With over 15 years as a professional webmaster, I‘ve helped countless businesses grow their email lists and improve conversions through marketing automation.
In this comprehensive 2,300+ word guide, I‘ll share everything you need to know to get results with Mailchimp and WordPress.
Contents
Why You Should Be Building an Email List in 2024
Some say email marketing is dead, but that couldn‘t be further from the truth.
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Over 4 billion people worldwide use email today, and the number of email users is expected to increase to over 5 billion by 2025 [1].
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In the US, the average worker spends over 5 hours per day in their email inbox [2].
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Email generates $42 for every $1 spent, delivering the highest ROI of any marketing channel [3].
Clearly, email is here to stay and still incredibly effective when done right. But don‘t just take my word for it.
After helping clients build their subscriber lists for over a decade, I‘ve seen firsthand how a strong email strategy drives business growth.
Here are a few benefits you can expect:
Direct Access to Potential Customers
Email gives you a direct line of communication to anyone who opts-in to your list. Segment and target subscribers based on interests and behaviors. Craft relevant, personalized messages and offers.
This level of personalization is hard to match on social media or through advertising.
Higher Conversions and Sales
Email converts. Plain and simple. Every email you send is an opportunity to guide subscribers along the buyer‘s journey.
Sell products directly through email campaigns. Promote content and webinars to nurture leads. Emails keep you top of mind until readers are ready to buy.
Improved Analytics for Optimization
Email marketing analytics provide a wealth of data to optimize your strategy.
See which subject lines get opened most. Identify popular content to produce more of. Analyze subscriber demographics and behaviors.
This insight helps you refine both your emails and website for maximum impact.
Brand Building and Loyalty
An email subscriber list helps build meaningful relationships over time. You become a trusted advisor instead of a random website they once visited.
Send subscribers valuable content, not just sales pitches. Help them with resources and education related to your brand.
This organic brand building fosters loyalty in a way that paid advertising rarely does.
Of course, you need the right tools and strategy to maximize these benefits. Next I‘ll explain why Mailchimp remains a top choice.
Why Mailchimp is Still One of the Best Email Service Providers in 2024
Launched in 2001, Mailchimp pioneered making email marketing accessible for small businesses. It‘s still one of the top solutions today.
After testing over 14 different email service providers over my career, here‘s why I still recommend Mailchimp:
Generous and transparent free plan – Up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month are free forever. Paid plans start at $9.99 for up to 500 additional subscribers. Many competitors bait and switch with "free trials" that require a credit card upfront.
Easy email builder – The drag-and-drop editor simplifies designing great looking emails. Lots of mobile-optimized templates and blocks for headlines, images, dividers, social sharing, etc.
Automations included – Set up "if this, then that" sequences based on subscriber behaviors right from Mailchimp. For more advanced scenarios, Zapier integration automates cross-platform workflows.
Reliable deliverability – Mailchimp sends over 15 billion emails per month. Their domain and IP reputation helps emails reliably reach the inbox rather than getting flagged as spam.
Detailed analytics – Mailchimp provides excellent email campaign analytics. See unique opens, clicks, unsubscribes, top links, etc. Integrates with Google Analytics for deeper analysis.
WordPress integration – Mailchimp plays nicely with WordPress. Lots of form plugins and easy ways to embed subscription forms for capturing emails on your website.
Top-notch support – Knowledgeable 24/7 customer support via live chat, email, or phone.
The downsides? Mailchimp‘s templates aren‘t the prettiest. Advanced features like dynamic content are reserved for higher tiers. And contacts over 2,000 require costly upgrades.
Even with its limitations, Mailchimp remains a recommended starting point for WordPress users wanting to grow their email list. Especially those on a tight budget.
Next, I‘ll walk you through setting up your Mailchimp and WordPress accounts step-by-step.
Getting Started with Mailchimp in 5 Steps
Let‘s go through getting your Mailchimp account created and connected to WordPress.
Step 1: Sign up for a Mailchimp account
First, head to Mailchimp and enter your email address. Select a username and password and click the Sign up button.
Check your inbox to confirm your account. Then log in to your new Mailchimp dashboard.
This is Mission Control for your email campaigns, automation, and subscriber management.
Step 2: Set up your first audience and default Mailchimp fields
Audiences allow you to group contacts based on different segments, like newsletter subscribers vs. ebook downloaders.
Let‘s set up a main Audience to organize subscribers from your website.
Go to Audiences > Create Audience and name it something like "Website Subscribers".
Then go to Account > Account settings > Default email to map Mailchimp‘s default fields to the data you want to capture.
Map FIRST NAME and LAST NAME, then add any other fields like CITY or COMPANY.
Step 3: Design your first email campaign
Time to create your first email campaign!
Go to Campaigns > Create Campaign > Regular Campaign.
Pick a pre-made template or start from scratch. Drag, drop, and customize the design using Mailchimp‘s builder.
Add your brand colors, insert images, and swap fonts using the style panel.
When your design is complete, leave the campaign in the Drafts tab for now.
Step 4: Install and set up a Mailchimp plugin for WordPress
Now let‘s connect your Mailchimp account to your WordPress site.
You have a few options for plugins. I recommend either OptinMonster or WPForms based on testing with dozens of clients over the years.
If you want popups and landing pages, go with OptinMonster. For complete form customization, choose WPForms.
Install your selected plugin and activate it.
Then browse for the Mailchimp integration settings and enter your API key, which you can find under your Mailchimp profile.
The plugin will now sync data between your WordPress site and Mailchimp account.
Step 5: Add a signup form to your website
Lastly, it‘s time to add a newsletter signup form to your site.
OptinMonster has easy form widgets and popups. WPForms has a drag-and-drop form builder you can embed anywhere.
Try different forms in sidebars, headers, footers, posts, and popups. I typically recommend 3-5 signup form placements per website.
That covers the basics of getting started with Mailchimp. Now let‘s dive into some pro tips for growing and optimizing your email list.
7 Professional Tips for Rapid Email List Growth
Over my career working with marketing clients, I‘ve identified strategies that consistently boost email subscription rates.
Here are my top professional tips for getting more email signups:
1. Offer a lead magnet in exchange for emails
People need a reason to share their contact information. Lead magnets provide that incentive.
Offer something of high perceived value, like an ebook, checklist, or video course in exchange for an email address.
List building giveaways should closely tie to your niche and provide upfront value to subscribers.
For example, a workout app could offer a free recipe book for healthy smoothies.
This helps you collect targeted, high-quality leads interested in your content.
2. Promote giveaways and opt-ins across your website
Once you have a lead magnet created, display opt-in offers frequently across your site.
Show signup forms and giveaway entry boxes in:
- Website headers and footers
- Sidebars and widget areas
- Popups and slide-ins
- Within blog posts and resource pages
This increases visibility and gives interested visitors multiple opportunities to opt-in.
3. Personalize outreach to visitors
One of Mailchimp‘s strengths is segmentation and personalization.
Target different signup offers to visitors based on their interests and behaviors on your site.
For example, show a popup with a discount code to those who visit your pricing page. Or display a slide-in for your most popular guide to readers returning to your blog.
Tailored CTAs convert significantly better than a generic "Subscribe Now!" ask.
Don‘t immediately pitch subscribers through email. Start by providing value.
Send a regular newsletter with curated content, tips, or company updates subscribers will appreciate.
Gradually transition to promoting products, events, or offers once you have established trust and authority.
5. Automate your email workflows
Automation is key to streamlining email marketing. Here are a few ideas:
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Welcome sequence when a customer first subscribes
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Abandoned cart recovery emails in ecommerce
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Event reminder emails leading up to a webinar
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Re-engagement sequence for inactive subscribers
Automation allows you to create workflows and triggers that scale your efforts.
6. Make unsubscribing easy
Though counterintuitive, having a clear unsubscribe link improves deliverability and long term subscriber retention.
Some useful tips:
- Include unsubscribe links in your footers
- Tag subscribers who unsubscribe so you don‘t email them again
- Periodically clean up inactive subscribers from your list
Show subscribers their preferences are respected. This builds trust in your brand over the long haul.
7. Continuously optimize based on email analytics
Pay close attention to the analytics from each email campaign. Metrics like opens, clickthrough rates, and unsubscribe give invaluable insight.
Use this data to continuously optimize every aspect of your emails – from subject lines to content.
Try A/B testing different elements like call-to-action copy, images, and send times. Double down on what drives the best results.
Now that you‘re armed with professional tips, let‘s look at automating your workflows.
How to Automate Email Marketing Workflows Between WordPress and Mailchimp
One of the biggest headaches of email marketing is the busywork of manually triggering each campaign.
That‘s where marketing automation comes in handy.
For example, you could automatically enroll someone in a 5-day onboarding sequence when they subscribe to your list.
Automation handles the busywork so you can focus on strategy.
My platform of choice for automation is Uncanny Automator – a powerful WordPress tool for creating recipes and workflows.
Let‘s walk through setting up an automated 3 email nurture sequence with Uncanny Automator.
Step 1: Install and activate Uncanny Automator
Like other plugins, search for Uncanny Automator in your WordPress dashboard and install + activate it.
You can find tutorials for adding plugins in this Beginner‘s Guide.
Step 2: Create a new automation recipe
Go to Uncanny Automator > Add New Recipe. Name your recipe.
For the trigger, select "A user registers on the site" under WordPress triggers. This will activate the workflow when someone signs up.
Step 3: Set up the first email action
Click the Mailchimp integration to connect your account if you haven‘t already.
Then add a Mailchimp action. Select the type as "Send Email" and pick your audience and campaign.
Configure the premade email content. Make sure the send date is set to "Immediately".
Step 4: Add two more email actions
Follow the same process to add 2 more Mailchimp emails to your automated sequence.
Space out the send dates, for example:
- Email 1 sent immediately
- Email 2 sent 2 days later
- Email 3 sent 4 days later
This sets up a drip sequence to nurture subscribers over time.
Step 5: Test and publish
Preview the emails and test the recipe. When everything looks good, move the automation from "Draft" to "Published".
Now your 3 email nurture sequence will be automatically triggered each time someone signs up to your email list.
Automation is a must for scaling your email marketing efforts as your list grows. This guide should provide a framework to get started.
For many more recipe ideas and workflows, see our complete Uncanny Automator tutorial.
Now let‘s recap everything we‘ve covered.
Recap and Next Steps
Here‘s a quick recap of what we learned:
- Email marketing delivers results, so keep building your list in 2024
- Mailchimp balances generous free plans with powerful features
- Connect Mailchimp with WordPress seamlessly using plugins
- Grow your list faster with lead magnets, popups, automation, etc.
- Continuously analyze data and optimize campaigns for better results
The strategies in this guide follow email marketing best practices I‘ve refined over my 15 years as a webmaster and digital marketer.
I highly recommend taking it step-by-step, rather than trying to implement everything at once. Start with nailing your signup forms and lead magnet. Then work your way up to segmentation and automation.
If you have any other questions on email marketing, feel free to reach out in the comments below! I‘m always happy to help fellow marketers.
