LMS email on your mind?
Have you ever felt confused or frustrated when trying to understand how to set up “email” for your learning management system (LMS) website?
It sounds easy, but LMS email is not easy to figure out at first.
The fact is that there is not one email system to meet all the needs of modern online education companies, so you need to use 5 different types of email systems together.
We’ll explain the exact 5 email systems you need and recommend specific email tools.
Table of contents
LMS Email Challenges
Perhaps you’re struggling with one of these LMS email-related challenges …
- It’s overwhelming how many different email systems are available and you’re getting conflicting advice
- A lot of email tools have great marketing, and it’s hard to choose which ones are the best
- After deciding on an email tool, it’s hard to learn how to use it effectively
LMS Email Clarity
We’re going to help you solve all your LMS email questions faster than you ever thought possible so you can…
- Understand the exact 5 email systems you need for an online course, coaching program, or remote school
- Discover the top email tool recommendations in each email system category
- Uncover how to learn how to “drive” these LMS email tools fast.
5 LMS Email Systems for an Online Course or Membership Site
Once you understand the 5 different email systems, working with email for your online learning website is much easier.
We’ll also recommend specific email tools for each different type of email.
1) Marketing Broadcast Email
A broadcast email is when you are sending one to many broadcast emails from your Email Service Provider (ESP). This could be marketing to people whose email you have on your email list who are not yet enrolled, or communicating in mass to people who are already enrolled on your platform (or to just the people in a specific course or membership).
The most popular external email service provider tools for LifterLMS users are:
- MailChimp (easy integration through LifterLMS MailChimp add-on)
- ConvertKit (easy integration through LifterLMS ConvertKit add-on)
- ActiveCampaign
There are many other ESPs and email broadcast tools like MailChimp out there, and most of them can be integrated into LifterLMS through WP Fusion.
The most popular WordPress-based email broadcast tools for LifterLMS are:
2) Marketing Automation Email
Marketing automation email is where you automatically send emails based on a trigger (like enrollment in a free course where you attempt to upsell a paid course). This can be done with LifterLMS by itself through email engagements.
You can also create marketing automation emails triggered by different events in your email service provider. MailChimp and ConvertKit have email automation features as examples.
3) Transactional LMS Email
Transactional email is a type of templated email that your website sends like for a password reset, invoice receipts, comment notifications, LMS notifications, etc.
Your WordPress website should send these automatically.
To improve the performance and deliverability of transactional email, use an Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service like:
4) Behavior-Based Learning Email
Behavior-based learning email is where the LMS system sends personalized LMS emails based on things like course enrollment, lesson completion, quiz pass, quiz fail, course completion, membership enrollment, section completion, etc.
LifterLMS is the best in the industry at automated behavior-triggered LMS emails through its email engagements system.
5) Company Email
The company email is for 1:1 communication from you or your team members.
The company email is just the regular old email inbox we’re all used to like Gmail, Apple Mail, Microsoft Outlook, etc.
Google Workspace (ie Gmail for businesses) is the best option here, and it’s quite affordable at around $5 per month per user.
Mastering the Different Types of LMS Email
There’s a myth that you just need to choose an expensive email marketing automation tool, and all your email problems go away. This is simply not true.
Take a moment to understand the 5 LMS email system fundamentals detailed in this article and choose “best in breed” tools to fulfill each need.
It’s truly amazing the online learning platform you can build with the free LifterLMS plugin and 1 payment gateway (like Stripe or PayPal) along with some free to low-cost email tools.
The email tools we recommend to fulfill all 5 of your LMS email needs that combine power with no to low cost are:
95% of LMS website projects just need this small selection of LMS email tools.
