Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an email marketing service that enables you to build a subscriber list, create an ongoing email marketing campaign, and more. It can also be used with WordPress seamlessly, further streamlining your email marketing campaign and enabling you to communicate with your audience.

The Newsletter widget requires Mailchimp API to gather users' email addresses. By spending a little time and following the steps below you can set up everything.

Step 1: Sign Up for a Mailchimp Account

Initially, we need to visit the official website of the Mailchimp Service and create an account.

Once you enter your initial information, you’ll want to access the email address you used to confirm your account.

After you activate your account, you can choose a Mailchimp plan. There are several to pick from, including a free option.

After you choose a plan, you’ll be able to fill out a couple of short forms. This will help Mailchimp build your account. You’ll start by providing some optional information about your business.

You can completely fill out the forms or skip some of them for now. Click on Finish when you’re done.

Step 2: Install the Mailchimp WordPress Plugin

We can use the Mailchimp service without any extra tools by installing the Mailchimp for WordPress plugin. To install the plugin, go to Dashboard and find the Plugins section from the left menu and choose Add New.

You need to search MC4WP: Mailchimp for WordPress, install it, and activate it on the opened page.

Once the plugin is installed and activated on your website, head to the Mailchimp Settings option within your WordPress dashboard. There, you can connect your Mailchimp account to your website using an API key.

This is how you’ll access your lists and forms from your site.

The Knowledge Base of the MC4WP: Mailchimp for WordPress plugin can be found here.

Step 3: Find and Generate an API Key

The API key is required to connect your Website with the Mailchimp service. To find your API key, head over to MC4WP > Mailchimp within WordPress Dashboard.

Below the API Key field, click on Get your API key here.

From there, you’ll be redirected to the Mailchimp website. Select Create a Key,

and then copy the code provided.

Return to your WordPress website, paste that code into the API Key field, and hit Save Changes.

Step 4: Add Mailchimp Forms to Your Site

Now we need to create the sign-up form to allow the site visitors to subscribe to our Newsletter. To do that head over to MC4WP > Mailchimp within WordPress.

Here you need to build the form using the available fields, and a preview of the form will be displayed:

You can use the following HTML code to create the same form as our demo.

<div class="form-fields">
  <div class="form-field">
      <input type="email" name="EMAIL" placeholder="Your email address" required />
  </div>
  <div class="form-button">
      <button type="submit">Subscribe</button>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="privacy-policy">
  	<label>
      <input type="checkbox" name="Privacy Policy" required /> I have read the <a href="#">Privacy Policy</a> and agree to its terms.
	</label>
</div>

Step 5: Displaying the Forms on your Site

You can display previously created forms on your website using WordPress Widgets or Companion Newsletter widgets.

Adding Mailchimp form to the sidebar.

We can add the Mailchimp form to our sidebars through WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets section.

Now the Subscription form will be displayed on the sidebar of Services Post:

Adding Mailchimp form to the pages.

Using the Newsletter widget for Elementor you can inset the form to the page:

A detailed description of the widget can be found here.