Looking for steps to make a newsletter to send to your audience?
If you’ve got an email list, don’t sit on it! You could be skyrocketing your sales by engaging your leads and inviting them back to your website through email marketing.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you exactly how to create an email newsletter so you can start growing your business online.
Here’s a table of contents to help you navigate this post:
- Sign up for Constant Contact
- Create an Email List
- Connect Constant Contact to Your Forms
- Connect Your Email List to Your Forms
- Create Your Email Newsletter in Constant Contact
What Is the Best Program to Create a Newsletter?
Sending newsletters should be easy. Especially since it’s one of the most important marketing strategies for your business online.
So if you’re looking for the best email marketing service to build your newsletter campaign with, we recommend Constant Contact or Sendinblue.
Here’s a little about both so you can decide which one fits your needs best:
Constant Contact
Because this email marketing tool comes built-in to the WPForms plugin, you can easily add a Constant Contact checkbox to any of your WordPress forms.
Some other amazing features that make Constant Contact so popular include:
- Easy to Use — A beginner-friendly drag and drop builder to create and edit gorgeous email newsletters.
- Email Templates — Over 100 pre-designed email templates to get you up and running in minutes.
- Email List Management — Collect and manage email addresses from your website, mobile devices, and social media.
- Heat Tracking Tool — User the built-in tool to see where people click.
- Personalized Automation — Automatically send targeted and personalized emails to boost sales.
- Fantastic Support — The raved-about support team provides help over live chat, phone, email, and forums.
Constant Contact has a 60-day free trial and doesn’t require a credit card to use. You can set up your newsletter and run email campaigns within that window without spending a penny. After that, plans start at a reasonable $20/month.
Click here to get started with Constant Contact today!
Sendinblue
Sendinblue is a simply amazing email marketing software that also has the capability to carry out text message marketing. We love it because it’s simple to use but still has a ton of great tools.
Other notable features include:
- Easy to Use — A visual drag and drop builder helps you put together an awesome email newsletter in just minutes.
- Email Templates — Free responsive templates to build a beautiful newsletter for your subscribers.
- Campaign Optimization — Use detailed reports, heat map tools, real-time stats, and A/B testing.
- Automation — 8 different workflows to choose from to send to different people so they receive the right emails at the right times.
- Lead Scoring — Let the software automatically rate your leads with their built-in lead scoring system.
- SMS Marketing — Send email messages via text message with just a few clicks.
- Customization — Send customized transactional emails to tap into the underutilized email campaign type’s high-converting power.
- Live Chat — Includes an integrated live chat software to harness the power of conversational marketing with your email list.
- Mailer Option —Easily set up Sendinblue with WP Mail SMTP for reliable transactional email deliverability.
Sendinblue has a free plan that includes unlimited contacts and 300 emails/day. After that, plans start at around $22/month.
Click here to get started with Sendinblue today!
And we’re also big fans of Drip, ConvertKit, AWeber, GetResponse, and a few others. Check out our post on the best email marketing service providers for more details on each one.
But in the end, the best email service to create a newsletter for your business comes down to your preferences, industry, goals, and budget.
How Do You Create a Successful Newsletter?
Asking yourself how do I make my newsletter stand out? There are countless email marketing guides out there that have tons of great details on how to make a successful newsletter.
Getting people to subscribe to your newsletter is just the beginning. You’ll want to do a little planning before you make your first successful newsletter.
Here’s a few basic tips to get you started:
- Define Your Audience — Ask yourself who your target audience is and what their needs are. If you don’t know yet, consider creating a survey form to find out.
- Set Your Goals — Do you simply want more traffic? To engage readers? Are you gearing up for a seasonal sale? Once you decide what you want to get out of your email campaigns, you’ll be able to decide on what kind of content to create and send.
- Choose the Frequency — Marketing emails can be annoying if sent too often. Decide how often you’ll be emailing your list, be it weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.
- Gather Your Best Content — You don’t have to start from scratch with your newsletter. Make a list of your most helpful content from your site and build an editorial calendar around those posts to win over readers with your great advice.
- Use Emojis in Subject Lines — If it matches your tone, try using emojis in your subject lines. Subject lines heavily impact your open rate, so give them a lot of love and research.
- Write with Care — Regardless of if your email recipients are new leads or existing customers, your newsletter needs to be a well-crafted piece of content. Check for typos and use a conversational tone.
- Use Calls to Action — Make sure your emails include Calls to Action. Meaning, ask the reader to do something such as clicking a link or button that says ‘Click here to get more details’. CTAs are how you’ll convert readers into customers and bring them back to your website.
Also, make sure you’re using a good email client like Constant Contact so your emails don’t get lost.
So now that you’ve got an idea of how to create a successful newsletter, let’s dive into our tutorial on how to create an email newsletter.
How to Create an Email Newsletter (Step by Step)
Constant Contact is one of the most popular ways to create a newsletter for small businesses and bloggers. So we’ll be showing you how to send an email newsletter using Constant Contact since so many website owners already use it.
Step 1: Sign up for Constant Contact
Follow this link and enter your email to sign up for your new Constant Contact account. You can use their 60-day free trial (which doesn’t even require a credit card) to complete this tutorial and run email campaigns without spending any money.
Next, enter your details on the signup page and click on the Get Started button.
You’ll see a confirmation screen after that.
On the next screen, head to the bottom of the page and click on Skip this step. We’ll do this later in the post.
Next, you’ll be taken to your Constant Contact dashboard where the magic happens. Here you can manage your email lists, subscribers, and send your email newsletter.
Keep in mind, the free trial account will let you send up to 100 emails only. You’ll need to purchase a paid plan to access all of their features.
Now, let’s make an email list so you have a list of your subscribers to send your newsletter to.
Step 2: Create an Email List
To keep your contacts organized, you’ll want to add email lists to your Constant Contact account. To see the lists currently available in your account, click on Contacts in the top menu, then Email Lists on the side menu.
From the Constant Contact dashboard, click on the Contacts tab in the top menu and then Email Lists on the left hand side menu.-
If you’re new to Constant Contact, you’ll only have the default General Interest list that Constant Contact starts you out with.
If you already are using Constant Contact, this area will contain all the lists currently available in your account.
To add a new list, click on Enter a New List.
Now, give it a name and select Add List.
Once you’re list is created, you can add your contacts by clicking on the Add Contacts button.
It’s OK if you don’t have any contacts yet. The next step will show you how to connect your email list to WordPress forms so you can start getting leads right away.
Step 3: Connect Constant Contact to Your Forms
You need to display a newsletter signup form on your website so you can grow your email list and people can give you their email address. Here’s how.
First, head over to your WordPress dashboard and go to WPForms » Settings to begin the configuration for Constant Contact. Select the Integrations tab.
Next, you’ll need to register WPForms with Constant Contact by clicking on Click here to register with Constant Contact.
After clicking the link, an overlay will appear for you to log into your Constant Contact account. Once you’re logged in, click the Allow button to allow access for WPForms.
Next, you’ll see the Constant Contact authorization code. You’ll need to copy this code.
Next, click on +Add New Account and paste the code into the Constant Contact Authorization Code field. Choose any name you’d like for your Account Nickname (it’s just for your own reference).
Then, click on the Connect to Constant Contact button.
Once WPForms is done connecting your site to your Constant Contact account, you’ll see a green Connected box and your account name.
Now that you’ve created your list and connected Constant Contact to your forms, it’s time to connect everything together so you can start getting more email subscribers.
Step 4: Connect Your Email List to Your Forms
To create your Constant Contact newsletter subscription form, you can either add a new form or edit an existing form.
For this example, we’ll create a brand new form using the Newsletter Signup Form template. But you can follow the steps below on an existing form as well.
First, click on WPForms » Add New and scroll down to select Create a Newsletter Signup Form.
Once your form populates in the form builder, go to Marketing » Constant Contact and select Add New Connection.
In the overlay that appears, enter a nickname for the connection you’re creating. Your users will never see it, but this is useful if you plan to connect this form to more than one mailing list and to help with organization. Next, click on the OK button.
Once a connection is created, you can choose from any Constant Contact account you’ve connected in the first step.
After the account you want is selected, you can also choose a specific mailing list within that account.
All Constant Contact mailing lists must be created in your Constant Contact account. For more details, check out Constant Contact’s tutorial on getting started with lists.
Under the List Fields column, you’ll see all of the available fields for subscriber information to be added to your Constant Contact mailing lists. The only field you’re required to fill in is Email Address. But getting a First Name is a good idea too, since that can help you with email personalization.
To send additional entry fields to Constant Contact, you’ll need to map your form fields to the relevant fields available in Constant Contact.
Here are the fields that Constant Contact offers for your subscribers:
- Full Name
- First Name
- Last Name
- Phone
- Website
- Address
- Job Title
- Company
If you’d like to add users to your Constant Contact list based on their selections on your form, you can check out our tutorial on how to add a Constant Contact signup checkbox.
Once you’re done configuring the form settings, click the Save to button.
Great job! You’ve successfully created a newsletter signup form with Constant Contact.
Step 5: Create Your Email Newsletter in Constant Contact
Head back to your Constant Contact dashboard and click on Campaigns then click on the Create button.
Click on Email.
Next, choose a template. Constant Contact has tons of great templates, but it’s best to start with something simple and customize it. For this example, we’ll choose the Basic Newsletter template.
Once the email newsletter editor opens, you can just point and click to edit things and replace the default content with your own. The visual builder is a great tool that let’s you say goodbye to plain old plain text emails.
To add new content, simply drag the elements you want from the left hand panel onto the email template.
After you’ve finished typing up your email and customizing it, click the Continue button.
Next, you’ll choose who you want to send it to (your email list) and when to send your email. You can schedule it ahead of time if you have a paid Constant Contact account. You’ll also want to customize your email subject line here.
When you’re ready to send your email newsletter, click on the Send Now button.
You did it! Remember, Constant Contact has a ton of different features for you to try out to further customize your email campaigns.
You can check out this great post on our sister website with email newsletter design tips and inspiration for even more.
In Conclusion
That’s it! You now know how to create an email newsletter. Hopefully, this post helped you get on the right track to explosive online growth through email marketing.
Adding your email list to a popup is one of the best ways to grow it fast. Check out our post on the best WordPress popup plugins to find one that works for you.
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