I’m putting together a small blog site, and I want to send an email to all subscribers whenever a new post is published. That’s it.
Now, I just don’t understand the purpose of using a service like MailChimp, MailPoet, or any of the other alternatives. I’m not running a complex marketing campaign. I’m just sending email notifications for each new blog post. I’m expecting a minimum of one new post a week, maybe a couple more than that.
Instead of signing up for some service to handle newsletters, why not manage that data on your site? Shouldn’t this be the easiest thing?
You just have a database with a list of emails. When someone presses a button to subscribe, they’re added to the list. When someone presses unsubscribe, that email is removed from the list.
Whenever you make a new blog post, trigger some code that runs foreach (var email in emails) send email using some data from new post. Like, what am I missing here? Why use another service?
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Because 99% of people who use WP can’t code.
Can’t you run MailPoet locally?
Sure, but will you make sure it handles bounces? What if you want to know who opened / clicked? What about IP reputation, are you going to stay on top of that? Make sure DKIM, DMARC, SPF all set up too.
All that said, if you want to own your data and/or keep costs down, look into Sendy which is cheap and uses SES for delivery and has an API that you could use for this easily and integrate into WP
Deliverability is very hard.
There are things called SPAM laws and Domain Verification that are super important, helping you stay whitelisted. Those services help keep your domain healthy by managing bounces and unsubscribes.
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel when there are great services like MailChimp that can tie into your site and handle all of that for you. Sounds like the free tier would work for you.
Yo I use Mailchip once a year for an invite to our shooting club. Goes out to ~170 pepole from other clubs.
I change the dates in the template, hit send, and immediately can see who clicked the the mail, who opened the link (and how many times), who bounced, etc. Its great, it works. I wouldnt do that on my own, why should I. Theres even an opt-out option built in, and I dont habe to manually remove people.
> Shouldn’t this be the easiest thing?
Answer: Why MailChimp, MailPoet etc exists if it’s the easiest thing?
Answer No2: Try to install MailMan and/or Postfix at your server and enjoy independence. Hint: it’s much easier than good old sendmail.
> Shouldn’t this be the easiest thing?
It’s one of the most difficult things, trust me. Use third party service and enjoy your WP life.