Regular communication with customers not only benefits the business but the consumers themselves, resulting in happier individuals all round. Customers feel empowered and important when addressed by the businesses they patronise, and in turn, are more motivated to purchase from them.
This leaves the customers content with the choices they have made, knowing they are patronising a business that cares about them, and leaves the business happy, finding they have an increased flow of revenue. The process of developing means of communication, including newsletters and subscriptions, is even easier than ever before, with Plugins that make the entire process easy for anyone with little or much web design knowledge. Here are a few of my favourite:
MailChimp
The MailChimp for WordPress Plugin allows users to integrate their existing Mailchimp account with their WordPress site. Through a highly customisable sign-up form users are able to display this anywhere on their WordPress site and it's easily done so through a simple shortcode, widget, or PHP function. It also allows for a sign-up check box to be added to any of your existing forms, easily integrating with Contact Form 7, BuddyPress, bbPress and WordPress MultiSite.
It is rated 5 stars amongst users who find it simple, customisable, well designed and developer friendly. With over 600,000 downloads this is easily one of the most popular subscribe plugins available.
Constant Contact
Constant contact is one of the most popular email marketing services used today, so it is only fitting that there is a WordPress plugin to support its use on websites. Working hand in hand with your existing Constant Contact account, users can install a plugin that will add a simple widget to collect email addresses and automatically add them to your marketing list.
It is easily customisable with no CSS, so you can design it to match your WordPress theme.
Wysija
The Wysija Newsletter Plugin comes highly rated amongst users, who commend it for its drag and drop editor, newsletter statistics, autoresponder feature and over 30 themes to choose from.
Wysija allows standard users to send to 2000 subscribers, while premium users can send to more than 2000 subscribers and test their spam score before the newsletter is sent.
Newsletter Sign-Up
Compatible with most third-party email marketing services, Newsletter Sign-Up allows users to embed a sign-up form easily with a simple shortcode, and easily customise their sign-up form widget.
The option is available to add your own messages to the sign-up form, as well as make the decision to redirect users to a different page following completion of the sign-up process.
Newsletter Manager
Providing the choice of HTML, plain text or multipart messages, Newsletter Manager supports an unlimited number of campaigns and subscribed email addresses, and features a double opt-in spam compliance.
Subscribe2
Web developers using Subscribe2 will experience excellent response numbers from their subscribers, with the Plugin distributing notifications each time a new blog is posted.
The integrated ReadyGraph App allows users to monitor the growth of their site by encouraging users to repeatedly return to the page through automated re-engagement emails and viral friend invites.
Simple Subscribe
Powerful and user-friendly, Simple Subscribe is the perfect tool for all web developers eager to get their content out in the online environment.
With ReadyGraph App features as standard, developers can monitor their site's traffic through ReadyGraph's analytics, and can edit the appearance of sign-up forms and information on the front end quickly and easily.
WordPress Multicolor Subscribe Widget
This widget cleverly allows the user to modify the colour scheme to suit to theme of the page, ensuring a cohesive and well-designed page is viewed by page subscribers.
The benefits of remaining in constant contact with customers are clear, and by making use of the aforementioned tools, web content generators of any level of expertise can simply and effectively communicate content and new information to their customers with ease.
