Handy Guide on Using MailChimp with WordPress

Do you own a WordPress powered blog/website? Are you thinking about building an email list or sending email updates to subscribers? If your answer is a ‘Yes’ to both these questions, then choosing the very popular email service provider called MailChimp will work for you. In today’s post, I’ll be walking you through the reasons that support the use of MailChimp with WordPress and how you can go ahead with the same by following some very simple steps.

MailChimp with WPWhat makes MailChimp a perfect fit for your WordPress blog or website?

Since its introduction, MailChimp has been regarded as one of the best beginner-friendly email service. Loaded with tons of WordPress integrations, MailChimp is the most affordable solution for website owners who want to send a whopping 12000+ emails on a per month basis. Apart from mere capturing of email subscribers and sending emails, MailChimp will also enable you to setup RSS to your WordPress website/blog email subscribers. Additionally, you’ll be able to setup auto-responders, design eye-catchy email templates and continuously monitor your email campaigns using analytics reports.

Now, let’s understand the way MailChimp works

Step 1- As the very first step you need to create a MailChimp account so as to connect MailChimp email service to your WordPress powered website/blog. The screen-shot for this step is shown below:

startwithfreeaccount

After having signed in successfully, you’ll be taken to the MailChimp dashboard.

Step 2- This is how the MailChimp dashboard looks like:

mailchimp

Use the above dashboard for setting up your first email list. For this, simply click on ‘Create A List’ button(as shown in above screen-shot). A form will be displayed on the screen where you’ll be asked to provide details like name of your email list, the email address where the users will be able to reply to, reminder for the people as to how they’ve reached your email list etc. After entering suitable details, simply click on ‘Save’ button and you’ll have your first email list created successfully.

Step 3- Now that you’re creating the email list, it’s time to connect the same to your WordPress blog/site, allowing visitors to subscribe to your posts. You can go ahead with adding the MaiChimp Email signup forms in your WP site/blog. For this, simply head towards the List pages in MailChimp account and click on downward arrow button placed adjacent to the just created email list. Here, you’ll be required to select the best suited sign up forms. Have a look at the below screen-shot:

step3

After having selecting the ‘Signup Forms’ options, you’ll be taken to a new page where you can view form types that can be generated. Here, simply click on ‘Select’ button placed next to Embedded Forms. Screen-shot for the same is displayed below:

generalforms

After selecting the form type, you’ll be redirected to the ‘Settings’ page where you’ll be able to select the fields that you intend to show on the form. Plus, you’ll also be able to tweak the form width in addition to other form assets. Once you’re done, just copy/paste the embed code onto your WordPress website. Screen-shot for the same is shown below:

classic

Step 4- As the final step, simply go to the WordPress admin dashboard and click on Appearance-> Widgets. Here, add the text widget to your WordPress sidebar, followed by pasting the code for MailChimp signup form into the same. The screen-shot for this step is shown below:

widgets

With that you’re done with adding the MailChimp signup form into your WordPress blog/website. Just visit your blog/site and you’ll be able to see the MailChimp sign-up form in action. Have a look at the below screen-shot for how the MailChimp signup form will look like:

mailchimp2

OptinMonster- A viable solution for increasing the count of email subscribers

Now that you’re well familiar with the method of adding a basic MailChimp signup form into your WordPress website/blog, getting people join your email list is made possible with OptinMonster. You can use this customer acquisition and leas generation solution for adding a wide range of signup forms like after post forms, slide-in forms, floating footer bar, lightbox popup and a lot more. Moreover, OptinMonster also allows you to perform A/B testing and page-level targeting for your WordPress powered web portal.

Summing Up

Using MailChimp with WordPress is perhaps an excellent approach of growing the count of loyal and long-time visitors for your WordPress blog/site. Hope the above post would have served you with helpful insights on making the most of MailChimp by integrating it with your WordPress online venture.

With the awesome experience in the industry of Web development Samuel Dawson is working as WordPress developer at senior level where he is responsible for psd to wordpress conversion in very less period of time. He is a true lover of coding and loves to code various applications related to web design & development.