MailChimp Newsletter Sidebox

A Zen Cart™ mod which allows you to use MailChimp's newsletter services instead of the native Zen Cart mailer.

Relevance: Zen Cart™ 1.3.0 and forward

Cost: Free, but donation appreciated

Location: Zen Cart Downloads page, under Sideboxes.

Download: MailChimp Newsletter Sidebox on Zen Cart Downloads Page

Add-Ons: The Newsletter Discount contribution interoperates with the MailChimp Newsletter Sidebox.

Current Version: 1.0

Support Thread: MailChimp Newsletter Sidebox Support Thread

Overview:

MailChimp is a great newsletter management service that has a per- message pricing model. This makes it much more affordable than Constant Contact (which bills by the month) for small businesses with infrequent bulk emailing needs.

Yes, Zen Cart has a built in newsletter service. However,

• MailChimp has a whole set of very sophisticated HTML templates that are provided free.
• MailChimp's service is de-coupled from your store, making it easier to sign up people who may not want to create an account.
• Having a third party send your commercial email makes it less likely that your hosting provider will cancel your account or push you into a more expensive plan due to excessive resource usage.
• MailChimp has a ton of analytics tools that show you how many people opened your email, clicked on links, etc.

Still not convinced? Learn more about MailChimp.

To sign up for their service, go to www.mailchimp.com

MailChimp Newsletter Sidebox allows you to create a sidebox in which people can subscribe to a newsletter provided by MailChimp.com.

MailChimp Newsletter Sidebox

Pre-Installation Instructions:

1. Read the MailChimp Email Marketing Guide and some of the resources offered by MailChimp.
2. Sign up for a MailChimp Account.
3. Create a list for your newsletter (press the Lists tab at the top of the page.) In your Sign-up form, I suggest only having email address; if you want more fields, you'll have to modify this contribution.
4. Press the Settings button for your new list, then click the link "Add The Signup Form To Your Website." This will take you to a screen which will show you your signup URL. It will look like this:

   http://list-manage.com/subscribe?u=12345abcde&id=1234567890
   

   You will be embedding the parameters (u=...&id=...) from this URL in the language file during the installation process.
5. Take the time to test and customize MailChimp before adding it to your site.

Installation Instructions:

1. Back up everything! Try this in a test environment prior to installing it on a live shop.
2. Copy the contents of the unzipped folder to the root directory of your shop.
3. Edit the file

   includes/languages/english/extra_definitions/mailchimp_sidebox_defines.php
   

   and set the BOX_MAILCHIMP_NEWSLETTER_ID to the value you noted during the pre-installation instructions.
4. In Admin->Tools->Layout Boxes Controller, turn on the mailchimp sidebox.
5. Changes to your Zen Cart configuration:
   1. In Configuration->Customer Details, set Show Newsletter Checkbox to 0.
   2. In Configuration->Email Options, set Display 'Newsletter Unsubscribe' Link to false.
   3. Assuming your template is called "custom," copy the file

      includes/languages/english.php to includes/languages/custom/english.php
      

      and change ENTRY_EMAIL_PREFERENCE from 'Newsletter and Email Details' to 'Email Details'.

Importing your Zen Cart Newsletter Subscriber List

To export a list of customers who are have signed up for your Zen Cart newsletter and import them into MailChimp, use the following procedure. I will assume you don't use a prefix for your table names; if you do, change customers to <your_prefix>_customers.

• Go into phpMyAdmin and select your database. Select the table "customers."
• Press the SQL button and enter the query

  SELECT customers_email_address FROM customers WHERE customers_newsletter = 1
  

• At the bottom of the screen, you'll see an "Export" link. Press it.
• You will now see the "Export" screen. Set the Export type to "CSV." Set "Fields enclosed by" to be blank (not double quote).
• Press the Go Button.
• In another window, log in to MailChimp, and press the Lists button.
• Click the name of the list, and press the "Import list" link.
• Confirm that your list is allowed, and paste the names from the phpMyAdmin window.
• Press the Upload Customer List button.

Note that you are not allowed to simply upload all your email addresses; only upload the ones who have given you permission to send them a newsletter.

If you've never had a newsletter before, and you want to see get permission from your existing customers, MailChimp has some suggestions. Zen Cart's email facility has a very useful filter: under Tools->Send Email, the "Customer" dropdown list has a selection entitled "Active customers in past 3 months." Be careful when you're doing this; the last thing you want is for customers to perceive you as a spammer.

This would probably be a good time to update your Privacy Policy. In admin, go to Tools->Define Pages Editor, and select "define_privacy.php." This file will be made visible if you use the "Information" sidebox (Admin->Tools->Layout Boxes Controller, turn sideboxes/information.php ON).

MultiLanguage Newsletters

With no software change, you can accomodate all the languages your cart supports. You will need to create a second newsletter list in MailChimp in the other language you support, and make a note of this list's id. Simply copy the file

./includes/languages/english/extra_definitions/mailchimp_sidebox_defines.php

to your other language directory (for instance, if your other language is Klingon, it would be

./includes/languages/klingon/extra_definitions/mailchimp_sidebox_defines.php

Then set the value BOX_MAILCHIMP_NEWSLETTER_ID in that file to the list id of your second list.

Providing Archives of your MailChimp Newsletter

MailChimp provides an archive service. All you have to do is plug the Archive Generator code into your site. Go to the Dashboard, and press Add/Edit Folders, create your Archive Folder, then press the "Archives" icon for that folder. This gives you a little snippet of code. You can either paste that code into an EZ Page, or you can use the About Us contribution to create a Newsletter Page.

Learning more about Newsletters

See the learning more section of the Newsletter Discount page.

If the information you learned reading this site is helping your store make more money, please consider making a donation. Thank you!

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