Setting up MailChimp on Your WordPress Website

MailChimp is a great tool for capturing the email addresses of your website’s users and then sending them your newsletters. In this article, I will show you how to setup MailChimp for a WordPress website. Because MailChimp’s free (no credit card required!) plan can handle up to 2,000 email subscribers and send up to 12,000 emails a month, it’s my favorite.

How to setup MailChimp

  1. First things first. You need to signup for an account with MailChimp. Do that here.
  2. Next you need to install a plugin on your WordPress site to connect with MailChimp. This lets you setup some nice email subscription forms on your site. I use MailChimp for WordPress. While the plugin was created by a third-party, it has over a million websites currently using it and a 5-star rating on WordPress. You can get it here or through the plugin manager in your WordPress install.
  3. After you’ve activated MailChimp for WordPress on your website, you need to get an API key from MailChimp and put it into the plugin’s settings. The link to get the API key is in the plugin settings next to where the key goes. Create it, copy and paste it into the plugin and hit save.
  4. Now you need to put the MailChimp widget in the appropriate place on your website. Go to the dashboard and then Appearance > Widgets on the left-hand side. Drag and drop “MailChimp Sign-Up Form” to the right place. Change the title to something like on this website’s footer “SUBSCRIBE TO THE MARKETING HACKERS NEWSLETTER!”. Save.
  5. Next, look on the left-hand side of the screen for “MailChimp for WP” and choose “Form.” Create your form and save. I chose email and first name for my email signup list. Look through the options to familiarize yourself with them and what information you need for future, more specialized campaigns.
  6. Test your signup/subscription form, which should now be appearing on your post pages and wherever else your widget is set to appear in your theme.
  7. Congratulations! You can now create email and newsletter campaigns in MailChimp, while growing your list on your website.

Follow my handy checklist for best results for your WordPress website!

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Mont Cessna
Mont has 10+ years experience in digital marketing. Experienced with LAMP, CMS and HTML5/CSS3 website development, Mont also excels at math and C/C++/C#. He has managed multi-million dollar media buys though Outbrain, Facebook, Taboola, Yahoo Native, Google AdWords and a number of other display advertising vendors. Mont's written work has regularly appeared on the first page of Google News results and the homepage of Yahoo! He has a B.Sc. in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing from Drexel University.