Add Email Subscription to Your Blog with MailChimp

You have heard again and again that you should be building an email list with your website? But how do you do it? Using MailChimp to deliver your blog updates is the most robust and customizable way to do this. It takes quite a bit of work, but it is worth it. In this tutorial, we will go through each step needed to add a subscription box to your blog so readers can subscribe by email.

Step 1: Create a Free MailChimp Account

http://mailchimp.com/

Step 2: Create a List Where Signups Will Be Added

This is the list signups will be added to when they subscribe.

Step 3: Create a New Campaign (RSS-Driven Campaign)

Click Campaigns

Then Choose RSS-Driven Campaign

Step 4: Add Your Blog Feed URL

This is usually your URL then “/feed”

Step 5: Select the List You Created in Step 2

Step 6: Setup Your MailChimp Campaign

Step 7:  Select a Template

I recommend using the first option, “1 Column”.

Step 8: Modify Your Template

Update banner image with 564px x 184px image

Change header text

Delete this block

Add Rss items

Add social share

Step 9: Start RSS

Not quite…

Step 10: Create a Signup Form to Add to Your Site

Go Back to “Lists”, then use the pulldown for “Signup forms” for the list you created in step 2.

Step 11: Choose Embedded Form

Step 12: Setup Naked Form

Step 13: Embed on Site

Back at your WordPress site, go to “Appearance”, then “Widgets” to add your embed code to the sidebar of your blog page. Note: You may need to edit the embed code to look right on your site. One common issue if that the submit button does not show. To fix this, remove the “<div class=”clear”>” around the submit button code.

Whew!! You made it! You can see our signup form to the right. If this post helped you, we appreciate the share!