Welcome to your go-to-guide on the Newsletter. The article below walks you through the process of creating a Newsletter and additional options included with the tool. Read below to learn more!
Learn more about Getting Started with New Newsletters.
Creating a Newsletter
Check out this product tutorial which will walk you through these steps on your screen!
The following steps are a guide to creating a new newsletter. If your newsletter has already been set up or distributed previously, please scroll down to the next section for a guide on 'sending out an existing Newsletter'.
Step 1: Setup
Select Newsletters on the left-hand navigation bar
Navigate to Newsletters (previous version)
Select View all
Click on the purple Create Newsletter button (if you do not see this, check your user settings to make sure you are set up as an administrator)
Fill out the Newsletter Name, who the newsletter is from, the sender's email address, the subject, the recipients and your desired newsletter template.
To create a new distribution list click the drop-down in the To field and then ‘new list’.
Step 2: Newsletter Header & Sections
Include a brief header to your Newsletter (optional). Style your header with different font and color options. You can include up to 3000 characters of text in your header.
A section is a content category that the creator of the newsletter defines to give recipients context in the email they eventually receive. Examples could be “Meltwater in the News” or “Competitor Intelligence”.
You can add multiple sections, add multiple inputs to a section, or edit/delete a section.
The inputs selected on the right will be reflected on the left-hand side.
Step 3: Complete
Your newsletter has now been created.
From this window you can continue by composing your newsletter to send out, or you can select "Done" to save and finish at another time.
Send out an existing Newsletter
Check out this product tutorial which will walk you through these steps on your screen!
To send out an existing Newsletter, select Newsletters in the left-hand navigation bar, select View all under Newsletters (previous version), select your desired Newsletter and click on the "Create Distribution" icon in the upper-right-hand-corner.
If you selected "Compose Newsletter" after the initial setup, you will now be on the page pictured below:
Step 1: Select Content
From this page you will select the content for your sections (you will be able to include up to 200 documents).
Use the toolbar/icons on the upper right-hand side of the content stream to search for specific content/keywords or to sort results by date, reach, sentiment, geo, or relevance. You can also add additional inputs from this window or change your date range.
The content selected on the right-hand side will reflect on the left-hand pane. Here, you will see a toolbar above the selected documents where you will be able to add your own comments (up to 3,000 characters) to specific documents or re-order the documents.
Step 2: Send your Newsletter
Once you are happy with the content selected, you are ready to send your Newsletter or schedule the Newsletter to be sent.
From the window pictured below, you will finalize the Newsletter details like the newsletter name, who the newsletter is from, the subject, and who the newsletter is being sent to. You will also have the option to edit the newsletter template, preview the newsletter, save a draft or schedule the newsletter to be sent at a specific time.
If you are happy with the Newsletter, you can continue with sending!
Edit or Delete a Newsletter
Select Newsletters on the left-hand navigation bar
Navigate to Newsletters (previous version)
Select View all
Select your desired Newsletter and you will see the "Edit" and "Delete" icon in the upper right-hand toolbar.
View sent newsletter: Clicking on a sent newsletter distribution opens a window that displays the content of the HTML email. See the historic content of the newsletter.
Resend sent newsletter: You can click the icon in the top right of the window to resend the newsletter. You can change the subject line and select a new recipient list to send it to.
Show sent newsletter link: You can access a link that you can use to share the sent newsletter with others.
How to Update your Recipient List
Follow the steps outlined below to create a new recipient list:
Select the edit icon on the newsletter
Under the 'To:' field, select the dropdown list to review the existing recipient lists
Select the edit icon on the existing recipient list
Emails addresses will need to be added into the recipient list separated with a comma and space.
Select 'Ok' to save the changes
Edit or Create a Design Template
If you are wanting to customize your newsletter further, you have the ability to edit your newsletter template. On the initial 'Setup' page or via the edit icon for an existing newsletter, there are preset design templates saved under the Template drop-down option.
The 'Default' template enables you to easily customise your design formatting.
The preset design templates other than the 'Default' option are created using HTML coding. If you would like a further customised template please review this article here.
Via 'Edit Template' you are able to add in a logo image URL and change your background/text colors. At any point in time you are able to go back to the Default style. Please note that 'Default' templates are unique to each newsletter and can be used for many distributions, the design will not be an option when creating a new newsletter.
Recipient and Readership Analytics
The analytics into each newsletter distribution gives you insight into which of your recipients received, opened and clicked on links with the email.
Please see further details into the readership analytics for newsletters via this article here.
Edit or manually add an Article to send in a Newsletter
The Edit Article feature
This gives you the ability to change the title and/or opening text associated with the article for all editorial content.
During the curation process, you have the ability to edit selected editorial articles, changing the displayed title and opening text of that newsletter. Any edits made here will only affect the newsletter's copy of the article; with the original copy unchanged.
The Add Content Feature
While composing a new newsletter distribution:
Select the add content icon next to your category options
Within the popup window, select the new content's media type and enter the URL address. This is the link your newsletter readers will open.
Complete the fields in the form. These are the details that will be displayed within the body of your newsletter and recommend copying these from the document you're adding
Protip: We highly recommend filling out all known fields, as this will allow the article to be searchable within your account and appear within search results as well as being added to this newsletter distribution.
In the bottom left corner, tick to agree with the Terms and Conditions of sharing content
Select Add to save
It is important to know that there can be some time between adding custom content and when it is fully processed by the system. When sending a newsletter, it is ok to send it before the content has been fully processed by the system.
When this happens, custom content may not appear in search results or under tags, but it will still be included in the newsletter.
You will be alerted to when this happens, as seen below.
Create a URL link to a distribution
Once a newsletter distribution has been sent, you can review the sent email within the system, resend it and create a URL link which can be shared with others.
Please review this article here for further details in how to generate this one-off link and a long term link which updates to the latest distribution.
Unsubscribe
Each Newsletter includes an Unsubscribe message and link that permits the recipient to remove themselves from future distribution of this specific newsletter.
Clicking on the Unsubscribe link will bring the user to a web form page where the user can enter in the email address to be unsubscribed. Submitting this form will unsubscribe the user from future distributions of that specific Newsletter only. You will be able to send a different newsletter to this same recipient, though that may not be what the recipient expects when having unsubscribed.
If a recipient has Unsubscribed but would like to be added back to a recipient list, please reach out to us via Live Chat to have their records updated in the back end of the system.
💡 Tip
Need more help? Feel free to reach out to us via Live Chat or check out our Customer Community.
Find answers and get help from Meltwater Support and Community Experts.