The need to communicate with your membership site subscribers will arise sooner or later. That’s why most membership plugins provide ways to stay in touch with your subscribers via email. Some plugins have a built-in feature to send an email broadcast to specific segments of your subscribers. Other plugins that outsource email communication to autoresponder services, such as MailChimp and AWeber. And there are plugins that do both and beyond.
For example, Digital Access Pass can, not only, add your subscribers to a mailing list, but it can also add new mailing subscribers as free members on your site! It’s two-way synchronization. And a plugin like s2Member can move subscriber from one list to another based on the member’s access level. That way you can maintain segmented and targeted lists.
Below you’ll find all you need to know about how WordPress membership plugins handle email communication with subscribers.
You can click on the name of the plugin below to view its full review.
s2Member
While s2Member doesn't have a built-in subscriber communications module, it integrates very well with MailChimp and AWeber. The plugin can add new subscriber to a list based on their subscription level. Not only that, but it can also move subscribers from one list to another when the subscriber's membership level changes within your membership site. s2Member is the only plugin I've come across that contains this feature.
WishList Member
WishList Member integrates with AWeber, MailChimp, GetResponse, Autoresponse Plus, iContact, Infusionsoft, and Enterprise Email Marketer.
It allows you to create multiple lists for each membership level. It is even capable of automatically unsubscribing users from a list when those users are removed or upgraded from their membership level.
Additionally, WishList Member has a handy email broadcast feature where you can compose an email and send it to specific membership levels.
Digital Access Pass
When it comes to sending emails to subscribers, DAP provides you with almost unlimited flexibility. It can be readily integrated with AWeber, MailChimp, or GetResponse.
With AWeber, you can automatically add mailing list subscribers as free DAP subscribers, which is very effective for building a follow-up list of potential buyers.
But that's not all, DAP also has a built-in autoresponder module that can use your hosting server to send emails. Obviously, this is less powerful than using a service such as AWeber, but it has its own advantages.
Despite the power of DAP's email module, it doesn't provide an easy way to remove members from a list when they move from one membership level to another (e.g. free member → paid member).
eMember
eMember provides basic integration with AWeber, MailChimp, and GetResponse. All it does is add new members to a mailing list upon registration. It cannot move members from one list to another upon membership level change.
Magic Members
While Magic Members integrates with several autoresponder services, its integration with them is very basic. It only synchronizes your membership site subscribers with your list and vice versa. It doesn't allow for separate lists based on membership level or anything like that.
WPMU DEV Membership
Membership has a basic member communications feature. It allows you to create and schedule messages by a certain time before a subscription expires or after it expires. It also provides you with some merge tags that you can use in your scheduled messages.
Membership has no built-in integration with any autoresponder service.
MemberWing
MemberWing has basic integration with the following autoresponder services: MailChimp, AWeber, and 1ShoppingCart. New subscriptions are automatically added into whatever list you configure. MemberWing doesn't have the ability to automatically move members from one list to another based on changes in their subscriptions.
Screenshot: MemberWing autoresponder integration
Your Members
Your Members has a built-in Mail Manager that allows you to send transactional emails using your own hosting server, or integrate with MailChimp to do all kinds of things: including the scheduling of emails, broadcasts, and synchronizing members with mailing lists.
wp-Member
wp-Member has a built-in "Simple Newsletter" module. It allows you to send messages to inactive, active, pending, expired, or all subscribers at once. It's very basic, you simply specify a message subject and body, and send. wp-Member doesn't integrate with any autoresponder.
