In this video you'll go back to your live development site and use a different free plug in to set up
a MailChimp sign up form.
From there you'll expand the functionality to include synchronizing WordPress users with your MailChimp
list.
This system will come in handy for any sites you create which allow registration.
It could be a membership site with protected content or an e-commerce store like the one we'll be setting
up in the next chapter.
By the end of this lesson you'll have the knowledge to set up and manage marketing lists customer lists
and user registration through Wordpress and connected to the power of MailChimp for sending bulk email
back at your Wordpress dashboard.
Live site and your Wordpress live site from two videos ago.
I'm going to present you with a challenge right away.
Now this is the one that I had created I called it MailChimp test site.
As you recall it's at my web site Greg Davis dot com but it's a separate WordPress installation under
a subdirectory called MailChimp.
I'm also logged into the dashboard in the background and your challenge is to install a new plug in
which I am going to specify and install it activate it and configure it with your MailChimp list.
Now here is the list that I've been working on.
And you could see it's called Gray Davis notifications.
I did go through and erase all of the subscribers that were just fake subscribers within my list.
But make sure you have your MailChimp account open and open to your list that you're managing inside
your Web site.
If you go back to the Wordpress Web site that we created before this mailing list sign up form is the
one that we created in the instructions from two videos ago.
If you notice scroll a little bit further down.
And I have a second sign up form for that same list.
Now I set up this sign up form with a different free prologue in from the repository that I've used
and tested and I really think it's excellent.
Let's go to WordPress dot org.
And under plug ins you can do this within your Wordpress dashboard as well.
But I wanted to show you the name of the plugin.
It's called MailChimp for wordpress.
And at this time it's got more than 700000 active users.
It's by the plug in developer Iberia code.
And here's what it looks like inside the Wordpress repository.
Your challenge is to log into your live WordPress test site go to plug ins and click add new find that
plug in and install it and then use its functionality to connect your MailChimp account to your WordPress
website and create another Sign-Up form for that MailChimp list using the API code similar to the way
we did before but this time do it all yourself.
Pause the video now and give it a go.
I'm sure that went smoothly for you as if you've noticed.
You might have seen your selection where you can choose to have the plug in use the styles that are
in your existing theme.
You could see that this has the nice blue rollover.
The fonts are the same inside of the form as inside of this 2016 theme.
Unlike the MailChimp text widget when we used the specific code for MailChimp it styled itself and so
I'll just go through my steps very quickly.
Inside the Wordpress dashboard go to plug ins and I can click Add new and I'll look through these plugins
but I'll just do a search for MailChimp.
Just quickly show you what it would look like within the Wordpress dashboard and you probably found
this was pretty easy.
I may have searched for it directly by name but here it is MailChimp for Wordpress by your code and
it's already installed as you can see.
So if I go under their settings panel here I can click MailChimp and as I look my API code or API key
is connected already.
Just to review you would have had to go back into your MailChimp account.
Maybe you had to look around a little bit but if you go under your name and click account and you can
look under extras and you'll find where it says API keys.
There you can copy the API key and then paste it into the MailChimp API settings under the MailChimp
for Wordpress plugin settings and then you can see which MailChimp lists are within the account and
then you can go down here and click forms now in forms.
You may have spent a little bit of time figuring out how to make your form say first name and email
address.
I had to place my cursor right here in fact this stuff was not here.
What I did was I hit enter and I put my cursor right there and then I click here to add the first name
field.
It may as well put first name in the placeholder and it's the label called first name and yes I want
it required.
And sure I'll wrap it in the paragraph tags just like these other forms are inside the form and there
was it just placed it in there for me and I hit the save changes down here at the bottom.
I also just took a look at the messages that users will see once they hit the subscribe button and the
settings right here.
I wanted to go in here and I need to choose which list I want these users to be subscribed to and do
I want to use the double opt in which is.
Yes very recommended and I could redirect them to a special thank you page although I just left that
empty to leave it as the MailChimp default.
Then I hit save changes right here and really those were all the changes I needed make inside of the
plugin settings.
Then I went under.
Appearance widgets
and I just used the MailChimp sign up form widget that is provided by the plug and I brought it over
here and I just made a title for it and clicked Save.
And as I go up here and you look at the Web site you can see that it used those words for the title
and then it's styled nicely.
You know it's got me.
I actually had put your first name as the placeholder text and then right here and I did test this form
I filled out to an e-mail address and my name clicked sign up and I had gotten my verification and was
opted into the list.
Pretty easy right.
And really nothing new.
Just using a different plug in at this time.
Let's take a look at how we might register users as subscribers to this Web site.
Even though we don't have a membership or an e-commerce plug in activated yet we can still allow new
users to register an account on our WordPress site.
Now they won't be administrators but we can just give them the default roll of subscriber and then they'll
have a profile page where they can manage their e-mail address and their first and last name and their
site password.
And so back in the Wordpress dashboard one thing we can do under settings and under general is look
at one of our membership settings and we've got two fields here we need to choose let's just click the
box that says anyone can register and for new users their default role will just be subscriber.
What this will do is it will allow a register button and the registration fields on the log in form
to be activated.
So anyone can click register and find and register for the Web site.
So I'll just leave that box checked and click save changes.
Now how can I find the registration page fact let's just experiment here if I log out.
We can see that the log in form page comes up and it's at you know whatever you are is slash W.P. dash
log in Dot ph P as the log in page.
And if you see now that I've checked that users can register in addition to the last year password link.
I also have a register link here and if you look at when I roll over at the bottom left it just puts
a little piece on the end of the URL that has action equals register.
So if I click that I can register a new user.
So I'm going is going to choose a random username and an e-mail address.
Now you can't duplicate the e-mail address that you already have on your own web site.
And so if you have a separate e-mail address use that one or create a new e-mail address at gmail or
something like that that you can use for testing this.
So I'm just going to use my testing e-mail address that I know I have and I'll click the register button.
Now it says registration complete Please check your e-mail.
Now there might be more complex registration systems for customers of an e-commerce site like we're
going to explore in the next chapter or for a membership site that has protected content but the registration
system that comes with Wordpress is pretty simple and it works well.
Get you verify that the person is a real person by having them check their email and then confirming
and choosing their password so over in my email program I receive this email just a simple welcome and
click this first URL that it gives me to set my password.
So it opens up a page where it's going to give me a nice strong password or I can type in a simple one.
I want to for now I'll just hit Control C and just open Notepad real quick and preserve that so I can
remember the password of the new user and I can click reset password and there we go.
Then it gives you a nice log in button.
Now again here's the log in page.
So if I use the log in and password that I was just given I log in as a new user.
You can see that I don't have all of the Wordpress administration links and menu items on the left hand
side.
I just have a profile page.
I can change things like my password and my profile information.
And I also have access to a dashboard page which really doesn't give me much just some of the standard
Dashboard widgets.
But I don't have any of the controls over the site.
I'm basically just a subscriber and a membership site or an e-commerce site.
We'll give those users special permissions for certain places like check out or for protected content
on the membership site.
So one of the great things you can do with this plug in or with another MailChimp integration plug in
that I use quite extensively from PMU dev dot org is that when somebody registers as a user on your
wordpress site you can actually let them join your MailChimp list and get double opted into the email
marketing list without having them take any extra steps or fill in an extra form at all.
And so it's very convenient.
It works as well for this MailChimp for Wordpress plugin and we'll use this plug in to set up that user
synchronization inside of my dashboard or log back in as the administrator and I go over here and look
at users all users and you can see that I have that new user person right here didn't have a name that
I put in.
But there's the e-mail address and their role is a subscriber not an administrator.
Now if I go under MailChimp for WP and I look at integrations one of the things that it offers as a
part of the plug in is a registration form and a comment form integration.
So you could ask them if they'd like to join the MailChimp list or join to get the newsletter.
Anytime somebody either fills out the registration form or a comment form.
And so if we activate the registration form integration it'll bring up a settings page for that and
I need to click yes to enable all these selections here.
And I do want to ask them if they want to subscribe using a checkbox and so I click no here and then
I can go ahead and put the different integrations here.
I want to choose that specific list.
Sign me up for the newsletter is fine for now we're just testing this integration and this user synchronization
and then let's have the checkbox pre-selected let's just leave the regular default settings here.
Yes I want them to be double opted in.
And I don't want need to do anything for existing subscribers at this point.
So if I just hit save changes now as I have this MailChimp settings integrated because I have set up
that integration for the registration form I can now go ahead and sign up a new user and they will join
my MailChimp list right now if I go to lists in my MailChimp account and I'll go down and choose the
list that I want to manage.
You can see that I've got zero subscribers as I showed before.
So what I do now is log out and test that integration really quick.
So if I want to register a new user if you need to you can log in and look at the users and delete the
new user that you had entered before in order to test this registration system.
But you can see this register page now slightly different it's got a checkbox which says Sign me up
for the newsletter and then registration confirmation will be emailed to you.
And of course that will be coming from MailChimp.
So great if I just create another user you can delete that old user if you're going to reuse this email
but I'll use my other e-mail that I have Cobbe testing to get Greg Davis and let's register this user
great registration complete Please check your email.
If I go to my email and let's see if I look under my e-mail address and click get messages.
I should have two different e-mails now.
So I have my regular e-mail that came in from WordPress but I also have my e-mail confirmation opt in.
They came from MailChimp.
So if I just click yes subscribe me to this list I'll go to that default.
Thank you page.
Excellent that's what we tested a couple of videos ago.
And if I go back to my MailChimp account now if I refresh the page you can see it's going to add that
user in and that person is confirmed.
There's the e-mail address testing to Greg Davis dot com.
And excellent.
Now if I go back to the Wordpress dashboard and I log in as an administrator
let's just take a look at our users here users.
All users.
Now I've got three users.
So the great test is the one that I that I just made and now it did make a user even though I didn't
verify and get my passwords so this user won't be able to log in until they go ahead and get their password.
But that new user is or is also a user on the account.
But if you look back in MailChimp they're not actually on the mailing list because we just activated
the user synchronization for the registration form just now.
Not only just MailChimp for Wordpress allow you to register users on your MailChimp list through registering
in wordpress but it can also synchronize a little more powerfully through some synchronizations and
add on plugins that they offer for free as well.
The MailChimp user sync plug in is one you can get for free from the repository.
And once it's installed gives you the option within the settings of MailChimp for Wordpress to synchronize
via a synchronized button.
If you have a list of previous users that aren't already on a MailChimp list you can add them automatically
through your wordpress site and you can have back and forth users synchronization so that when people
make changes to their profile in MailChimp for example or unsubscribe they will be unsubscribed or removed
from the Wordpress installation as well.
In this lesson you used a free plug in to integrate user accounts in wordpress with a MailChimp email
list.
I'm sure you can see the power of setting it up like this for sites that allow users to register.
It allows you to properly send e-mail to a large group and build that email list through your Wordpress
Web site.
Speaking of user accounts in wordpress in the next chapter we'll be setting up an e-commerce Web store
which will be allowing registration and tracking of customers through WordPress.
We'll be bringing concepts from several past chapters in this course to light through building our store.
See there