What is Icegram?
Icegram is a free all-in-one WordPress plugin for inside visitor engagement. It uses popups, header/footer bars, notifications, messengers, and more to capture your visitors and turn them into subscribers. Icegram integrates seamlessly with almost all popular mailing list services out there, making it easy for you to do the follow-ups. Even though browser push notification is on the rise, email lists are still the king of subscriber lists and will be around for a long time.
As with other WordPress plugins, installing Icegram is as simple as visiting the plugin repository from within your admin area. Do a quick search, install, and activate the plugin, then your are ready to go.
Messages vs. Campaigns
The core concept of Icegram consists of two major elements: Messages and Campaigns. Messages are the form of communication that you want to deliver to your audience. There are four types of messages that you can do using Icegram:
Action Bar – a colorful solid bar on the top or bottom of your page that contains important messages or time-sensitive announcements. Toast Notification – an alert-style notification box that will appear for a while and disappear by itself if there are no interaction from users, similar to Growl notification. Messenger – a notification that will appear while your visitors are reading the content. As the name suggests, it’s similar to Facebook Messenger. Popup – this one is the most common form of attention grabbers and call-to-action tools. If you don’t know what a popup is, it means you are not connected to the Internet for the last decade or so.
On the other hand, Campaigns are a combination of Messages and Rules. A campaign allows you to sequence multiple messages and define targeting rules. You can create different campaigns for different marketing goals and show various campaigns on any page using Icegram.
Getting Started with Icegram
Upon installation, Icegram will create a sample campaign as an example. You can start building your campaign from scratch, but the easiest way to start with Icegram is to modify the sample campaign. The first time you activate the plugin, you will be brought to Icegram’s welcome page. The sample campaign is at the top of the page. You can “Preview” or “Edit and Publish” it.
Editing the campaign is very straightforward. It is similar to editing a post. So, unless you are a total WordPress newbie who has never created a post in your life, you will feel at home with Icegram.
Another quick way to kick off your campaign is to use the ready-made template that you can find in the “Gallery.” There are a ton of them to choose from, and all you have to do is click one of them, and the campaign will automatically appear in Icegram’s dashboard. No coding or special skills are required.
Since Icegram is point-and-click easy, and there are virtually unlimited possibilities that you can use with the plugin, it’s better for you to explore and experience it by yourself than to be deprived of the excitement that you deserve.
Getting Around Google Penalty
With the goal of providing the most relevant, high-quality search results, Google penalizes all the crappy content sites that use anything that prevents web users from getting the best experience around the Net. And unfortunately, the use of obtrusive pop-ups belong in this “hampering users’ experience” category. Icegram is advising users not to go wild in setting up their pop-ups. The good news is Icegram is working on a system that will make their pop-ups comply with Google rules. For the time being, you can set your pop-ups to be unobtrusive and use other types of messages such as action bars, toast notifications, and messengers which won’t be penalized by dear ole Google. What is your opinion of using Icegram on your WordPress site? Do you think it’s necessary? Share your thoughts in the comment below.
