Genesis eNews Extended (newsletter/subscribe)

The subscription/newsletter/email marketing areas you see in the WordPress theme demos (example above) all use a plugin called Genesis eNews Extended.

Now, if you don't have an email marketing service and you're interested in starting one, I recommend these two –– Mailchimp & Flodesk.

Note: Genesis eNews Extended can be set up with just about every email marketing service (Mailchimp, Flodesk, ConvertKit, and many others). And because of this very reason, I just cannot create a tutorial for every single one of them. So if you use a different email marketing service than any of these below, you will need to do a quick search in Google: Genesis eNews and [whatever email service you use]. There will definitely be a tutorial out there that will help you connect your service with eNews!

Flodesk

Flodesk is my new fav. It’s insanely user friendly and comes with aesthetically pleasing templates that are on-brand and super easy to customize. Sending out newsletters and collecting subscribers has never been so easy. They also have gorgeous and mobile-friendly pop-up forms you can use on your site as well. I recently made the switch from Mailchimp to Flodesk because of these very reasons + more. Get 50% off your Flodesk plan here. They have a free trial!

Mailchimp

Mailchimp comes with tons of nice features too! One of the nice things about Mailchimp is that they have a free plan- but only until you hit 2,000 subscribers.

Jump to Mailchimp Tutorial

Setting up Genesis eNews with Flodesk

This tutorial is only for integrating Flodesk ( < get 50% off with that link. boom.) with Genesis eNews Extended if you want your sign up form to match your Hearten Made theme. Flodesk has TONS of other templates + options, and ways to add forms to your website though! Like pop up forms!

1. Create an account with Flodesk ( did you click it yet? did I mention 50% off? ) if you haven’t already, and then confirm your email address by clicking the link in the confirmation email they sent you to activate your account.
2. Go to the Flodesk homepage and go to Audience > Segments at the top.
3. Click “+ Add segment” and then name your new Segment. I’m naming my segment “Subscribers”. You’ll see your new Segment appear below
   

   

4. Now click on Forms at the top and click the “+ Add New” button to create your form



5. In the next window, click Inline on the left side and then choose the first ribbon banner form



6. You’ll now be prompted to choose your segment. From the dropdown, choose the segment you made from Step 3.
   

   

7. After saving, you should now be in the Design tab. Just click Next at the top because we only want to collect subscribers and not design it – The design of this template will end up automatically matching your Hearten Made theme because later we’re going to add the codes to Genesis eNews!
8. Now you should be in the Customize tab. You’ll be be asked a few questions- like if you want subscribers to double opt-in, receive notifications when people sign up, etc. Choose your answers and keep clicking the Continue button at the top until you get to the Embed tab.
9. In the Embed tab, you will get two code snippets. You will only need to add the Header code to your WordPress website so that your subscribers can sign up. Because Hearten Made themes are built on the Genesis Framework, you won’t need to download a plugin for Header Scripts. It’s already built in- woop woop!
   

   

10. Open a new browser window and go your WordPress Dashboard. Go to Appearance > Customize > Theme Settings > Header/Footer Scripts In Header Script area, paste the Flodesk HEADER code (NOT the inline code) and save.
    

    

11. Go back to Flodesk, and click Advanced Options > then click Get Genesis eNews Snippets. These snippets are what you’re going to add to your eNews widget in the next steps, so keep this window open so you can copy and paste these into the widget!
    

    

    
    
    

12. Go back to your WordPress dashboard again and go to Appearance > Customize > Widgets. If you haven’t done so already, add a Genesis eNews Extended widget to the widget area where you want the form to display. Copy the snippets from Step 11 and paste them into the eNews widget. DON’T FORGET to add the Hidden Fields to the widget, or your sign up won’t work.
    
    Note: if you only want to collect First Name & Email Addresses, leave the Last Name field blank!
    

    

13. The important part is adding those fields to the widget, but feel free to customize everything else how you want– like the title, Text to Show Before form, input fields, button text, etc.
14. Now it’s time to test out your newsletter!! Go to your website or blog and Subscribe to your newsletter to see if it works! Go back to Flodesk > Audience > Subscribers to see if you’re on the list. If you are, you know it works!

You can repeat this process to add different sign up forms to your website and collect subscribers. You can add multiple eNews widgets to your site! For example, maybe you want to add a form on the homepage for new subscribers that gives them a 10% off coupon. And then maybe you want to have a form in the sidebar where people can subscribe to receive updates on your blog.

Setting up Genesis eNews with Mailchimp

01. Sign up for a Free Mailchimp Account

The first thing you need to do is create a Mailchimp account. It’s free to sign up, so head on over here to create your account. Once you’ve entered your details and hit Get Started, you will get an email at the email address you provided and you’ll need to Activate your Account through that email.

Once you’ve activated your account it will take you through a series of questions to complete your account creation.

02. Set up an Audience

When you create your Mailchimp account, they will use your setup details to automatically generate an audience for you. You can edit the default information for your audience if you need to, or immediately start adding contacts.

03. Grab your Form Embed Code

Now we need to capture the code needed to setup the Genesis eNews widget. In the  Audience section, click on Manage Audience on the right. From the drop down, select Signup Forms. A new window will open where you need to select the Embedded Forms option. Once you’re there, choose the Unstyled form option.

Now you’ll see the code that you need in the bottom right of the screen.

Copy the entire code and paste it into Notepad (if you’re on a PC), or Notes/TextEdit (if using a Mac). Look through the code and find the section that looks like this (it’s towards the top):

The pink highlighted part of the code is what you need to copy, and we’ll paste this into the eNews widget in the next steps. Remember that the form code is unique, and will look slightly different than mine.

04. Sync your List with Genesis Enews Plugin

Make sure you’ve installed and activated the Genesis eNews Extended Plugin. Head to Appearance > Widgets and look for the “Genesis – Enews Extended” widget on the left side. Drag this widget into whichever widget area you are wanting to place your newsletter sign up form.

Paste the link you copied from the code from Step 3 under Form Action. In all CAPS, write EMAIL in the e-mail field, FNAME in the First Name Field, and LNAME in the Last Name Field.

Here’s what my eNews widget setup looks like:

Make sure that the form action link is preceded with  https: and that there are no quotations at the beginning or end of the link.

Save your widget!

05. Now it's time to test it out!

Visit your site and do a test on your signup form to make sure everything is working correctly! If something isn’t working, see the steps above again.