Top Plugins for Building an Email List in WordPress

Email is the most direct way to contact your fans and subscribers. Having a healthy email list can be one of your most valuable assets as a small business owner. If you want to sell or advertise something, the list will often be your main source of revenue.

Another good thing about compiling an email list is that you can take it with you wherever you go. If you decide to stop blogging on one site, you can take a large number of your followers with you if you decide to pick up again. Without a list, you would have to start over from the beginning. This can take quite a long time to get back to where you were, especially if you have built your audience over the course of a few years.

Remember, unsolicited communication can leave a negative effect on your reputation. With so much junk mail and clutter filling up people’s inboxes, it’s important to build your list with care. While it’s important to manage your email list in order to get the most out of it, building an email list in the first place can be a challenge. Fortunately, there are many effective plugins to help you do this with WordPress.

This list includes plugins that can help you create a list from scratch as well as manage your subscriber list. Some of the plugins are very basic, just giving you what you need, like Subscribe Popup. A few of them have lots of options such as the Ninja Kick Subscribe Form and MyMail. Whether you want to build simple subscription forms, or something fancier you can find a plugin to do it on this list.

Subscribe & Download

This plugin is simple and easy to use. Subscribe & Download is a plugin that allows you to send files to subscribers. If people want to download anything from your WordPress website or from a third party site, they will need to submit their contact information first. Once they submit their contact information the plugin will send a temporary download link to their email.

You can save the contact information in a database or send it to an autoresponder like MailChimp or iContact. All the data can be exported as a CSV file to use with any newsletter program you want. This plugin is a very simple solution to send files to your audience. The latest version has options for customized layouts.

Indeed Smart PopUp for WordPress

Indeed Smart PopUp is a complete popup plugin. You can quickly build you won custom popups and do more than allow people to opt-in. There are over 100 features to configure, allowing you to create a wide range of popups. This plugin has a very useful feature for targeting your audience. You can choose when you want to display a popup. For example, you could display a popup when one of your visitors clicks on a button or visits a specific page.

Ninja Kick: Subscription WordPress Plugin

If you are tired of the same old boring contact forms this may be just what you are looking for. Ninja Kick: Subscription WordPress plugin is a versatile list building plugin for creating subscription forms. This plugin has some nice features to add flair to your opt-in form. It utilizes a push/sliding animation effect to display your subscription form.

Like all the plugins on this list, the data is saved to database and you have the option to export it to a 3rd party auto responder. The good thing about this plugin is the design. It brings a trendy, fresh look to your subscription form. The design possibilities are endless, it’s fully responsive, reacts to swipe gestures and makes use of modern CSS3 transitions. This plugin works with all themes and looks great on all devices.

Subscribe Popup

This plugin allows you to build a unique popup window with an opt-in form for your blog or website. When the popup window is up, your site’s visitors are asked to submit their name and email address. This data can be saved in a database or sent to a newsletter system. All the data can be exported to a CSV file to be used with other newsletter systems. Edit the content in your opt-in popup using the built-in WYSIWYG editor. You can use shortcodes to add anything you want in it. Customize things like window size, colors, fonts and more. This plugin is a great way to collect subscribers for your content.

Opt-In Panda for WordPress

One way to boost your subscription rates is to create content for subscribers only. Opt-in Panda is a very persuasive plugin that gives visitors a good reason to leave their email address on your site. This plugin will lock out a portion of content on a page by hiding or blurring it. Once the visitor opts-in the content will unlock. This technique has is a proven way to get more subscribers, turning visitors into customers.

You can build a mailing list to send to newsletter services and export. Use the information you collect to learn more about your visitors as well. Opt-in Panda has options for single opt-in, double-opt in and quick email confirmation. Single opt-in means that they do not need email confirmation, double opt-in requires email confirmation. It’s up to you.

OptIn Ninja – Ultimate Squeeze Page Generator

OptIn Ninja allows you to create a highly customizable opt-in popup or standalone page. You can use it with any WordPress theme. There are endless options for customizing your opt in message. Setup is easy to and there are lots of options. It comes with over 300 hundred photos and patterns for backgrounds, detailed analytics, full screen background support and 9 predefined popup positions. are some useful features such as integration with 3rd party  autoresponders and Google Analytics.

MyMail – Email Newsletter Plugin for WordPress

MyMail is a simple, yet robust newsletter plugin for WordPress. Use it to create, send and track newsletters from your site. You can boost your subscriber list by taking advantage of MyMail’s tracking features. Find out more about your subscribers and refine your campaign strategy. Track counties and cities, opens, clicks, unsubscriptions and your bounce.

This plugin is easy to use and expansive. Drag and drop images, add text and send from the WYSIWYG editor. You get single or double opt-in support, automated inline styles, options to add background images and more. MyMail is a powerful tool for generating revenue and building a quality email list.

Final Word

Getting subscriptions is one of the most effective ways to market your content. As you can see, building a form for subscriptions is as easy as downloading a plugin. All of the plugins on this list can get the job done, it just depends on your workflow which one is best for you. Let us know if you have any favorite plugins for subscription forms and newsletter management.