{"id":1552,"date":"2018-01-07T03:06:25","date_gmt":"2018-01-07T03:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/max-drake.cc\/?p=1552"},"modified":"2018-12-27T13:29:58","modified_gmt":"2018-12-27T13:29:58","slug":"how-to-create-subscription-lesson-plan-using-wordpress-mailchimp-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/max-drake.cc\/?p=1552","title":{"rendered":"How to create subscription lesson plan with WP & MailChimp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Background<\/h3>\n

I am closing down one of my web hosting sites, and have migrated to another site with the same blog and revised demonstration site.<\/p>\n

Although I have had the new site up and running for a month or more, and have informed people visiting the original blog to check out the new site, there is little indication that this is happening.<\/p>\n

I have been looking at my Google Analytics for the 2 main blog sites and there are very few visitors to the migrated site even though I have been putting later blogs on that one.<\/p>\n

The current http:\/\/cr8ive.org<\/strong> site will be closed at the end of January, so I would hope that most visitors will find their way to the new site https:\/\/max-drake.cc<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The main topic that visitors go to are ones about OpenMAINT. The open source FM programme. So I thought I would condense and tidy my blogs up into a series of lessons that I could send on to people who subscribed to the emails. I started writing the first few in December 2017\u00a0 & had previously dabbled with using an Email posting process that I could use to send information to subscribers.<\/p>\n

I had previously added to the sites a signup for a Feedly or RSS feed on the blog site, directed to the new site, but have had few signups for that process.<\/p>\n

So when reviewing the plugins for WordPress related to sending emails to a subscriber list, the one that stands out is MailChimp<\/a>. If you have been following any of my blogs, you will see that I prefer free versions of tools, if they are available, rather than using a paid service, if possible. MailChimp does have a free service , with a paid version as well.<\/p>\n

Idea of lessons<\/h3>\n

So, I had written a bunch of\u00a0 lessons, now I want to distribute them.<\/p>\n

If like me, you get really irritated by pop-ups and other annoying distractions such as flashing banners etc, then you’d understand that I was looking for a gentle way of getting my message to visitors who may be interested in the lessons. I found that there is a MailChimp Top Bar<\/a> plugin that you can install. That is not too loud, but it can sit up the top as a reminder if people are interested in OpenMAINT, and will hopefully subscribe.<\/p>\n

In the emails I planned to re-iterate the moving of the website to the new location as well.<\/p>\n

I also wanted to just send the lessons at a regular interval, so that I could keep up with the lessons over time. So I chose a week as the interval for sending the following lesson.<\/p>\n

I have done some academic teaching, and I appreciate that I do not write well under pressure, so I started to develop the first 5 lessons, just to get a feel for the structure, and also keep me ahead of the process.<\/p>\n

Process<\/h3>\n

First, you need to go to MailChimp<\/a> and create an account. It is free.<\/p>\n

Also, you need to download and activate on your site\/s the following 2 plugins (if you want the top bar, only the first, if you do not):<\/p>\n