recommendations helpful :)

      Admin

  9. Obarayese Sikiru

    I just know the difference between blog subscribers and email list. Does MailChimp service that comes with Woommerce perform email marketing service

    • WPBeginner Support

      WooCommerce has an addon to connect to WooCommerce to help you send emails to your visitors and users.

      Admin

  10. Zeeva Natasha Zazhinne

    Thanks for this excellent article. While I still have a lot of questions, you’ve also given me the links to other articles I’m going to read next–in hopes of having those questions answered too!

    • WPBeginner Support

      You’re welcome, glad we could help clear up some confusion and our other articles should help fill in any missing information :)

      Admin

  11. Rohit kumar Verma

    Thank you for this knowledge.
    I have started collecting emails.

    • WPBeginner Support

      You’re welcome, glad our article could be helpful :)

      Admin

  12. Lawrence

    WPBeginner always has the right and perfect information for their readers. Your write-ups are always very useful.

    Thanks for sharing this wonderful piece.

    • WPBeginner Support

      Glad you find our content helpful :)

      Admin

  13. Laura

    Your post really helped me with my list of emails. Keep up the good work.

    • WPBeginner Support

      Glad our post could be helpful :)

      Admin

  14. Naveen

    Hi Marc,

    I’ve been learning that during email campaigns we should “give, give, give, sell…” and repeat.

    So, basically we should give our email subscribers (maybe send educational emails?) 3x’s more than we try to sell something to them.

    …be helpful…then offer to help them by selling your service or product to them

  15. Alex Smith

    Thanks for all this wonderful information. I write both fiction and nonfiction. I’m wondering if I need to create two lists that people could sign up for. Or should I just have one? The audiences have some overlap but are mostly different. How do I handle this, short of having two websites (which I don’t want to do)–I currently have one author website. Thanks for any advice.

    • WPBeginner Support

      Hi Alex,

      You can send different emails to different segments of users in the same list. Depending on your email marketing service, you can create forms allowing users to select their preference.

      Admin

  16. Aaron

    This is great

    • WPBeginner Support

      Glad you like our article :)

      Admin

  17. phyllis cole-dai

    Thanks for all this wonderful information. I write both fiction and nonfiction. I’m wondering if I need to create two lists that people could sign up for. Or should I just have one? The audiences have some overlap but are mostly different. How do I handle this, short of having two websites (which I don’t want to do)–I currently have one author website. Thanks for any advice.

    • WPBeginner Support

      Hello,

      You can maintain two different email lists. When creating your sign up forms, you can add two check boxes, allowing users to choose which list they want to sign up for.

      Another approach can be by creating user groups in your mailing list software. This will allow you to select which user group you want to send an email through your mailing list.

      Admin

  18. Mary

    Thank you very much for sharing this very rich content, it helped me a lot. gratitude.

  19. Valentine Nnanyere

    I love this article. You actually helped with with cool tips to go about the email list for my blog, Thanks for sharing

    Valentine Nnanyere

  20. Andrew Wilkerson

    Although I can see the benefit for some businesses I personally hate email lists, annoying pop ups trying to get you to subscribe etc. etc. It seems every site I visit now has the same annoying crap.
    I have been operating my website since 2004, I’ve seen trends come and go. One thing I refuse to do is annoy my customers with ads on my site or annoying newsletter subscriptions. Does anyone agree or is the whole world trying to push their business down our throats for the sake of making as much money as possible. Does anybody care about user experience? If you’re good at what you do then you will be found

    • mariet

      Yes, I agree with you in many ways.

      Every site i visit wants my email address and other perso info. I often end up giving it, but often i get so annoyed about my privacy being attacked and products being pushed that I close the site in question.

      But, now i am trying to create a site that will really improve people’s lives, I really want them to subscribe to posts that could change their lives.

      On the one hand, I feel angry to be bulked in with all those sites trying to sell “stuff”. BUT, I think that it’s best to be pushy, otherwise people will not think to leave their email. Then they will forget about us when they most need us. I am not selling anything, i just want to increase online communication between suffers of a specific chronic illness. Whether i obtain sponsorship from medical device companies is not sure.

      I want to be honest and integral, cover my costs – if i can (with sponsorship) – and not annoy my current or prospective users. Because if they don’t visit, my site is doomed.

      I hope my answer makes sense to you and is meaningful to other.

    • Jay Rajamanickam

      I too hate the pop-ups. It spoil the user experience. If I want to follow the websites, I bookmark them and visit time to time. For the customers or readers who want to get email newsletter, I would add that option in the side bar. Curious readers can add their email in the sider bar without spoiling their reading experience.

  21. TAJBIR SINGH

    tell me about newsletter and email marketing from godaddy ??

  22. Marc

    Yeah, The Money Is In The List, they say…
    OK, I’ve been building a long list of emails.
    What do I do with it now?
    “How to squeeze the money out of it?” that is a question left unanswered here.
    Any advise ?

    • Carla

      Hi Marc,

      I’ve been learning that during email campaigns we should “give, give, give, sell…” and repeat.

      So, basically we should give our email subscribers (maybe send educational emails?) 3x’s more than we try to sell something to them.

      …be helpful…then offer to help them by selling your service or product to them.

      Carla

  23. ikomrad

    I came here looking for advice on what information I should collect. Email address, first name, last name make sense, should i ask them for anything else that would be helpful for marketing?

    • Greg Turnquist

      When I set up an email list, I knew I would have both technical geeks as well as SciFi/Fantasy readers, so I created “groups”. When people opt-in to my mailing list, they pick one or the other (or both!) This lets me send emails targeted at each group that is more likely stuff they are interested in reading.

  24. Hope

    Hey there :)
    Thanks a lot for this article! I am in the process of starting my own music YouTube Channel and would love to begin with building an email list right from the start..
    I am not a business selling anything yet but for MailChimp I have to give a business address that will be shown in the newsletters. I dont wanna give away my private address as well but how can I still legally (with the opt-in and everything) collect email address and be able to send newsletters? Would you still recommend MailChimp for strategic purposes or do you have any other ideas?
    Thanks a lot!!
    Hope

    • JM

      Hi, Hope. I am in exactly the same boat. I am starting a new blog and getting subscribers to my website launch page; however, the site does not sell anything and does not have a physical address. Did you figure out a solution for your situation?

    • Carla

      Hi Hope,

      MailChimp allows you to remove the address (or add a P.O. Box address).

      Carla

    • Greg Turnquist

      To comply with anti-spam law you HAVE to include an address. Mailchimp enforces that. Now you can plug in a PO Box if you wish to pay for that. It’s exactly the reason my wife and I set one up when she launched her own newsletter as she started building her reader fan list.

  25. Stu

    Great article… but why is a leading website like yours not mobile friendly. . ?

  26. Melissa

    A really useful article about the value of gathering email subscribers from your blog, and great to have something other than Mail Chimp suggested!

  27. Joseph Dabon

    To grow your email list, everybody is talking about giving free gifts as incentive for signing up. But for a beginner like me, where can we find these gifts?

    • Greg Turnquist

      The fundamental idea is to give people something that aligns with the type of subscriber you seek. For example, if you wish to have a list of SciFi readers, a free SFF short story, book, or character dossier would be very appetizing to the sort of people you wish to attract. It can’t be something they can get from anywhere (like an Amazon gift card) but instead something genuine that you have created.

  28. Line

    This was all helpful, Thanks! I was about to activate the Feedburner plugin on my WP-page, but after reading this, I will not.
    I have a blog, where I write about my experiences living abroad, and all I want is a feature, that automatically sends email to the subscribers when I publish a new post.
    It’s not my intention to send out newsletters – just the automatic notification about a new post.
    That is why I thought Feedburner would be great for me. But would you still recommend me to use Mailchimp or something alike for this?

    Thanks in advance – Line

    • Em Fairley

      Feedburner or Jetpack is all you need for that purpose. Aweber or Mailchimp etc are purely for newsletters

  29. Kyler Brown

    My wife has been wanting to start a mailing list for sometime now for her bakery business. She just operates from our own home, so it would be nice to have a way to branch out to our customers a bit. This helped us out a lot, and I liked your point about getting more personal with your customers through email. Thanks for sharing this.

  30. Ann

    Great post! I started using GetResponse lately as Mailchimp wasn’t enough for me. It’s also easy to learn and has cool features!

  31. Linda Throup

    Mailchimp could just be what I am looking for with regards to the mailing lists, however it looks quite daunting with all the questions regarding company information, I am just an individual who has a regular job and looking to sell ebooks in the future, can you advise please?
    Thanks

  32. Maryam

    This is extremely helpful, I’m going to start right away. Because I’ve started my fashion blog in August and I still did not know to do the email subscrption and nobdy explain it wel until I read this post.
    Thanks a lot!
    Maryam

  33. Eric

    Hello,

    I’ve recently create a WP blog–newbie and constantly being reminded. I have Jetpack installed. I used their subscribe via email widget. I have it in the footer. The subscribe buttons does not work at all. It’s like it’s not linked to anything, but I feel like I’m missing something.

    On jetpack’s support page, they state this feature should be default and ready to go.

    What am I missing here? Thanks for any insight. I have at least 2 hours into this.

    • WPBeginner Support

      Please contact JetPack’s support. It seems like your theme’s CSS is conflicting with your subscription form.

      Admin

  34. naresh

    Truly inspirational. That is exactly the type of business model I want and am

    currently building. Thanks for showing me that dreams can be a reality!

  35. Liat

    Hi, I want to create a “sign up” button on my wp site where viewers can enter their name and email and then it AUTOMATICALLY adds them to my mailing list. Is there a way of doing that instead of entering each address manually? Could I do something like that through a simple gmail account or would I have to use a more complex program?
    Thanks

  36. Sarah

    I don’t have,I just signed up with mailChip after reading this article,but,if I am able to create the mail list what happens with that of Jetpack ?

  37. Syed Balkhi

    No because the other folks didn’t consent to receive emails from you.

  38. Chris

    If someone uses my e-mail address in an online mail shot (that they got with my consent) but have contacted me and not blind copied my e-mail in with others – essentially sharing my data with others – am I then able to use these e-mails for my own benefits in a mail shot (whilst ensuring all addresses are blind copied) but also ensuring there is an opt-out option in my e-mail

  39. Raquel Costa Hammer

    What about buying lists of emails? Do you know any safe site to buy these type of lists?

      • Raquel Costa Hammer

        Why? What you would advise on how to creste an email list from a different country?

        • Anouk

          It shouldn’t be a different way. Put an opt-in form on your blog or website, and people who are interested will sign up.

          Don’t buy an email list because people will report you as a spammer. You should always send emails to people who agreed to receive emails from you.

  40. Dahlia

    Hi how do you create a subscribe button that offers something for free? That’s what I’m having trouble with…

  41. Samuel King

    Awesome post!

    I am working on a site and trying out the sidebar widget position to add the optin form. I would like to know how did you create your subscription widget box located on the sidebar? I want something that gives subscribers the option to select just like yours.

    Thanks in advance

  42. Ian

    Great guide, just what I was looking for but it is timing that is my question. I have just got my ecommerce website up and running selling “print on demand” (small run personalised printing) products. Have only a few items for sale so when should I try to create my email list.? Is 15 items in a shop too small so wait until I have say 50? Create a landing page that promises more in the future so sign up now? Not an easy one to find advise on. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    • WPBeginner Support

      Ian, 15 items are enough to get your visitors curious so it is time to get them to signup or otherwise they will probably never know when you add new items. We have even seen signup forms on websites that are not even launched yet.

      Admin

  43. CL Langdon

    As a total beginner to all of this, there is a serious “learning curve” in just getting to this point. If all I want to do is create a mailing list – why do i have to have a third party mailing service if I use yahoo or gmail? Does this mean that I have to sign up with mailchimp or aweber? I find this all a bit confusing as to why i need to do this at all? and then what happens if in the future, i want to add this feature? right now i have no budget to pay additional fee-services, so it is just not an option. I find navigating all of this extremely confusing as a first time user of WP and setting up a site. Many of the plugins break my site and cause serious problems, so i am very leery on downloading additional plugins. most of them have 4-5 – star ratings but only have a few comments that created that rating. If you could consider taking one (or two) step(s) back and try to explain on a more basic level – i think that would really help beginners. I am finding all of this social media, feedburner, etc to be extremely time consuming and the blog comments i am getting are ALL advertisers, so I have marked them as spam and deleted them without displaying on my site.
    I only wanted to to set up a site that displays information and have people come to my site to sign up as interested in what we have to say. If we decided to conduct further activities in the future, we can try that after we get past this “beginner” stage.
    thank you in advance for your articles and site, to date, your site has been extremely helpful.

    • WPBeginner Support

      CL Langdon,

      We understand how overwhelming and confusing this could be for a new user. But you will soon find out how useful it would be for you in the future. We would recommend you not to cover every thing quickly. Focus on building your site, bringing visitors, posting content. When you are stuck at something, focus on that specific problem and try to solve it using tutorials on our site or else where.

      As for email services, well actually there is a limit on how many emails you can send from a free gmail or yahoo account. Sending out mass emails is considered abuse of service by these free email service providers. Your emails will either end up in spam folder of your users, or they will not recieve them at all. It is also possible that your email service can suspend your account for violation of terms of use. This is why you need a third party email service.

      Admin

  44. Lisa

    Great post. What is best option if I want to add opt-in like jet pack and send emails when there is a new post but also want to build email list. 2 separate forms on the site ??

    Thanks

  45. Mursaleen

    i am using Wysija for newsletter at my .. what will be the result if i create list myself and send newsletter will it be deliveered in spam boxx ?

  46. Alex Ferrara

    This was helpful and timely for me. I am in the planning stage and have been researching the various email services. One that i have come across that appeals me is GetResponse. But i have found limited info on this. Are you familiar with this service? How does it compare to aweber or mailchimp?

    • WPBeginner Support

      Alex GetResponse is a good service too. They have a smaller customer base than MailChimp or Aweber but they are definitely on the right track. You should consider your own options that will help you decide. For example, pricing, growth, support, reliability, deliverability, spam filters, etc. Make a list of these factors to compare on your own, you will also find such analysis around the web but those analysis could be biased towards one of the service. So you better do it on your own.

      Admin

  47. afshin mokhtari

    My website/blog has been around for about 3 years. I added the option to opt-in to be notified of my latest posts about a year ago. I get an email everytime somebody subscribes and that turned out to be about 1 or 2 a week.

    In the last say 6 weeks, all of a sudden I’m getting at least 4 or 5 emails from my blog telling me someone signed up for my mailing list. I look at the email adresses and it seems to me a good 1/2 of them are bogus emails! What gives?

    I understand fake people getting an account on your site so they can post a link to their own products or sites, looking for a linkbacks and such…. but I personally approve all comments and dont publish spam. I don’t understand why I’m getting such a high number of fake subscribers.

    • WPBeginner Support

      Which email service provider you are using? Proper email service providers like mailchimp or aweber come equipped with tools to deal with such signups. As for your email subscribers, you can check out this article on how we boosted our email list subscribers on WPBeginner.

      Admin

    • Richard Benjamin

      In response to “bogus” email subscribers, I will tell you why it is done… because I do it myself. When I am forced to put in my email information just to get some free information, it irritates me. The reason it irritates me is because, I deal with many companies in my business, I can not afford the time to keep sifting through my inbox to delete 50 emails from a company that I just wanted a little information from. Email marketing optin is great, but keep in mind – not everyone wants the bombarding of emails after-the-fact.

  48. Pam Burzynski

    That was great information, almost answering a questions I was asking myself. Even Mail Chimp is too complicated for me. I wish there could be something as simple as Jet Pack to build an e-mail list.

    I have seen people get thousands of subscribers with JetPack. If people have double opted in, which I believe they have with JetPack….why can’t the e-mail addresses be viewable so you can send them e-mail?

    Both mailchimp and aweber have too many features for someone that wants to keep it simple. I’ve tried both and went to JetPack. I’m sure a few simple features could be added to JetPack….keep it simple and charge a smaller fee, than aweber. I had and know others as well that got sold on aweber and never used it, paying a heafty monthly fee for nothing. That’s the way of the world now….get them to sign up, put it on their credit card and they forget about it and never learn how to use it. Helps pay for all the other people that spend endless hours on the helpline gobbling up the service reps time trying to figure it all out.

    I’m sure I’m not the only one that needs more simplicity.

    Thanks for a great forum. ~Pam

    • WPBeginner Support

      Pam, we are sure JetPack has nice features and all but it allows you to add a blog / comment subscription module only. On the other hand services like MailChimp and Aweber are professional email service providers offering many powerful features which allow you to really benefit from the email list you are building. As far as simplicity is concerned, we are slightly more inclined towards MailChimp, they have a great user interface even for absolute beginners, they have excellent documentation, and lots of resources to learn how to use each feature available.

      Admin

  49. Karen

    Hi,
    I’m really interested in Optin Monster and everyone talks or used MailChimp,
    but I want to make sure I have it all clear as to what I need to do so I don’t stuff up my site! – I currently use Jetpack for email subs.

    So first, I sign up with MailChimp for my website
    then, I buy Optin Monster to increase conversion rate?
    and is it all self explanatory how to set them both up and integrate into site? – yes, newbie blogger!

    Great info in this post
    cheers karen
    I

    • quin

      i’m also interested in the answer to karen’s question. what’s the difference between mailchimp and optin monster? thanks for the great post!

      • WPBeginner Support

        MailChimp is an email service provider. It allows you to collect email addresses and send newsletters. OptinMonster helps you gain more email subscribers by placing email signup forms at different spots on your website.

        Admin

  50. Zimbrul

    I own licence for PLM, WP Subscribers and Pop Up Domination and Optin Skin. How is Optin Monster different from these?

    • Editorial Staff

      OptinMonster is far better coded than any other option. It offers exit-intent functionality, multiple optin types, and much more.

      Admin

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