Jun 6, 2012

Web Form Builder from CoffeeCup Integrates with MailChimp

CoffeeCup’s Web Form Builder is a desktop app that helps you create handsome, powerful, customized forms for all kinds of events and functions and then publish them on your website. Web Form Builder makes it easy to design a form, upload it to your site, and retain the information you collect in your database. It’s available for Windows and OS X.

The CoffeeCup Form Builder to MailChimp integration connects your surveys, petitions, invitations, and other forms to your MailChimp list. Once you publish your form online, information submitted through it will be delivered straight to MailChimp. When people sign up, your form can automatically segment them based on the information you collect. You can even manage multiple MailChimp lists with just one form, collect payments, and take advantage of Web Form Builder’s impressive list of features.

Let’s say that you’re a nonprofit, and potential donors occasionally visit your office for a behind-the-scenes tour. You might want to create a simple form that groups their contact information so you can thank everyone later. Web Form Builder makes it easy to just drag and drop the elements you’d like to use or edit the predesigned templates to your liking.

Once you’re finished designing your form, you’ll need to create a form in MailChimp with identical elements and options. That way, MailChimp can recognize your form and accurately translate the information it collects.

Next, go back to Web Form Builder, click the “Settings” button, and sync your MailChimp and Web Form Builder fields. Avoid error messages by making sure each field has a 25 character maximum, and that the email address field is required.

Upload your new form to your company’s site, test it out, and watch the money pile up. Or, more likely, the email subscribers.

Not Just for Signup Forms

This integration doesn’t stop at collecting subscribers. You easily can design different, more complex forms that ask for more detailed info. For instance, if your organization hosts house parties to encourage engagement, you might want feedback from those who attended.

Maybe you learn that the board member who locked the doors “until everyone makes a generous contribution” isn’t the optimal host. Or that the clown he hired to MC the party made some guests a little uncomfortable. You’ll have valuable information for later, and it’ll automatically inform your MailChimp list.

Check out the CoffeeCup Form Builder to MailChimp integration listing for more information, or follow CoffeeCup’s detailed tutorial on exactly how to set up this integration.

Posted By

Lain

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Discussion

  • Scott Winterroth

    I personally think this should be something native to MailChimp, being able to easily create beautiful CSS styled email capture forms and widgets would be something MailChimp would want to help their paying subscribers with because it’s helping them grow their lists and not pushing MailChimp’s paying customers off to some other questionable third party.

    06.07.2012

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  • Tor

    I’m not sure if I’m missing something here but if you have to build an identical form in Mailchimp anyway, what’s the point/benefit in using the CoffeeCup form builder?

    06.08.2012

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    • Lain

      The MailChimp form serves as the back end to the integration, so while the elements are identical, the design doesn’t need to match your CoffeeCup form. It’s a little extra work to build both, but I suspect it’s a lot less work than if you were designing both to look the same and just so.

      The benefit of using CoffeeCup’s Web Form Builder is that it’s really easy for users (advanced or not-so-advanced) to make beautiful forms. You can also take advantage of their long list of features. Or, maybe you already use Web Form Builder and the prospect of creating web forms (that match your other web forms not connected to MailChimp) in another application is exhausting.

      06.08.2012

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  • Jay Butcher

    Am I right in thinking though that it doesn’t integrate with the Groups functionality? This is quite an oversight as I’ve built groups following MC’s advice and now I can’t create a form that puts people into those groups?!?!?!

    08.01.2012

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    • Marc Humet

      Completly agree with Jay Butcher, we need groups integration to make this a good system to feed our lists from the forms and have auto segmentation

      09.14.2012

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  • Matt

    This is a great integration, but why are emails limited to 25 characters? Is that the case for mailchimp forms as well? I hate to think that people will be getting errors because their email addresses are too long.

    The first client email that popped into my head ended up being 27 chars. In addition, I checked the first 5 emails in my inbox and 1 was 26 chars, another was 25, the others were under. Is it possible to make the limit like 35?

    09.14.2012

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    • John

      Hi Matt, I had a chat with the guys over at Coffee Cup and they confirmed that as long as you’re using “Fancy Forms” in the MailChimp app and you’re on the newest version of the Form Builder there shouldn’t be those email length limitations.

      09.20.2012

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  • Tim

    I’m having problems with the Groups integration – though my coffeecup form has the group option, it doesn’t translate to my MailChimp List. I’ve had to manually add these one by one, and it’s time consuming. Also, I’m having the problem that certain subscriptions (roughly 10%) don’t transfer over to MailChimp. The subscribers are in the coffeecup form results, but not the MailChimp list. Very frustrating!

    10.25.2012

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    • John

      Hi Tim, Sorry to hear you are having some troubles. I went ahead and talked to the guys over at CoffeeCup and confirmed a few things for you. On the groups, adding them one at a time is the only way it works at the moment. On the other hand, the discrepancy between what you see in CoffeeCup and what you see in your MailChimp list are users who haven’t confirmed their account. The double-optin process sends an email to the user and then they have to click on the link within that email to confirm their subscription on your MailChimp list. Users that don’t click that link will still show in CoffeeCup as that’s where they originally subscribed, but won’t show in MailChimp.

      10.31.2012

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      • Fionn

        Hi John,

        I’m afraid Tim is right. The group information does not publish to mailchimp when integrated into a coffeecup form, regardless of the subscription being verified. If there is a workaround or fix for thism please let me know as it would be handy to have all data in the mailchimp account.

        11.26.2012

      • John

        Hello there Fionn, I’ve done done some testing on this and it appears it was a problem in earlier versions but has been fixed in at least the most recent version. The version I’m testing with and seeing success on is v2.3, build 5184. You can check what version you’re running by looking under “About WebForm Builder”

        12.20.2012

  • Roman

    Hello
    How i can change “25 character maximum´´ in Mail Chimp?

    11.06.2012

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    • John

      If you’re using the current version of CoffeeCup Form Builder and “Fancy Forms” in MailChimp you shouldn’t have the 25 character limitation.

      11.06.2012

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