Mailchimp on a Multilingual WordPress

What is MailChimp ?

MailChimp is a tool that is used to send newsletters to its subscribers. It allows you to collect emails from readers in order to build a network. Today, it is an indispensable marketing tool on the web and one of the most used. It is free for up to 2,000 subscribers or 12,000 emails per month.

My blog GirlKnowsTech is available in French and English. So I naturally decided to set up a newsletter in French and another in English. I use qTranslateX as plugin to write my blog in both languages. This tutorial is going to use this plugin. But I think you can pretty much do the equivalent with other plugins like WPML.

Create your lists

Create your two forms of MailChimp. For me, one is in French and one in English. This will allow you to clearly separate your users. They will receive their emails in the language they have chosen!

Installation of your MailChimp lists on your multilingual WordPress

The problem with the plugin

From the beginning, I installed the plugin below because I thought it was the plugin MailChimp the most downloaded and this would probably be much easier and faster. Very quickly, I hit a wall: we can only have one form (thus only one language), unless you have the premium version.

When possible, I prefer to keep my money and see if other solutions are possible. For 1 month, I thought this was not the case until I realized that the MailChimp website already offers everything necessary to set up a form, a pop-up, and all that we need without having to use a plugin.

The solution without a plugin (and free)

To have a registration module in sidebar

You will have to create a form to integrate directly into your WordPress. Follow these steps:

1. Go to MailChimp, then select “Lists” in the navigation menu.
2. Against the list for which you want to create a form, click the arrow and “Signup Forms”
   
3. Select this option
   
4. Create the form that you want depending on the options offered by MailChimp. Then copy the code in a text field like this:
   
5. Go back to your WordPress dashboard. Go to Appearance > Widgets.
6. Add a text widget where you want to put the subscription form:
   
7. In the content of the Widget, paste the HTML code you copied at step 4.

Repeat all the steps below with your second form in the other language.
Instead of copying the code in the same widget, select the 2nd language (here English) and copy the code you just created.

That’s it for the widget in sidebar! And you managed to do it for free and without plugin!

For a registration pop-up by the language of the user

If you want a pop-up as shown above, follow these steps:

1. Repeat steps 1 and 2 of the last section.
2. Instead of selecting “Embedded Forms” in the third step, select “Subscriber popup” :
   
3. Design your form as you wish
   
4. When you’re done, click on « Publish »
5. Then click “View Code” to obtain the necessary code – copy (CTRL + C).
   
6. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Widget.
7. Add a widget in the language you just created the popup.
8. Paste the code in the content of the widget.

Repeat these steps and paste the code in the widget corresponding to the missing language. With QTranslateX, just change the language tab.

It is good to know that for the pop-up, you can change them via the editor on MailChimp, publish, and your changes will be automatically taken into account without updating the code in the widget content.

Any questions?

If you have questions, feel free to leave me a comment or email me at marie@girlknowstech.com.