Andy Gambles

I was asked by @frankbruining how I included the MailChimp sign-up form on my ServerTastic Posterous blog.

In essence I cheated a little. It is possible to add the MailChimp code provided to your Posterous blog provided you disable all the JavaScript. (I really wish @posterous would allow JavaScript - Premium option guys?).

However I wanted to include the subscriber chicklet counter to show off the fact I do have a few readers. This requires JavaScript.

Therefore I generated the HTML using the MailChimp embed form wizard. I then pasted this HTML into a file and uploaded it to my own webspace (so you will need hosting elsewhere which supports JavaScript!).

I then included the HTML file within my Posterous blog using an iframe.

To do this proceed to your site settings > Themes and select advanced (you need to get dirty with the code).

Then I simply pasted the following code where I wanted it to appear.

You will need to replace the src= with the link to the file you created.

I placed this code within the {block:ListSidebar} tags.

I recently added the Tweetmeme buttons to my Posterous blogs. If you want to add Tweetmeme to your Posterous blog then take a look here.

I wondered if it was possible to take this further and include Tweetmeme within my actual email campaigns using MailChimp. I use the RSS-to-Email system within MailChimp to send subscribers updates from the ServerTastic Blog. After a bit of research it was actually much easier than I thought.

All I had to do was add the following bit of code within the RSS tags where I wanted the Tweetmeme image to appear. You will need to replace the "source" variable with your own twitter username.

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I tested this in Outlook, Gmail and on the iPhone (According to my MailChimp stats this represents 71% of my subscribers).

This is a completely new experiment for me and it will be interesting to see if this generates any increase it tweets.

MailChimp is an awesome email service provider who I use extensively to send email marketing campaigns. (get $30 off via this link if you want to subscribe - yeah OK I get $30 as well!).

The new features in v5 means you can now target your subscribers by city and automate the sending of emails to a specific time within the recipients timezone. Video below for more details.

Time to publish my Supplier Christmas Wish List. This is the list of things I would like the suppliers I use most to implement/change.