While our Newsletters have recently received quite the facelift earlier this year, our Classic Newsletters are still available.
This article will cover:
Learn more about Getting Started with New Newsletters.
Creating a Newsletter
Follow these steps to create a newsletter from scratch.
Note: If your newsletter has already been set up or distributed previously, learn more about Sending Out an Existing Newsletter.
Setup
Select Newsletters in the left-hand navigation bar
Navigate to Classic Newsletters
Select View all
Select Create Newsletter in the top right-hand corner
Note: If you do not see this, check your user settings to make sure you are set up as an administrator. Learn more about User Permissions.
Enter a Newsletter Name
Select who the newsletter will be coming from in the From Name drop-down.
Note: You will only be able to send Newsletters from Approved Senders. Learn more about Adding an Approved Sender.
To create a new recipient list
Select the To drop-down
Click New List
Enter a List Name
Add Contacts
Click OK
Add a Subject
Select a Template
Select your Distribution Settings
Manual: Manual newsletters allow you to select the articles, social media posts, and other content you want to include for each distribution.
Automated Recurring: Automated newsletters allow you to set search inputs to find and include content in a newsletter that will self-generate and send on your set schedule.
Click Next
Newsletter Header & Sections
Include a brief header in your Newsletter (optional). Style your header with different font and color options. Your header can include up to 3000 characters of text.
Click Add Section to add additional sections to your Newsletter.
Note: A section is a content category the newsletter creator defines to give recipients context in the email they eventually receive. Examples could be “Meltwater in the News” or “Competitor Intelligence.”
Give your section(s) a Title.
In each section, add inputs by selecting the checkboxes to the left of the Explore Searches, Added Content, or Tags on the right-hand side of your screen
The inputs selected on the right will be reflected on the left-hand side.
Click Next
Compose and Complete
Your Newsletter has been completed! However, you can compose it by choosing the content and sending it.
To Compose your Newsletter
Click Compose Newsletter
Click on a section
Add articles or hits from your inputs
Click Next
Select Send Now
Or, you can click Done to save and finish at another time
Sending Out an Existing Newsletter
To send out an existing Newsletter, follow these steps:
Select Newsletters in the left-hand navigation bar
Navigate to Classic Newsletters
Select View All
Select your desired Newsletter
Click Create Distribution
If you selected Compose Newsletter after the initial setup, you will now be on the page pictured below:
Select Content
From this page, select the content for your sections (you can include up to 200 documents).
Use the toolbar on the upper right-hand side of the content stream to search for specific content or 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 can add your comments (up to 3,000 characters) to specific documents or re-order the documents.
Sending Your Newsletter
Once you are happy with the content selected, you are ready to send your Newsletter or schedule the Newsletter to be sent.
Add a Newsletter Name
Select who the newsletter is from
Add the Subject
Enter the recipient list(s)
Edit the newsletter template (optional)
Preview the Newsletter if necessary
Save a draft or schedule the newsletter for a specific time.
If you are happy with the Newsletter, click Send Now
Editing or Deleting a Newsletter
Select Newsletters in the left-hand navigation bar
Navigate to Classic Newsletters
Select View All
Select your desired Newsletter
Select Edit or Delete in the upper right-hand toolbar.
Viewing a Sent Newsletter: Clicking on a sent newsletter distribution opens a window that displays the content of the HTML email. See the historical content of the newsletter.
Resending a 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.
Showing a Sent Newsletter Link: You can access a link that you can use to share the sent newsletter with others.
Updating Your Recipient List
Follow the steps outlined below to create a new recipient list:
Select Newsletters in the left-hand navigation bar
Navigate to Classic Newsletters
Select View All
Select your desired Newsletter
Select Edit
Navigate to the To: field
Select the dropdown
Select Edit
Email addresses must be added to the recipient list and separated by a comma and space.
Select OK
Editing or Creating a Design Template
If you want to customize your newsletter further, you can edit your newsletter template. Preset design templates are saved under the Template drop-down option on the initial Setup page or via Edit for an existing newsletter.
The Default template enables you to customize your design formatting easily.
The preset design templates other than the Default option are created using HTML coding. Learn more about Customizing Your Classic Newsletter Design Template.
Click Edit Template
Add a Logo Image URL and change your background and text colors
Note: You can always return to the Default style. 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.
Learn more about Getting Started with Newsletter Analytics.
Editing or Manually Adding an Article to Send in a Newsletter
The Edit Article Feature
This allows you to change the title and/or opening text associated with the article for all editorial content.
During the curation process, you can 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, leaving the original copy unchanged.
The Add Content Feature
While composing a new newsletter distribution:
Select Add Content 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.
Note: 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, click 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 the system fully processes it. When sending a newsletter, sending it before the system has fully processed the content is okay.
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 when this happens, as seen below.
Creating a URL Link to a Distribution
Once a newsletter has been distributed, you can review the email within the system, resend it, and create a URL link that can be shared with others.
Learn more about Creating a Static Link for Your Classic Newsletter.
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 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 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.