Every blogger worth his or her salt knows that they need to build an email list.
Why? For lots of reasons but the main one is because you can get lots of traffic and leads to your site by building a healthy email list.
However, there is one BIG obstacle that stands in your way and it has to do with the newsletter services that are currently available. I seek to walk you through one solution that may make your 2013 year a big one with an even better newsletter (or your very first!).
The Problem With Newsletter Services
I began building an email list right away as soon as I released my blog in April of 2012. I got a few hundred people to subscribe to my blog but I knew that it was going to grow fast for one MAJOR reason.
I was in the trenches working on a secret project for 6 months.
You see, I learned some skills that helped me get a large Twitter following without spamming people, buying followers, or using any well-known automated tools. This method worked so well, it got me the more than 50,000 followers that I have today.
I didn’t want to keep this information to myself and I wanted to share it with the world. That’s why I put together a free guide that shows people how they can get thousands of Twitter followers.
The problem is that I knew that there were going to be hundreds of people (hopefully thousands very soon) who’ll sign up for the guide.
However, using MailChimp, Aweber, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact, or Mad Mimi, was going to be out of the question.
Why?
Because if you have a few thousand subscribers on your email list, you’re going to end up paying hundreds of dollars a year to send out your newsletters. Not only that, but the more that your email list grows, the more that you’re going to pay.
Why should you get punished for having a successful blog?
For instance, using MailChimp, sending to more than 5000 subscribers is going to cost you a whopping $900/year! If you use Aweber, it’s going to cost you $600.
So why blow your money on an email service when there’s an amazing plugin that can create killer newsletters and auto-responders at a fraction of the cost (or for free)?
Wysija to the Rescue
Wysija is an email newsletter plugin that stands for What You Send Is Just Awesome.
Quite frankly, after using the plugin I can understand why the 4 developers behind this plugin (Ben, Jo, Adrien, and Kim) named it that. Let’s take a look at how it works.
1. In your WordPress Admin, go to Plugins >> Add New, and do a search in the WordPress repository for Wysija Newsletter. Go ahead, install it and then activate it.
2. After the installation, you’ll find a menu item named Wysija in your sidebar. Go ahead and click on it and you’ll be taken to the welcome screen below where you can watch this welcome video that was made by a Wysija user.
(by the way, annotations in red in the screenshots below are mine and aren’t a part of the plugin)
3. Next, click on the button at the bottom of the page to be taken to the Newsletter menu or just click on it from the sub-menu in the right side bar.
4. Once you’re at the Newsletter section of the plugin, you’ll notice that there is a newsletter example waiting for you. I highly recommend that you click on it to get an idea of how it works.
5. You’ll be taken to the first options screen where you can choose whether your email should be a standard newsletter or an autoresponder. Autoresponders are used to send emails to subscribers on your list after a certain number of days, weeks, or months.
Choose the subject of your email and also choose one of your email lists. You can create a new email list by clicking on Subscribers in the sidebar.
6. Next, you’ll be taken to the screen where you actually create your newsletter. The plugin developers did a really great job because you have just the perfect number of options to customize your newsletter without it being overly complicated like other plugins.
6. Once you’re done, the next step is to go over the details on the confirmation screen. You can send a test preview email before you send your newsletter to your subscribers or schedule to send it at a later time.
7. Finally, in the Settings menu of the plugin is where you can customize the plugin to your liking.
- Basics – Here you can choose to be notified when people subscribe or unsubscribe to your list and you can add your address to be added to the footer of your newsletters.
- Sign-up confirmation – Customize the settings on this menu so that you create a double opt-in sign up process (highly recommended to help with spam).
- Send With – Choose if you want to send emails using WordPress, Gmail, or a 3rd part SMTP provider.
- Advanced – set up roles and permissions as to who has access to your plugin plus a whole bunch of other customizations.
Premium Upgrade
Here’s what the premium version can do:
- Send to more than 2000 subscribers
- Stats for each subscriber
- Track with Google analytics
- Extra beautiful themes
- Fastest response for support requests
- Automation of your bounced emails
The price is $99. I also just got an email from the developers that the premium version of the plugin is on sale for the month of January only.
You can use the coupon code: january2013.
So what are you waiting for? Go install Wysija and give it a test run. If you need any of the premium features, be sure to buy it before the end of the month. Your wallet will thank you :-).
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