How to Connect Business Directory Plugin to Mailchimp

Connect Business Directory Plugin to Mailchimp (or your preferred CRM) and learn how to automate your WordPress listings. 

If you run a WordPress directory website, you know that managing your listings can be daunting (and very, terribly time-consuming). But, with the right plugins, you can learn to love your listings all over again. Connect Business Directory Plugin to Mailchimp with Uncanny Automator and save yourself hours of work. And you can do it for FREE!

In this blog post, we’ll show you how to connect the popular Business Directory Plugin to Mailchimp (or any CRM of your choosing) using Uncanny Automator. Forget that old Rolodex or those dusty old yellow pages. This is the best way to automate your WordPress listings and connect them directly to your CRM!

p.s. Make sure to read through to the end for some awesome Business Directory + Mailchimp integration ideas (including one nifty way to automate your Mailchimp campaigns).

1. Download Uncanny Automator (for FREE)

Whenever you’re trying to figure out, “How do I connect this plugin to the other one?” just think of Uncanny Automator. As the #1 WordPress automation plugin with 100+ integrations, you can seamlessly integrate all of your favorite plugins and applications with the click of a button.

For Business Directory Plugin and Mailchimp users, Automator offers a bevy of powerful WordPress integrations that are sure to shave hours off your daily tasks. Automatically subscribe and unsubscribe contacts to Mailchimp audiences, add or remove tags and notes and even launch campaigns. To connect Business Directory Plugin to Mailchimp, you’ll first need to download or purchase the Uncanny Automator plugin.

From your WordPress Admin Sidebar, navigate to Plugins > Add New. In the search bar, type in “uncanny automator” then press Enter on your keyboard. The Uncanny Automator plugin will be the first search result. Click Install Now then Activate.

To use Automator’s app integrations—including CRM tools such as Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, HubSpot and Zoho Campaigns— you’ll either need a paid plan or app credits. Fortunately, Automator offers all new users complimentary app credits so they can try out premium app integrations.

If you downloaded the free plugin, register your account and redeem your app credits by heading to Automator > Settings in your WordPress Admin Sidebar. Under the General tab, click on License then Connect your site and follow the prompts.

Now that you’ve downloaded Automator and received your app credits, you can connect Mailchimp to your WordPress website and, subsequently, your business directory.

2. Connect Mailchimp to WordPress

Once you have redeemed your app credits or purchased your license, you can connect Mailchimp to your WordPress website. For a detailed, step-by-step guide on connecting your Mailchimp account to your WordPress website, read the first half of this article. Alternatively, you can find the abridged version below.

2.1 Enable Mailchimp Actions

With Uncanny Automator, actions are the events that occur as a result of another, predefined event called a trigger. Enabling Mailchimp actions happens automatically once you connect your Mailchimp account to Uncanny Automator. Here’s how it’s done:

1. From your WordPress Admin Sidebar, navigate to Automator > Settings.
2. Click on the App integrations tab and scroll down to Mailchimp.
3. Next, click on Connect Mailchimp account and follow the prompts.

2.2 Enable Mailchimp Triggers

Enabling Mailchimp triggers requires the use of webhooks. If you’ve never used webhooks before, don’t worry. As long as you can copy and paste, you can set up your Mailchimp triggers. Here’s how it’s done:

1. After you’ve connected your Mailchimp account to Automator, you’ll see the option to Enable triggers. Simply toggle the button.
2. Highlight and copy the URL provided in the Webhook URL field.
3. In a new tab in your browser, sign in to your Mailchimp account. From the sidebar in your account’s homepage, navigate to Audience > Audience dashboard. In the upper-right hand corner, click on the drop-down button labeled Manage Audience then click on Settings.
4. Scroll down to and click on Webhooks. On the Webhooks page, click on Create New Webhook.
5. Paste the webhook URL into the Callback URL field at the top of the page. Make sure that all of the options for sending updates are selected. By default, the only option that should not be selected is the final one, Via the API. Make sure to select that one before clicking Save.

That’s it! Now that you’ve connected your Mailchimp account to Automator, you can connect your business directory to your CRM. In the next section, we’ll walk you through the steps of creating an Automator recipe that launches stunning Mailchimp campaigns for new real estate listings. You can follow those same steps for other posts and listing types; we just chose real estate listings as a representative example. Then we’ll give you some more ideas of nifty ways to automate your business directory, whatever listing types you work with.

3. Launch Mailchimp Campaigns for Real Estate Listings

Automator connects your favorite apps and plugins using recipes (i.e. combinations of triggers and actions). With this recipe we’ll show you how easy it is to launch Mailchimp campaigns whenever a user on your WordPress website publishes a new listing.

Step 1: Create a New Recipe

From your WordPress Admin Sidebar, navigate to Automator > Add New. A pop-up window will appear in a new screen where you can select your recipe type; either Logged-in users or Everyone. We’re creating a recipe that runs on users who are registered with our site. As such, we’ve selected Logged-in users.

Step 2: Name Your Recipe

We always recommend giving your recipe a name that makes it easy to identify at a glance. For example, we’ve named this recipe Mailchimp Campaigns: New Real Estate Listing.

Step 3: Configure Your Trigger(s)

In the Triggers panel, from the menu of available integrations, click on WordPress.

From the drop-down list that appears, select A user publishes a post.

Automator will prompt you to select the post type. Select Listing.

When you’re finished, click Save. Your trigger should look like this:

Step 4: Configure Your Action(s)

In the Actions panel, click on Add action. From the menu of available integrations, click on Mailchimp.

From the drop-down list that appears, select Create and send a campaign.

Automator will present you with an editor where you can configure your email campaign. If you already have email templates set up in your Mailchimp account, you can select a template and Automator will populate the fields for you! When you’re finished, click Save. Your action should look like this:

Step 5: Go Live!

You’re just about ready to start launching your Mailchimp campaigns from your business directory. All that’s left for you to do is to toggle your recipe from Draft to Live.

With Automator, that’s all it takes to connect Business Directory Plugin to Mailchimp! Now, your Mailchimp contacts can automatically receive emails about your latest listings. But that’s not all this powerful integration can do. We’ve included some additional Business Directory Plugin and Mailchimp integration ideas for you in the sections below.

4. Tag Contacts for New Job Posts

If you’re using Business Directory Plugin as a job directory, managing your listings is easier with Automator. Similar to launching Mailchimp campaigns for new real estate listings, you can use the Create and send a campaign action to notify your contacts about new job postings.

Or you can use the Add a tag to a contact action to help those posting new jobs to stay on top of the latest trends. In the recipe above, we’re tagging our employer contacts based on the location(s) in which they post their job listings so that we can better understand their needs and help them find the right employees. For example, we’ve added the tag “Remote” to an employer posting a remote work job and we’ll send them useful information about the latest trends in remote work.

5. Automatically Unsubscribe Contacts

Let’s say that your Mailchimp campaign worked so well that your real estate clients no longer need to receive updates on new listings. Or, perhaps, employers posting jobs on your directory website are backing out of remote work and no longer want to know the latest trends. With Automator, unsubscribing contacts from lists and removing tags is just as easy as launching entirely new campaigns.

Connect Business Directory Plugin to More CRMs

Mailchimp is just one of the many CRMs and email marketing automation tools that you can connect Business Directory to with Uncanny Automator.

Whether you’re using ActiveCampaign, Groundhogg or HubSpot, with Automator, there’s no reason to miss out on leads or to spend hours managing your listings.

What are some of the automations that would help you run your WordPress business directory? Let us know in the comments sections below.