Gathering e-mail addresses and using them with a third-party e-mail service

E-mail lists and newsletters are still a popular and efficient way to communicate with large groups of people. In this recipe, we'll use Laravel and the free MailChimp service to set up an easy way to gather e-mail subscriptions.

Getting ready

For this recipe, we'll need a working Laravel 4 installation, as well as a free account with http://mailchimp.com/ and generated API keys in Mailchimp's account section. We'll also need to create at least one list in Mailchimp.

How to do it...

To complete this recipe, follow these steps:

1. In the app directory, create a new directory named libraries.

2. Download Mailchimp's API library from http://apidocs.mailchimp.com/api/downloads/#php, then unzip it and place the file MCAPI.class.php in the new libraries folder.

3. Open Laravel's composer.json file and add the libraries directory to the autoload section. That section should resemble the following snippet:

   "autoload": {
       "classmap": ...