Setting up a MailChimp sign-up form on your website

Now you’ve got your website set up, you might be wondering how to extend your reach. Enter MailChimp – an email marketing service that you can use for free.

A while back, we wrote about creating a proper mailing list with MailChimp to avoid spamming your customers, colleagues, friends and family. In this post, we’re going to show you how to create that list and embed a sign-up form on your WordPress website. In later posts, we’ll show you how to segment your list for sending more great content to your clients and customers based on the content they want from you.

Step 1: Get your free MailChimp account

Go to MailChimp.com to create your account. You’ll be asked to activate it from an email you’ll receive in your Inbox. You’ll be asked to confirm that you are human (fill out a captcha code). You’ll be redirected to the login page.

Step 2: Create your email list

First thing to do is to create a list. In the top right of the page, click on the menu item “Lists.” Then from the left sidebar menu, click on create a list. Give your list a name that makes sense to you. Then fill in the all the lines of information to create your list. This image shows you what you’ll need to fill out.

You can manually add subscribers by clicking “Subscribers.” Supply email address, first & last names and tick the box to indicate you have permission to add this person to your list.  If you already have a mailing list in either a csv or Excel format you may import your subscribers.

Step 3: Design your sign-up form

From the Lists page, select Design your sign-up forms. This is the email form that your fans will fill in to get your email – so make it look good. Add a header, include only the information that you must have to sign people up. The fewer boxes the better. People go cross-eyed when they see long sign up forms. Work your way through the tabs at the top of the form builder (Build It, Design It, Translate It, Share It. Use the colours from your website (good branding advice).
At the Share It tab, you’ll grab some code for embedding the form in your site.

Step 4: Add the MailChimp form to your site

Install and activate the MailChimp List Subscribe Form Plugin for WordPress

1. Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress
2. Navigate to Settings click MailChimp Setup.
3. Enter your MailChimp API Key and let the plugin verify it.
4. Select the list where you want to send new MailChimp subscribers.
5. Turn MonkeyRewards off.
6. Add the MailChimp Widget into one of your Widget Areas.

MailMunch is another plugin that we recommend

Presto! Your fans and followers can now be added to your mailing list. Did this process work for you? Leave us a comment or ask a question.

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