Sending Post Notifications Via MailChimp

MailChimp is in the business of sending emails, and they do a great job. Their service is even free for lists with under 2,000 subscribers. Why not use MailChimp’s “Share Blog Updates” feature as a more reliable method of notifying my subscribers of new posts? Here’s how you can replace your blog subscription process with MailChimp’s:

Note: Rather than rewrite MailChimp help articles here that will inevitably become outdated and incorrect, we are relying on MailChimp’s own help articles. To get MailChimp-specific instructions, find their “Help” link on their website and use their excellent search feature. But we still have your back! If you’re unable to get it working, email blog_support@ntm.org to get help from a real human!

1. Create a Mailchimp account if you don’t already have one. It’s easy and free! Just head over to Mailchimp.com to get started.
2. Transfer your existing subscribers
   1. To export your subscribers from your Ethnos360 Blog, go to your dashboard, hover over “Subscribe2” in the left menu, and click on “Subscribers.” Then simply find the “Save Emails to CSV file.”
   2. Import that file into your Mailchimp list. You may need to create a list. I’d call it something like “Stephen and Rachel’s blog updates.” Search MailChimp’s help section for “Importing Contacts” for instructions
3. Set up a “Share Blog Updates” (or “RSS”) Campaign in Mailchimp. Search for “RSS Campaign” or “Share Blog Updates” in MailChimp’s help section.
   1. If you want to start with an Ethnos360 template, you can use one of these:
      1. One Column Template
      2. Two Column Template
      3. Multi Column Template
4. Replace your subscription form. This will keep people from signing up for your old, unused blog notification emails, and let them subscribe to your new MailChimp emails from your subscribe page.
   1. Prepare your MailChimp form. This can be done a number of ways. The easiest will be to use the MailChimp plugin.
      1. From your WordPress Dashboard (https://blogs.ethnos360.org/wp-admin will get you there) go to “Settings” > “MailChimp Setup”
      2. Follow the instructions to connect your MailChimp account and set up the form
   2. On your WordPress Dashboard, click on “Pages.”
   3. Find the “Subscribe” page in the list and click on it.
   4. Delete the old form. You are looking for a yellow “Subscribe2” box, or a tag that looks like [subscribe2] or <!--subscribe2-->. Once you delete that, the form will go away.
      1. If the page is blank, click on the “Text” tab to switch to text mode.
   5. Add the MailChimp form. If you’re using the built-in Mailchimp plugin as described above, you’ll do this by adding the [mailchimpsf_form] tag where you want the form to appear. I recommend using a short paragraph to describe what the form does. Something like “If you would like to receive notifications of my new blog posts via email, use the form below.”
5. Add yourself. I strongly recommend adding your own email address to the MailChimp list, so that you can see whether it works or not. If you use your @ntm.org email address, please be aware that the emails are likely to go into your junk folder. But don’t worry, it will reach the inbox of most of your other subscribers.

As always, you are free to email blog_support@ntm.org at any step along the way to get human help.