Create a React app with Mailchimp and Tailwind

About this guide

This development guide walks you through everything you need to do to build a high-quality React app integrated with Mailchimp and Tailwind. Check out the tasks below to get started. To save time, you can also use our boilerplate, which gives you a complete React codebase with all of these tasks done for you. Okay, let's dive in!

Tasks

• Setup your React appGet the code

  Setup a React app using npx create-react-app and routing using React Router. There are many ways you can structure your app, but a common setup is to have an App component that defines top-level routes, with each route component imported from the /pages directory. The rest of your components should be located in your /components directory. You can then run your app locally with the npm run start command.

• Setup a Node (Express.js) serverGet the code

  This stack requires server logic, so we'll be setting up a Node (Express.js) server that we can query from our React front-end. We suggest defining your Express.js routes in a file located at /api/index.js and then creating a file for each route handler in the/api directory. Next make sure all requests to /api/* get routed to your Express server port by defining a proxy in your package.json. Lastly, run your server with the node api command in a new terminal window.

• Build your Mailchimp subscription formGet the code

  Create an Express.js route at /api/newsletter that receives the user's email address and adds it to your Mailchimp list using the mailchimp-api-v3 library. Then create a newsletter subscribe form using Tailwind elements and have it submit the email value to /api/newsletter. Make sure you properly validate inputs, display any errors returned by Mailchimp, and to display a confirmation message once the email has been added.

• Install and configure TailwindGet the code

  Install Tailwind and add a tailwind.config.js file by following the Tailwind guide for Create React App.

• Ensure Tailwind link components hook into React RouterGet the code

  Make all Tailwind link elements hook into React Router by using the Link component from react-router-dom.

• Create a persistent layoutGet the code

  Add any components that you'd like displayed across all pages (such asNavbar and Footer) to your App component. If you need multiple persistent layouts you can instead have each page define its own layout. In that case, create multiple layout components (such as LandingPageLayout and AdminLayout) and wrap the contents of each page.

• ‍Finish your app UI with TailwindGet the code

  Build out the rest of your UI using Tailwind elements and composing them into high-level page sections, such as HeroSection and AccountSettings. Use theming and dynamic classes for styling your components and overriding default element styles.

Get the code

You can get the code for this guide with our React, Mailchimp, and Tailwind Boilerplate. You'll get a complete React codebase with Mailchimp and Tailwind integration, all the tasks listed above done for you, and a responsive multi-page template. It should save you about two weeks of development time.

Get the boilerplate