WordPress Email Marketing for Freelancers

Almost a third of the top 1 million websites in the world use WordPress, making it the most popular content management system (CMS) for quite some time now.

And why not? It’s user-friendly to administer, offers a wide range of customizable themes and plugins, and is cost-effective to boot — WordPress should be a no-brainer for any business looking to build a quick and easy online blog or web.

What if we told you that with the right WordPress email marketing plugins, your email marketing could also be easy to set up and simple enough to operate daily for effective campaigns?

Whether you’re a freelancer or a WordPress agency looking to offer email marketing as a service to your existing customer base, this WordPress email marketing guide has all the strategies, tactics, and tips to help you get there faster and smoother.

What are we waiting for? Let’s dive deep.

Benefits of WordPress Email Marketing

Before we talk about how to get your WordPress email marketing campaigns right, here are the top benefits of using WordPress email marketing plugins to get the job done:

• Easy, No-code Setup: These WordPress email marketing plugins are designed to integrate with any WordPress website seamlessly in minutes without needing any complex configuration;
• Drag-and-Drop Operation: Use intuitive drag-and-drop editors or pre-designed email templates to create visually stunning emails without needing to write a single line of code;
• Fully-featured: These plugins come fully loaded with basic to advanced email marketing features, including segmentation, personalization, analytics, and even SMS marketing in some instances;
• Leverage Automation: Many of them support email automation and let you leverage the benefits of fully automated communication without ever having to leave the familiarity of your WordPress dashboard;
• Cost-effectiveness: Not every WordPress email marketing plugin is likely to be cost-effective, but some are likely to be great value for your investment;
• Advanced Features: Some will likely include advanced list building features such as form builders, popup designers, and more, making it easy to grow your email list.

Now that we know how much of a game changer WordPress email marketing can be for anyone running an online WordPress website, let’s chart some vital principles and strategies to make every campaign a winning one.

The 10 Golden Rules of Super-Effective Email Marketing

While the right WordPress email marketing plugin and the email marketing platform in use make a difference, in the end, it’s all about certain foundational elements that silently define the success of every email marketing campaign out there.

1. Grow a Super-Focused Email List

   Focus on building a list of email subscribers genuinely interested in what your business does or offers. Your campaigns will be more targeted with a concentrated audience, increasing the likelihood of high conversions.

   

2. Craft a Captivating Subject Line

   A great subject line will help you stand out inside your subscribers’ inboxes and create enough tension to prompt them to open your email and take a sneak peek inside.

   
   Use psychological triggers such as urgency, scarcity, curiosity, or greed (self-interest-driven subject lines) to pique your readers to open your emails.

3. Personalize Your Messages

   Personalized communication helps you converse at scale with a crowd in a way that feels personal to each person. It also goes beyond just using the subscriber’s first name in the subject line to grab their attention.

   
   Collect relevant information from your subscribers using opt-in forms and popups, and then tailor your email messaging based on their preferences, behaviors, or even custom data.

4. Segment Your Audience

   Segment your audience based on who they are (demographics), what they like (preferences), or what they do (behavior). Send each of these segments highly targeted messages that are likely to resonate with their benefits, pain points, and interests.

   Examples include sending exclusive offers to high-spending customers, and sharing personalized recommendations based on recent browsing or past purchase data. As a result, your emails are more relevant, leading to higher open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.

   

5. Provide True Value

   Always ensure that every email you send adds educational or entertainment value to their lives. Offer tools, resources, insights, strategies, tips, special promotions, present a new product video, and more.

   By delivering high-value content over a period of time, you not only strengthen relationships with your subscriber base but also position yourself as an authority figure and thought leader in your space, making everything to follow much more credible and trustworthy.

6. Include a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)

   Everyone wants to be told what to do next. About 70% of your email list opened your email, and most of them read it. Now they want to know what is next. And that’s where your call-to-action (CTA) comes in.

   Always include a call-to-action in each email telling your readers where to click and go next. A CTA doesn’t always have to be a call to buy something, it could also be to sign up for a webinar, download a resource, leave feedback, and more.

   
   A strong CTA could be instrumental in drastically improving your email campaign performance metrics.

7. Optimize for the Smaller Screens

   Given that 58% of the web traffic comes from mobile phones, you would optimize your emails to display nicely on different screen sizes.

   Some tips for doing this well include using responsive designs, easy-to-read fonts, bigger font sizes, and well-structured layouts to increase engagement and conversions.

   The fastest way to be able to do this would be to use premade, mobile-friendly, ready-to-edit email design templates provided by most WordPress email marketing platforms, such as Sender.

8. Keep it Eye-Catching & On-Brand

   Keep your emails good-looking and your branding consistent. Use colors, logos, and fonts that reinforce your brand values and its visual identity. Such consistency in design builds brand recognition, recall, and trust, improving how your readers respond to your emails over time.

   
   While most email marketing WordPress plugin tools offer you the ability to build using point-and-click email design features, you can design way faster by adapting a pre-existing email design template to your branding.

9. Follow the Data Trail

   Analyze the performance of your email campaigns by constantly tracking and recording metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversions, and subscriber engagement.

   
   Use the data to learn what works and what doesn’t, and optimize your decisions by always following the data trail.

10. Automate. Automate. Automate.

    Use the capabilities of marketing automation fired by behavioral triggers to set up fully automated email flows, such as welcome series, abandoned cart reminders, post-purchase upsells, and more, to save time and grow your business at scale.

    

Wrap-Up: WordPress Email Marketing

WordPress email marketing plugins provide freelancers and agencies with powerful mechanisms to connect with, grow, and scale their clientele’s businesses.

By harnessing the quiet power of email marketing, you can impact the continued growth of customer-facing relationships on one hand and sales & revenue on the other. Embrace the power of WordPress email marketing and unlock new opportunities to elevate your freelance business, leaving a lasting impression on your clients and paving the way for continued success in the digital world.