While social media has taken the world by storm, and content marketing continues to evolve, email marketing hasn’t gone anywhere. It still remains one of the best investments of time and energy a company can make. Email marketing has a ROI of 3,800%, you can earn back $38 for every $1 you spend!
Of course, this is all dependent on how well you earn opt-ins from your visitors. That’s why we’re looking at an exciting email opt-in plugin today called Bloom plugin by Elegant Themes - a list building plugin for WordPress. Today we’ll review this highly regarded tool and look at seven ways it can increase your opt-ins and ultimately, your conversions.
What is Bloom Email Plugin?
Bloom is an email opt-in plugin for WordPress. It allows you to create all types of email opt-in quickly to boost email subscribers. The ready-made templates make it very easy to use. It comes as part of the Elegant Themes bundle of themes at plugins at the price of $89 and can be used on unlimited sites.
Anyone who is familiar with the work Elegant Themes has done in the past, knows that they tend to shake the very concepts of what we know about plugins. We mean that in a good way, just look at what they did with Monarch and their Divi 4.0 Theme and Builder plugins which we've reviewed here.
When WordPress users finish creating their blogs or websites, starting an email list is at the top of the priority list. When you secure a subscriber, you’ve essentially earned a lead that is already interested enough in your brand to make an effort and give you their email.
There is no shortage of email opt-in plugins available for WordPress. In fact, there is no shortage of WordPress plugins in any niche (we review the best ones in our WordPress plugins section).
Some are free, others require a premium fee to download. This product is in a crowded landscape, so let’s see if it has what it takes to stand out from the rest. In this Elegant Themes Bloom review, we're going to take a deep dive at the benefits of using it as your email plugin for WordPress.
Summary
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Overall |
4.5/5 |
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Features |
5/5 |
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Ease of use |
5/5 |
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Performance |
5/5 |
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Support |
4/5 |
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Value for money |
4/5 |
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Price |
Bloom comes as part of the Elegant Themes bundle at $89 and can be used for unlimited sites |
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Free Trial |
No, but there is a live demo here. |
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What we liked |
Ease of use - getting up and running is very simple |
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Split Testing – Built-in A/B or Split Testing to increase optimize and increase conversions |
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Ready-made opt-in templates – plenty of designed opt-ins ready to be deployed |
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Opt-in statistics - dashboard with performance and opt-in statistics |
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Integration – integrates with plenty of popular email marketing services |
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What we didn't like |
You cannot get this plugin by itself |
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No exit intent trigger |
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| Website | Download theme now |
How to Set Up Email Opt-Ins with Bloom
When you’re getting set up with the Bloom opt-in plugin, you’ll need to start by connecting it with your email marketing service of choice. Bloom is compatible with these mailing software packages:
- MailChimp
- Constant Contact
- Mad Mimi
- iContact
- InfusionSoft
- Feedblitz
- Aweber
- Campaign Monitor
- GetResponse
- SendInBlue
- MailPoet Ontraport
It’s fair to say that your marketing software of choice will be compatible, so there are no issues there. Start by setting up your account. Go to Tools > Bloom Settings to do so. You should see a page like this one:
This begins the process of connecting the two accounts together so they can work in tandem. Once you’ve done this, you can get to work creating opt-in forms. Go to Bloom > Email Optins to get started.
Here you’ll find the list of your current forms and some basic analytics that give you an idea of how they’re performing at a glance.
Opt-In Types
What’s really exciting about this product is the sheer amount of opt-in forms you can choose from. In total, there are six different kinds of display settings you can use to create your lead magnets:
1. Pop-Up
This first type allows you to place your form within a lightbox that appears when certain triggers are met. These are very effective, but they should be used sparingly because they take up the entire screen.
2. Fly-In
This type of opt-in is smaller and less intrusive than the pop-up. This form slides up from the bottom corner of the page and can also be triggered with a variety of options. This type of opt-in doesn’t interrupt the user experience, which makes it a solid choice.
3. Below Post
This type of opt-in is used often across all kinds of websites. It works by adding the form to the bottom of your pages. That way, when the reader is finished, they have the option to sign up to your list.
This is a great option, because when a user has finished an article, they are most primed for action and / or conversion, and are looking for the next action to take.
By adding a form below a post, and giving them a good reason to join you list, you are working with the user experience, instead of being intrusive.
4. Inline
An Inline form allows you to generate a shortcode that you can they use to place an opt-in form anywhere on the page. This option offers a ton of freedom for testing purposes.
They are great for prompting users to download stuff they might be interested in, such as eBooks, checklists related to the content they are reading or any other stuff that will make sense to them in the context of the article they are reading.
5. Locked Content
Locked content is another type of opt-in form that, while effective, should be used sparingly.
It requires your users to sign up with their details before they can access something on the site. This is usually used for free downloads or exclusive content that acts as an incentive for signing up.
For these to be effective, they need to strike a balance between enticing the user with good content but keeping some of the "advanced" content hidden while explaining the benefits of opting in to this locked content.
6. Widget
The final option is one that provides a widget you can use from the WordPress dashboard. This allows you to place the form in the sidebar, footer, or anywhere else you prefer.
Here’s a visual look at the opt-in form types:
When setting up your opt-ins, you’ll find that there are several ways to trigger them as well. These include the following:
- Time delay
- Percentage scrolled
- On-click triggers
Check out Bloom and its Live DEMO
P.S. We've got an exclusive 10% off only until October 2024 if you click on this link
7 Ways You Can Skyrocket Your Email Subscribers and Conversions
It’s safe to say that Bloom has all the features you need and can easily be considered one of the best WordPress email optin plugin from Elegant Themes, but how does it benefit your business?
Read More: Best 40+ WordPress Business Themes | Email Services Without Phone Number Verification
Let’s take a look at seven ways your email opt-ins can boost your conversions and your business as a whole:
1. Pop-Ups Are Effective
This option for lightbox pop-ups may seem like a feature that can be annoying for visitors, but there’s no denying that they work. In fact, a study done by eConsultancy found that an overlay like this can increase opt-ins by up to 400%.
Here’s an example of the pop-up you’ll see when you visit Jeff Bullas’ (the internet marketing guru) blog:
A simple pop-up like this can be made using Bloom optin and offers a great way to earn more emails and ultimately conversions. It’s important to test your pop-up design as it will give you insight into how the headline, design, and triggers work with your specific audience.
2. Streamlined Forms Win Conversions
Another great benefit of using opt-in forms, is the way you can make them simple and effective for turning visitors into subscribers. With this plugin for WordPress, you can make opt-in forms a part of your streamlined sales funnel.
Studies have shown that only 49% of visitors fill out online forms. Among those who fill them out, only 16% completely finish the process. This shows how people don’t like complicated forms that ask a lot of questions.
While it’s important to capture information about your subscribers so you can better understand them, balance this out with a short and simple form/process to win more subscribers. Since Bloom allows you to create these simple forms, you’ll find a huge benefit here in the form of more subscribers that will happily fill out your simple opt-in form.
We'd recommend asking for email, and optionally the name of the subscriber so that you can personalize their email.
3. Informed Decision-Making
The greatest opt-in plugins offer a well-rounded analytics feature to help you understand how your opt-in form designs and delivery are resonating with your audience. Bloom has a very good statistics dashboard that shows you how well it is performing on various pages of your site.
Opt-in forms offer great opportunities for A/B testing. By using the built-in statistics, combined with tests of different form types and designs, you can quickly gather a lot of valuable information about your audience and which of your opt-in forms work best, so that you can use more of them.
All of this contributes to an informed approach to your decisions. Data-backed decisions always lead to better performance and conversions on future efforts and Bloom can help you make those decisions.
4. Target an Engaged Audience
Email marketing is so successful due in part to its hyper-targeted nature. The people who fill out your opt-in form are either current customers or highly interested leads. They are interested and engaged with your brand. This is what drove them to fill out the form in the first place.
These people are excited about receiving content from you. You don’t need to convince them to read it, because they’re already engaged. That kind of opportunity is something that doesn’t present itself often.
For this reason alone, having an opt-in form on your website offers huge benefits for your business in terms of engagement and conversions.
5. Build a Loyal Audience
The truth about website visitors, is that most of them will only visit once and then never come back. This is true especially when looking at traffic from social media. An email opt-in form offers an opportunity to turn these one-off visitors into dedicated members of your audience.
The people who sign up to your list are within reach, if you manage to build a good relationship with them (through great valuable content, even in your emails). You don’t have to worry about things like organic reach or paid advertising when you have a direct line of communication with your audience.
Of course, this benefit shouldn’t be abused.
If you constantly pester your subscribers or pitch them with sales constantly, you’re bound to lose them. This is one of those situations where great power also comes with great responsibility.
6. Repurpose Older Content
Many blog posts will have some time in the limelight before they fade away because they lose their relevance, or become outdated.
An amazing benefit of email opt-ins is the ability to repurpose this "older" content and deliver it to a fresh audience. You can grab the best parts of an old post and add it to your newsletter, or drip marketing campaigns.
This will offer your audience the chance to see something they otherwise would never encounter. Not only will it be useful for them, but it will also act as an incentive for new people to sign up on your website.
7. The Most Profitable Type of Marketing
Perhaps the greatest benefit of a program like Bloom and, ultimately, an entire mailing marketing setup, is the potential for conversions and the low cost. Consider these compelling statistics:
- Emails generate 50% more sales than other types of marketing
- Email marketing is 40 times better at earning customers than social media
- 95% of people find that communication from recognized brands are useful
- Small businesses have found that message automation is worth $273 an hour based on surveys.
The best part? It’s nowhere near as costly as other types of marketing. When we look at social media or television, there’s a huge cost to target the proper audience. With email, every person on your list is someone you want to target.
Start building your email list today
My Experience With The Bloom WordPress Plugin
The features are there, and the benefits are undeniable, but how does it perform when stacked against other similar plugins? Well, for starters, the custom control panel works well despite not being a native WordPress interface.
It provides a smooth and clean user experience, which is always a great start. The wide variety of mailer software that it connects with is also a major plus. For new users, I also appreciated the presence of help buttons along the way. Some of them offer simple tips, while others link to online documents.
The six different types of opt-in forms offers a wide range of options for specific tastes and testing. I don’t know that I would use all of them, most likely one or two for my audience, but once again Bloom proves that it can adapt to all kinds of websites.
For quick form construction, Elegant Themes Bloom offers a wide range of templates you can use to quickly design a form. The sheer number of them is nothing short of impressive. Once you’ve established a basis for the form, the plugin allows you to further customize every aspect.
The option to preview the form gives you the chance to see it in action without having to leave the customization screen. All of this contributes to an extremely seamless and user-friendly experience.
Besides having the option to choose the type of form, the plugin goes so far as to let you set the loading animation as well. There are several options here, and the ability to tweak them further as needed. It’s really impressive when you consider how many unique opt-in forms you can create with these tools.
Pricing
The final point I’d like to cover is pricing. Looking at the price tag, it’s going to be $89 per year. This may seem like a steep entry fee, but let’s not forget that this price also gives you access to all of Elegant Themes' plugins and themes.
But with our exclusive deal until October 2024, you get an additional 10% OFF on their excellent value deal, so grab a bargain now.
When you look at it that way, it’s a great value.
Try Bloom Now (Get 10% OFF Until October 2024)
Testimonials
Elegant Themes have proven themselves over and over again. They are one of the biggest vendors in the WordPress industry with over 700,000 paying customers using their products, so you've got no problems there.
Their clients are typically thrilled as you can see from some of the following testimonials:
By far this has been my best experience with this type of services
By far, I am very happy, surprised and really grateful with all the assistance, documentation and quality tools this team has developed. Their willingness to help you is just surprising, tools are just Elegantly made, sophisticated and very easy to use. AS everything, there would be doubts while you get the hang of it, but along the way you will get access to ver well made documentation, toturials, forums and last but not least, your getting great support from their their team, in various ways. Just now, Reshma, helped me figure out a thing that was simple, but I didnt know, and you cant imagine how grateful I am know for solving this, not only for my current project, it just reassures me that gettin Elegant Themes products and service was the right call and move to make. So thanks, and you who read this I hope you decide and start experiencing this quality service.
Kyla from WP Explorer found this plugin very useful:
Bloom is a great plugin, with all kinds of great features that you’d want in an opt-in plugin. Split testing, statistics and customizations are all built-in to make it easier for you to create an email opt-in form that works. Plus the clean ui and straightforward options make using the plugin a breeze.
Joe Fylan from WinningWP also finds plenty of great things to say about this plugin:
As well as being particularly well designed and easy to use, the Bloom optin form plugin comes packed with features. All of the main form types are included, and there’s a solid selection of templates.
And IsitWP also has good things to say about this:
Bloom offers a truly easy-to-use and user-friendly interface for creating email optin forms for WordPress sites. Its simple and clutter-free dashboard lets anyone to create attractive optin forms and generate more leads.
And here's a final Elegant Themes review speaking about the excellent support provided by the team:
Frequently Asked Questions
What type of email opt-ins work best?
The email opt-ins that work best are usually those that offer something of value to your visitor. While some people might opt-in to a website's newsletter if they find amazing content on your site, it is much more likely to get email opt-ins if you offer your user something that they are actively looking for. The best email opt-ins have different offers depending on the page the user is visiting.
Are opt-ins a problem for SEO?
No, most opt-ins are not a problem for SEO, though interstitial popups on mobile devices are not recommended because Google frowns on them, especially if they come up as soon as a user visits a page. In general, we recommend that pop-ups are only shown when a user has either already spent some time on the page (at least 30 seconds), or have scrolled down to at least 50% of the page. Making a good offer that a user cannot refuse is also very important.
Are there other popup or opt-in plugins I can use?
Yes, there are many other popup plugins you can use. We would recommend Bloom especially for users who use any other product from the same vendor's portfolio such as Divi.
Final Thoughts
Bloom is an incredibly well designed and customizable plugin. The features and benefits it offers for your email marketing efforts are extremely evident. I can’t recommend it enough, especially when you consider all the additional themes, plugins, and features you get with your membership to Elegant Themes.
Do you utilize it for your email opt-in forms? Let us know how it works for you in the comments!
Please leave a useful comment with your thoughts, then share this on your Facebook group(s) who would find this useful and let's reap the benefits together. Thank you for sharing and being nice!
Disclosure: This page may contain links to external sites for products which we love and wholeheartedly recommend. If you buy products we suggest, we may earn a referral fee. Such fees do not influence our recommendations and we do not accept payments for positive reviews.
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