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How to use MailChimp to send Event Espresso events by email
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ee_mailchimp.md

How to use MailChimp to send EE4 events by email

One problem with sending bulk emails directly from your WordPress website is that your emails are more likely to be spammed. You can add features such as SMTP mail to increase email deliverability. However, WordPress is not a specialist email platform. Some WordPress hosting companies don’t even allow you to send mass emails directly from your website. This is because sending emails in bulk uses a lot of server resources and can slow down your website.

Dedicated mailing list platforms

An alternative option is to use a specialist mailing list provider to email your subscribers when you publish a new Event Espresso event. Their servers are configured to maximize deliverability so your emails are less likely to be flagged as spam. They also have built-in features to help you comply with data protection legislation. And you also get offer professional options for email templates that aren’t available with most WordPress plugins.

MailChimp is the world’s leading mailing list provider, and is free until you have 2,000 subscribers. This article explains how to use MailChimp to send your Event Espresso events by email.

Step 1 – Prepare your WordPress site

Get your RSS feed URL

Event Espresso automatically generates an RSS feed listing all of your upcoming events. You can use the RSS feed to integrate MailChimp with your Event Espresso event site.

If you want your MailChimp emails to display all the upcoming events that you add to your website then your RSS feed will be http://your-domain.com/feed/events

If you want to email your subscribers when you add events to a specific event category then the RSS feed will be the URL for your event category followed by feed (e.g. http://your-domain.com/event-category/category-slug/feed/).

Find the URL for your RSS feed and save it in a handy place, as you’ll need to paste this into MailChimp later.

Step 2 – Set up MailChimp to send your ‘new event’ emails

Create a MailChimp account

First, go to mailchimp.com and create an account. It’s free to set up and you will only ever have to pay anything to MailChimp if you have particularly high numbers of emails or subscribers (view their pricing page to see if this will apply to you).

Create a List

Go to the Lists section of your MailChimp account and create a new list. This is where all your subscribers will be stored.

Follow the instructions to set up and configure a new list.

Import your subscribers

If you have existing subscribers that you wish to import to MailChimp, create a CSV file containing the data for your subscribers. There should be 1 column for each field – for example column 1 would include your subscribers’ email addresses (1 per row), column 2 would be their first names and column 3 would contain their last names, if these are the fields you wish to store. (If you don’t know how to create a CSV file, create an Excel spreadsheet with all your contacts, go to File > Save As and choose the ‘.csv’ file type.)

Go to the Lists section of your MailChimp account and click on your list. Click ‘Import subscribers’ from the ‘Add subscribers’ dropdown list. Follow the instructions to upload your CSV file. MailChimp will ask you to match the columns in the CSV file with the fields in your MailChimp list, then you can go ahead with the import. MailChimp will tell you if there are any problems with the data.

Note: Your subscribers will NOT receive an email to tell them that they have been imported into your MailChimp list.

Create a campaign

A ‘Campaign’ is basically any email that is sent by MailChimp to your subscribers. The next step is to create an RSS-Driven Campaign which will automatically send your new events to your subscribers.

  1. Go to the Campaigns section of your MailChimp account
  2. Click the Create Campaign button in the top right corner
  3. On the ‘What do you want to create?’ screen, select Create an Email
  4. On the next screen, go to the Automated tab and click Share blog updates. (This is the new way to send an RSS-driven campaign in MailChimp, and isn’t easy to find!)
  5. Name your campaign and select which list it will send to, then click Begin
  6. RSS Feed and Send Timing screen:
    1. Add the RSS feed URL which you copied in Step 1 – e.g. http://your-domain.com/feed
    2. Choose how often the emails will be sent and click Next
  7. On the To which list shall we send? screen, select the list you created in Step 2 and click Next
  8. On the Campaign info screen, fill in all the information (email subject, From name etc.) and click Next
  9. Select any Template and then click through to the Design tab.
Updated information from [Mailchimp's documentation](https://kb.mailchimp.com/campaigns/blog-posts-in-campaigns/share-your-blog-posts-with-mailchimp) here.

Now design your MailChimp RSS email

Now you get to design the email that will be sent to your subscribers whenever you add a new event. This is fairly self-explanatory although you’ll need to spend some time familiarizing yourself with it. Here are some tips:

  1. To automatically include your new events in the email, you need to add the RSS Header and/or RSS Items content block into your email. Find this in the Content section of the Design tab. The RSS Header element will add the title and description of your RDD feed and isn’t essential. The RSS Items block will add the title, content and a link to each new event on your WordPress website, so this is essential!
  2. It’s fine for you to add your own text before and after the RSS merge tags – for example an introduction to the email. But don’t edit anything within the *| |* merge tags. If you want to edit or remove any of the merge tags then you can read more about them at http://kb.mailchimp.com/merge-tags/rss-blog/rss-merge-tags. If the merge tags look scary and too technical for you then just ignore them and don’t make any changes to the sections that contain them, then you won’t risk breaking anything
  3. MailChimp will let you make various design changes to the email using the Style tab. This includes changing the background colour, fonts, spacing, link colour etc. Use these to style the email to match your brand, as well as uploading your logo to the header of the email.
  4. Once you have finished designing your email, click Preview and Test at the top of the screen. Enter Preview Mode lets you view how the email will look on mobiles and full-sized screens. Send a Test Email lets you send a test email to yourself. Test your email in both of these ways before sending anything to your subscribers.
  5. Once you’re completely happy with your email, click Next at the bottom right of the screen.
  6. On the next screen, check there are no errors. If everything looks good, click Start RSS.

What’s next?

Now your email is set up and will start being sent to your subscribers at the frequency you have selected. The email will only be sent when you have published new events to your website, otherwise nothing will be sent.

Step 3 – Start adding events!

Everything is now in place. Regularly add new events to your WordPress website and MailChimp will take care of the rest.

MailChimp will automatically check when new events are available in your RSS feed, and will email your subscribers at the specified time. Make sure you subscribe to your own list so that you receive the emails yourself. This allows you to spot any problems and make improvements over time.

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