Email Marketing - A forever free wordpress email autoresponder?

[Asad]

I recently switched over from Activecampaign to Sendfox to save some money. Active campaign had more features than I needed.

Sendfox is cheap, but feature free. They upcharge for html templates. WTF. My readers dont respond to plain text emails with 1999 design.

And as I jump from service to service, almost all of them scale poorly, they are overpriced, and they are chock full of features I dont need.

So here is what I want to figure out - cant I run a native autoresponder ? I use Elementor, so I got the popups and CTAs I need. Now I need a nice template to crank out a weekly course series and the ability to send emails periodically from my own server.

Anyone have any guidance on how to make this work? Any of you use autoresponders?

 

[Ryuzaki]

The way I do it, and the way BuSo does it, is with Sendy (that's an aff link and BuSo will get $12 if you buy, but we wholly endorse the product).

Sendy installs on your server just like Wordpress, where you log into the backend, etc. You can then hit up GraphicRiver or any free site and get an HTML email template you like.

Here's the real kicker. Sendy sets up the insanely hard to manage Amazon SES (simple email service) for you. Where you'd be spending $500 on MailChimp or any full service SAAS like that, you'll spend maybe $3-5 with Amazon SES. The barrier to entry with SES is the sheer difficulty in setting it up, but Sendy does it for you (you have to sign up, but it configs everything).

Sendy can do auto-responders at any drip rate you want. You can manually import lists and new users, but if you're slick you can swap out your pop ups and CTA's to show forms using the Sendy webhooks and API so it's all automated. They sign-up on the Wordpress site, it gets sent to your Sendy database, and the auto-responder starts.

You also get click tracking, open rates, all that. You can manage multiple brands each with infinite campaigns. It'll scrub your lists, dealing with soft bounces, hard bounces, unsubscribes, etc.

That's how I do it. It's easy peesy and dirt cheap. I created my own HTML template I use. I have UTM tracking on all the links. I can schedule campaigns in advance. Nothing beats Sendy, in my opinion. They could potentially disrupt the game if they would do some marketing and offer an installation and SES set-up service.

 

[Luxalpha]

I confirm that Sendy rocks. Bought and installed it after @Ryuzaki recommended it here and never looked back.

 

[DanSkippy]

Sorry to ask, could always look it up myself, but what is the biggest difference between Sendy and something like Mautic?

 

[adammc]

I use Mailster.co on all my sites now, connected to SendGrid for good deliverability. It's a native Wordpress plugin and integrates deeply with Wordpress, so you get a lot of advanced automation rules that can be used.

In particular, I think it's a great choice for ecommerce stores running WooCommerce.

For example (see screenshot below) I have an automated email that sends out "New Templates on BrandPacks!" every time 6 new products have been published. The {download_image} tags pull the featured image from my products, and the {download_title} pulls its name and link.

Then, on the right hand side, you can set your rules. These can go really in depth and give you a lot of options for smart automation sequences. In particular, one thing I like is that you can have date-based autoresponders, like "Send every 12 months on 2nd November".

This has allowed me to build 12 months of seasonal promotions. For instance, I can have a Thanksgiving email that sends out every year on 2nd November which pulls the 10 most recent products from my Thanksgiving category, and only sends to American subscribers. I can then have a rule not to send to customers who've already been sent it.

Even better, you hook this up to themed landing pages and you've got seasonal scarcity sales going out every single month!

There's loads of available conditions and rules to work with:

 

[fatalityhawk]

Sendy installs on your server just like Wordpress, where you log into the backend, etc. You can then hit up GraphicRiver or any free site and get an HTML email template you like.

Hello, I am looking to build email list myself using Elementor pop-up forms, directly to an email service, is that something Sendy can do? If so, I am buying immediately with your aff link

P.S. Sorry for the noob question but just starting out with turning my SEO sites into lead magnets as well, thanks

 

[Ryuzaki]

Hello, I am looking to build email list myself using Elementor pop-up forms, directly to an email service, is that something Sendy can do? If so, I am buying immediately with your aff link

Sendy has their Sendy API that you can use. They have examples on that page that are all PHP. They also list tons of plugins and integrations, like this one: https://wordpress.org/plugins/sendy-widget/

So yeah, there's definitely ways to get users to automatically have their opt-in info sent to the Sendy database. You may have to do a little design work to make the forms prettier, or possibly not use Elementor (I've not used it so I'm not sure if it would work or not). But in theory it's not only possible but Sendy offers tons of methods to get it done.

If you're skilled with PHP then you can code up whatever you want. Their API is extensive enough that you can do whatever you want.

 

[Asad]

This community has never steered me wrong so I will give it a try and report back. Most likely in January after this retail hunting season is over. Nothing but love for you guys @Ryuzaki @adammc @Luxalpha

 

[Asad]

So I pulled the trigger on Sendy and I am eliminating redundancies across my system.
Right now I have
Convertpro (came free with a bundle)
Sendy + SES
Mailsmtp (a WP plugin)
Google suite

Do I even need Mailsmtp and Google suite if Sendy+SES is handling everything?