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Email newsletters offer a fantastic way to stay in touch with your audience. You can send out weekly or monthly messages featuring new posts, events, products you have on offer, or just your thoughts and insights. Before you can do that, however, you’ll need to set up a newsletter subscription.
There are a lot of platforms you can use to send email newsletters, as well as create fully-realized marketing campaigns. Choosing the right solution will make your work a lot simpler. MailChimp, for example, integrates out of the box with the WordPress blogging theme Kale Pro, which enables you to add email subscription forms to your website in minutes.
In this tutorial, we’ll talk about MailChimp, and show you how to set up an email list and a sign-up form for your newsletter. Let’s get right to work!
An Introduction to MailChimp
MailChimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that enables you to set up landing pages, get access to user analytics, and of course, tackle email.
For this tutorial, we’re going to focus on MailChimp’s email marketing capabilities. The platform enables your website’s users to sign up for your email list via a dedicated form. Once they’re signed up, you can reach out to them using email campaigns of every type, including newsletters.
With MailChimp, you get access to a drag-and-drop interface to build your newsletter. You can even configure MailChimp to automatically submit your latest blog posts via email as often as you want:
The platform also includes functionality beyond simple campaigns, such as email automation, audience analytics, social media integration, and more.
MailChimp offers a broad range of plans for email marketing, including a free option that supports up to 2,000 subscribers. Due to its popularity, the platform is easy to integrate with WordPress. If you’re a Kale Pro user, you can also take advantage of the theme’s built-in integration with MailChimp, which we’ll show you in the next section.
How to Add a MailChimp Newsletter Subscription Form in WordPress (In 3 Steps)
Before we get started, you’ll need a MailChimp account. Go ahead and sign up for its free tier so you can test the platform out for yourself, and then move to step number one.
Step 1: Create an Email List
An email list is a collection of the email addresses for audience members who’ve elected to receive your communications. Visitors to your website can sign up to your list using a simple form.
When users sign up, they become part of your MailChimp contacts. You can send out a newsletter to an entire email list, or use segmentation to target specific types of users.
Once you’re logged into your MailChimp account, go to the Audiences tab and click on Create Audience:
‘Audience’ is the name that MailChimp gives to email lists. Now you get to choose a name for your list. On this screen, you can also configure what email address and name will be attached to your newsletters:
Scroll down, and you’ll see additional form settings. Go ahead and enable the ‘double opt-in’ setting, which sends users a confirmation email when they sign up:
Now hit the Save button, and you’re good to go. Your email list or audience is ready. Next, it’s time to add a newsletter subscription form to WordPress.
Step 2: Get Access to Your MailChimp API Key and List ID
MailChimp enables you to connect the platform to third-party services through its API. To get your form up and running, we’re going to use Kale Pro, which needs both your MailChimp API key and list ID to work.
The ‘list ID’ is a unique identification number for the audience you set up during the last step. To find it, open the Settings option for that audience, and click on Audience name and defaults:
At the top of the screen, you’ll see an Audience ID section, next to your audience’s name. Your ID is the highlighted combination of letters and numbers that appears within that section, as in the example below:
Keep in mind that your list ID will be different from the one in our example. Copy it somewhere safe, and then you can get your MailChimp API key.
Open your MailChimp account settings using the profile button at the top-right corner of the screen, and select the Account option:
On the next page, click on the Extras > API Key tab and scroll down to the section that says Your API keys. It should be empty at the moment, so click on Create A Key and MailChimp will set one up for you instantly:
Your API key will be a long combination of letters and numbers, as in the example above. Keep it private, though, since it can enable other users to connect to your MailChimp account.
Now that your API key is ready, copy it alongside your list ID. With those two items, you can go ahead and set up your newsletter subscription form in WordPress.
Step 3: Use Embed Code to Add a Newsletter Subscription Form to WordPress
There are several ways you can add a MailChimp subscription form to WordPress. One of them is using an embed code the platform gives you for each email list, and adding it via a text widget:
Although this approach works, the signup forms MailChimp generates by default are pretty dull. However, the right theme can help you make your forms more engaging and appealing.
Step 4: Use Kale Pro to Add a Newsletter Subscription Form to WordPress
At LyraThemes, we offer a range of highly-customizable themes that can get the job done. Any of these themes make it possible to create an attention-grabbing sidebar, section, or page for your sign-up form.
Plus, some themes go even further. With Kale Pro, for example, you get access to a built-in MailChimp widget.
All you have to do is place the widget where you want your newsletter subscription form to go, and paste in your API key and list ID.
Once users start to sign up to your list, you’re ready to send out your first newsletter. MailChimp offers an in-depth tutorial on how to create email campaigns, so we’d recommend starting there.
Conclusion
MailChimp is one of the best tools you can use to send newsletters to your website’s audience. It works seamlessly with Kale Pro, and offers a free tier so you don’t have to spend any money unless you have more than 2,000 subscribers.
Adding a MailChimp newsletter subscription form to WordPress is simple, and you can do it in three steps:
- Create an email list.
- Get access to your MailChimp API key and list ID.
- Use Kale Pro to add a subscription form to WordPress.
Do you have any questions about how to add a Mailchimp newsletter subscription form to WordPress? Let’s talk about them in the comments section below!
