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How to set up a Save this Recipe form using Kit and WPForms to increase email subscribers for WordPress bloggers [Tutorial video + steps]
If you’re remotely close to the food blogging community, you’ve heard of this strategy for lead generation lately — and not only am I sharing it with you as a surefire way to boost subscribers, I’m going to show you HOW.
What is it? It’s a “Save this Recipe” form that you add to every blog post. You can even use this strategy for non-food blogs, of course, like a “Save this Post” form instead. See if it could work for your business — I may even use it on the Duett blog soon!
It looks like this:
Example from Eating Bird Food
Why would your subscriber want a blog post to be emailed to them?
My top guess is that they are scrolling your blog and content on their phone and simply want to save the post to revisit it later. Either to make your recipe, walk through your how-to guide, or spend more time looking through what you’ve shared.
How do you set this up? Wellllll
Let’s get technical, TECHNICAL 🎵
Before you go setting up individual forms in your email service platform for all one-hundred-plus blog posts you may have, do this instead:
Use a WPForms + Kit integration to set up ONE form that sends the page title + page URL to every subscriber who submits this simple form on your site.
Watch How It’s Done
Click to Open Transcript
Hey, hello. Okay, so I figured out how to do the SAVE THE RECIPE form, I’m using a WordPress plugin called WP forms, which a lot of bloggers have. So I’m gonna show you just real quick, what it looks like on the back end. So you’ll want to create a form, and we’ll name it save this recipe. And so I am showing you how it’s set up using convert kits. If you’d like my help and setting up in another platform, just let me know. But as it takes forever to load, once you get your WP forms pro version, you’ll just want to authenticate, you know, like put your license key in so that you can use things like hidden fields. So simply enough. This is the recipe like header or the rest of the form header sub header, we’re asking for their email or asking for their privacy. And then you have two hidden fields for post title and page title. And if you’re like, how do I know that that’s what that’s connected to? It is under Advanced. And then under smart tags, you can select Page URL and post title as the hidden fields here. So this is page title. Okay, then. So under the Kit integration section, here, right, we’ve got a form in WP forms, but we also need a form in Kit. So I’ve created one just called Save this recipe. And that’s kind of a dummy form, no one will actually see the front of it, they’ll see your web form, but it’s a way to map them into Kit. So then this is where you bring in those custom fields. So inside of Kit, you want to create a custom field for post title post URL, and then map those to what you have created already. And that would be forms what we just saw on the last page. So once you save it, then you’ll just want to preview the form. So when you are previewing the form, you just have this little bit here for your email, submit, like select your privacy and hit submit. Notice how you can’t see the page title page form fields, that’s because they are hidden fields. And those will be mapped through to Kit for the subscribers, custom fields. So I can show you an example of this. Actually, inside of Kit, you’ll see we have post title post URL. So when I actually go test this out and a form on my site, this will populate the page title, this will populate the post URL. And that’s all being populated because of WP forms and then it’s being mapped to these custom fields because of the settings of WP forms. So then what you need inside of Kit is an automation. And this I’ve just called Save this recipe, it can be saved this form, it doesn’t have to be specific to recipes, of course. And this, I tested out with the help of the Kit team to confirm it all works. But basically the automation starts when the post URL changes. And once it’s changed, it will check if that changes to blank for whatever reason, which I’ll show you the bottom of the automation, then they just exit the automation, nothing needs to happen. If it’s not blank, because they have submitted the form on a page. And now that URL is there, it will send this email. And then once the email is done, it’ll change that post URL back to blank. So which will actually trigger the automation again, so if it is blank, nothing will get sent. That’s why we have that condition there. And then if you have a welcome sequence, make sure you trigger the new subscriber welcome. In that case, when I work with my clients, we trigger that with a new subscriber tag, but perhaps you move them to a different automation that works as well. But inside of this particular email, what we’ve done is use the Kit code to be able to pull from those custom fields. So I’ve said here’s your recipe, and then the post title, right, so pulled in the post title and the post URL. So here’s the title. And then in the email, this is a template that you can edit. It basically said, here’s the recipe you saved or here’s the blog post you saved. And I’ve named it post title, but then I hyperlinked it to the post URL. Hope that makes sense. And then if you want you can include a button here to explore more on the blog. But this, this email will be reused over and over again. So you don’t want it to be specific to any particular recipe. But perhaps like you have a membership like if you want to learn more about my membership, click here or if you want to learn more about my meal plans, click here. And that will show up in every one of these emails. So when you duplicate, let’s see, when you share this template, it’ll actually it’ll look like this. And then you can copy it to your automation. So this automation will be the same as what you’ll see on my screen. And then you’ll also get the sequence and it is set up to send multiple times over. So it is set to restart the sequence multiple times which we do need on in order for it to do that. If you want to swap out your template, you can do that here and make sure you have your logo and all that in there. Um But you also don’t want to be super distracting because you want them to go to the blog post. Either way, it’s not an incentive email, people are being auto subscribe to your list on the back end of every of the form that you’re using. I’ll show you that. Now, just to show the setting that you’ll want to have turned on, on this form, you want to make sure Otto confirms new subscribers and you won’t even need to send an incentive email. So this gets a little dicey if you’re like, oh, but what if spam, people come in and, you know, take over my email list, you can actually set up parameters for like a CAPTCHA on the WP forum side. So then you don’t have to worry about it so much on the Kit side. Another kind of way that you can make sure to catch any spam would be to set up another automation that anybody who comes in from this form if they don’t click on an email within 15 days, they just get automatically unsubscribed. So there are kind of workarounds with that. But go ahead and save this. And like I said, this is the dummy form. People will not see this form, but this is how people are entering your list by way of web forms. Hi, I’m excited for you to try this. If you have any questions, let me know. And if you would like me and my team to set this up for you, just go ahead and book a discovery call and we will chat more
Step-by-Step Instructions
01 | Set up a simple email-field-only form in Kit
You’ll need to set up a super simple form in Kit — and no one will see it, trust me. Not even the button color. This is just how we’ll add people INTO your Kit account from WPForms.
Site visitors will only see your WPForm, but we need this as a way to send these subscribers and page/URL data into Kit.
Here’s how simple that form can be — all I’m asking for here is their email address (not first name, etc).
Within the form’s settings, go under Incentive and make sure to set your form to auto confirm. You won’t be sending out the recipe email via the incentive email (more on that below!).
02 | Add two custom fields to your subscriber profiles
You’ll want to create two new custom fields for your subscribers:
- Post URL
- Post Title
Here’s how you’ll do this.
On a subscriber’s page, click “Add a new field” and name that field, then click “Update Subscriber” to save. Do the same for the two custom fields above.
And once you add it to ONE subscriber’s profile, those custom fields will appear for everyone.
These fields are super important as they let the backend integration from WPForms know which exact recipe and blog post title to include in the email to your subscriber.
03 | Integrate your Kit with WPForms
First, make sure you’re signed up for WPForms Pro. You’ll need the Pro account in order to use Hidden Fields on your form.
Second, connect your Kit form by adding in your API and API Secret Key within WPForms. Follow Step 5 here on this WPForms help doc.
Then, it’s time to make your WPForms form!
Then create a form and title it “Save this Recipe.”
The fields to include should be:
- A marketing permission checkbox (or language without a checkbox)
- Hidden field: Post URL
- Hidden field: Post Title
For your hidden fields, go under the Field Options > Hidden Field > Default Value. You’re going to select what we want to be “pulled in” from each page where this form is hosted — and those two things? The page title and the page URL!
You’ll do that using Smart Tags for each of those fields:
Make sure to “map” each field with the right Smart Tag, that way your future email in Kit is sending your subscriber the correct page details.
- For Page Title, use this Smart Tag: {page_title}
- For Page URL, use this Smart Tag: {page_url}
And now that we’ve got a form in WPForms, we need need to connect it to your Save this Recipe form in Kit.
Under the Marketing sidebar of WPForms, you’ll want the Action To Perform to be “Subscribe” and then select the Save This Recipe form from the Form dropdown:
And at the bottom of that section, this is where you connect WPForms to your Kit custom fields:
For Post Title, connect with the Custom Field “Post Title” that’s in Kit.
For Post URL, connect with the Custom Field “Post URL” that’s in Kit.
04 | Set up the automation to send the email via Kit
Now in order to actually SEND emails in Kit, you need a way to trigger an automated email to go out AND make sure that email has the custom Kit fields you need to pull in the Page URL and Page Title INTO that email.
So straightforward, I know.
But I did it for you here in this Kit automation — it includes the visual automation, the email you can edit and customize to your brand, and the code is already in there for you (nothing to touch!) and it’ll work once you have the custom fields set up for your subscribers (See Step 2 above).
This is what the email will look like coming from the Preview page
Once the email goes out, you’ll want to make sure all of your new Save this Recipes subscribers get added to your New Subscriber/Welcome automation. Of course, you want to make sure that now that they’re new to your list, they get a full introduction to your brand and other content! 😍
If you want to use the automation, email template (including the code for custom fields), and know that it’ll work for YOUR blog, you can copy my automation to YOUR Kit when you buy my template here:
Before you go to the next step, make sure you’ve:
- Updated the sequence emails to reflect your brand
- Confirm the sequence email has been “published” (should not be in draft form)
- Turn on your automation by toggling it to “Live”
05 | Test your forms!
Within WPForms, in the upper right hand corner, click Preview. This will open up a new page that shows your form.
Scroll down the Preview page to see your form and be able to test it.
Notice how it’s just the email form and the checkbox (that’s because the other two fields are hidden!).
Fill out and submit the form yourself using your real email address so you can both see how it functions for the site visitor here on the page and in their inbox.
If you don’t get a Kit email with the blog post links within 5 minutes, go back to double check you’ve followed all the steps above and that everything is mapped to the correct fields.
Try again until a link comes through. 😊
06 | Design your WPForms form
The form on WPForms doesn’t look amazing out of the box, so be sure to edit it accordingly.
You want to communicate what exactly they’re signing up for AND have the form really match your brand.
It should at least state “Get This Recipe” or “Save This Recipe,” something quick and easy but grabs their attention and follows your brand design guide.
Here’s are some examples:
Designing forms can be tricky, but you can follow this guide from WPForms or chat with a web designer like CultivateWP and Purr Design — or with Grayson and his team at iMark Interactive. Or, if you have Feast+, you can use one of their new “Top Tip” pattern blocks with the envelope icon to insert it with this cute icon style!
07 | Add the form to your blog posts to see the new subscribers roll in!
You’ll need to manually add the WPForms block to your existing blog posts — or use a tool like this Automatic Block Inserter. Simply select the form “Save this Recipe” from the drop-down menu in the editor.
To get things started, add it to your top 10 high-traffic blog posts, then use a tool like Clariti (affiliate link) to slowly add it into existing blog posts over time, if you don’t use an automated tool to take care of it all at once.
From what I’ve heard, this strategy performs best when the form is placed just above your recipe card in each blog post. Don’t have a recipe blog, that’s okay — just make sure there’s an opt-in for this option either at the top or bottom of your post.
If you have a blog post template you use, be sure to add this block into that template so it’s ready to go for future blog posts you create.
That’s it y’all! Let your hard work and great tasting treats keep people comin’ back for more 🤤🤤🤤
Put it into action!
Need a hand? Let the Duett team do Steps 1 to 5 for you! Book a discovery call today to chat with Allea and learn more.
Want to DIY it? 🎁 I made it easy! Copy my Kit automation here for only $17.
If you’re not welcoming new subscribers and pointing them in the direction of your best, most beloved content — or you feel like the one you have isn’t doing the trick — it’s time we fix that. Use this free 5-part framework to make a meaningful & lasting first impression as you write your first welcome sequence for new email subscribers!
Is Your Welcome Sequence Making a Lasting First Impression?
