A guide to automating single and multiple RSS feeds in email campaigns with Mailchimp (Now even easier!)
Repurposing your blog content into an email newsletter is a great way to offer your site users a more convenient way to receive your content. The fact this can be automated removes all of the hassle from you and allows you to schedule your content on a regular basis.
MailChimp RSS campaigns allow you to automate RSS-to-email campaigns. When the Real Simple Syndicate (RSS) content is updated, an automated email will be sent to your subscribers. Great where you want to include a single RSS feed however, sometimes you might need a little more flexibility.
This type of campaign works best when you have to notify your subscribers of new blog posts. You can send a single email once a week or maybe once a month. It depends on the preferences of the subscribers and on the frequency of new publications.
If your blog includes a number of categories, or your site has multiple RSS feeds, you may wish to let your subscribers choose which RSS feeds they receive. Rather than sending out a campaign for each feed, you can create and automate multiple RSS-to-Email campaigns where the content of each email is tailored to individual subscribers based on their subscription preferences. For this you’ll need to use a tool like FlipRSS alongside your Mailchimp account.
If you want to see how to set up automated emails with multiple RSS Feeds based on subscriber preferences jump to that section.
**NOTE:** Since this was written an update has been made to FlipRSS with much deeper integrations for both Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor. It’s now easier than ever to set up an automated multiple RSS to email campaign.
How to create an automated RSS-to-Email Campaign with a single RSS feed
Follow the steps below to create your first RSS campaign in MailChimp.
1. Click on the Campaigns in the top menu inside your account.
2. Click Create Campaign and choose RSS campaign.
3. Enter the RSS feed URL. This is the feed URL of your blog (normally www.yourblog.com/feed).
4. Choose when to send the email, daily, weekly, or monthly.
5. Select the time of the email and the days for the campaign.
6. It is recommended to check the Resize RSS feed images to fit a template. This will resize the images so that they fit easily in the template.
7. Click Next once you are done with the settings on the RSS feed.
8. Choose the list, segment, or a group for your campaign.
9. You can create a new group or a segment based on subscriber behaviors. This is what makes your RSS campaign personalized.
10. Click Next to proceed to Setup step.
11. Time to enter campaign details such as campaign name, email subject, from, tracking options, and social media settings.
12. Click Next once you have filled the campaign info to move to Template step.
13. Select a template for your campaign.
14. You will move to the Design step when you select a template.
15. Edit and design the template. You will see RSS related content blocks. You can use them in the email.
16. Click Next once done to move to the Confirmation step.
17. This is where you can review the campaign and edit it if needed.
18. It is strongly recommended to Review and Test your campaign before starting it. Send a test mail and see how it works.
19. When you are ready, click Start RSS to start the campaign.
MailChimp will send emails automatically on the selected days only if there are new posts. You can edit the campaign anytime.
How to create an automated RSS-to-Email Campaign with multiple RSS feeds
It’s possible to code multiple RSS feeds into a single newsletter with Mailchimp alone however, you can’t automate these or only include feeds subscribers specify. That’s where FlipRSS comes in. Linking FlipRSS with your Mailchimp account lets you fully automate the process whilst giving your subscribers full control over the content they receive. More targeted content = Higher engagement = Increased subscriber satisfaction.
Follow the steps below to create your first automated multiple RSS-to-Email campaign with FlipRSS and MailChimp. Once set up, this campaign will run automatically and send your subscribers personalised content based on their preferences.
**NOTE** These steps have been updated to reflect a deeper integration between FlipRSS and Mailchimp.
1. Set up your Mailchimp and locate and create your API key
2. Set up a new list in your Mailchimp account. This will be the list FlipRSS uses to send out your multiple RSS feed campaign.
If you’d like to give your subscribers the option of which feeds they subscribe too, follow steps 3–4, if not — jump to step 5.
3. Create groups within your list for the different subscriber preferences. For example, if you are a job site, you can create a group for each of the industry categories on your site. (See our guide to making the most of Groups in Mailchimp) — Remember what you name the different groups as you’ll need to add these to FlipRSS later.
4. Include your Mailchimp subscription form on your website and make sure it includes the group options so users can specify which content they want to receive.
5. Set up your FlipRSS account and connect to your Mailchimp using your Username and the API Key you created in Step 1.
6. Create a template for your Mailchimp Newsletter if you haven’t already. (Here’s a guide on uploading a custom HTML newsletter template to Mailchimp). Unfortunately Mailchimp’s simple template editor strips out this code — even when entered into a code block. If your template has been created with the simple editor you’ll need to export the HTML, add the code using a code editor (Step 7 below) and import the updated template back into Mailchimp.
7. Add a custom tag to your template where you want your FlipRSS content to appear.
If you want your content to appear within a div tag it will look something like: <div mc:edit=”fliprss_content”><div>
If you want your content to appear within a td tag it will look something like: <td mc:edit=”fliprss_content”><div>
8. Now you have your account set up, you can create your first automated multiple RSS-to-Email campaign. Login to FlipRSS and click “Create New Campaign”.
9. Add your campaign settings
Campaign Name — this is for internal use and will be displayed as the internal campaign name within your Mailchimp account.
‘Email Subject’ is the subject line that your subscribers will see. See Mailchimp’s advice for subject lines
From Name is the name you want your campaign to appear from when it arrives in your subscribers Inbox — i.e. James at flipRSS
Your from email address is the email address the campaign will appear to come from. Make sure this email address has been verified within Mailchimp. Instructions for verifying email addresses in Mailchimp
Template URL — Choose the template you added your FlipRSS code to (Step 7) from the drop down list.
Find the Mailchimp list you set up in Step 2 in the drop down.
You may want to run a test of this campaign to see how your RSS feeds are being displayed and to ensure that users are receiving only what they subscribe to in their preferences.
If you create a new list within Mailchimp, then add a number of your own email addresses or team emails, each with their own subscription preferences. Find this list in the ‘Test List’ drop down menu. When you’ve completed your set up you can test your campaign and we’ll send an instant test to this list.
10. Save your ‘Campaign Settings’ and click on the second tab, Add RSS Feeds. Add all of your RSS feeds here. You will be able to select whether these appear to all subscribers or only to subscribers of certain groups and choose whether the feed name appears in email to users. You can also set the maximum number of posts to include from each individual feed.
· Add a name for the RSS feed.
· Add the feed URL — if you need help finding this see our guide to finding your websites RSS feed addresses.
11. When sending an RSS feed to subscribers of a certain group, choose the “Specify a Group Name” option and select the group from the drop down list. Once completed, click save and move to the third tab, Organise RSS Feeds.
12. Here you can drag and drop feeds to change the order they’ll appear for users, edit feeds and delete feeds. Once finished editing the order of your feeds just click on tab number 4, Design.
13. Here you can choose between posts being displayed inline, so image left text right, or block — image above text. Save your settings and move on to tab number 5, Schedule and Send.
14. Choose whether you want to schedule the campaign or send manually. If you choose the manual option it will send this one time only. This is useful for standard and one off RSS newsletter. If you choose scheduled, you’ll see options for the frequency of you newsletters.
· Choose from daily, weekly or monthly and add the settings that apply to your choice.
· Once you’re happy you can send a test email if you’d added a Test List ID in the Campaign Settings tab.
15. Once you are happy, just click ‘Save Schedule’ and you’re done! We’ll take care of the rest. Just log in to Mailchimp after the scheduled date to get your email report as normal.
You may also be interested in our article: Boost your email marketing — a simple way to blend email automation with personalisation
To automate multiple RSS Feeds with FlipRSS today use our 30 day free trial. We’ll personally help you get st up to make sure you get the best of your free trial. Try FlipRSS here.
