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Customizing Your Newsletter Template
Customizing Your Newsletter Template

Learn the nuances of customizing your Newsletter Template according to your guidelines.

Cheyenne V. avatar
Written by Cheyenne V.
Updated over 2 weeks ago

Customizing your newsletter is Step 2 of 4 when creating a newsletter. We recommend the following steps, but all templates offer the same layout options, and they can be toggled on or off by selecting the Layout Options Tab in the Template Editor. The customization workflow is the same for both Manual and Automatic Newsletters.

This article will cover:

Note: You can only customize your Newsletter Template in the New Newsletters, not Classic Newsletters. Learn more about Newsletters (New!).

Customizing a Manual or Automatic Newsletter

To customize your Newsletter Template, follow these steps:

  1. Click Newsletters in the left-hand navigation bar.

  2. Navigate to the Newsletters section at the top of your screen.

  3. Click View all to open an existing newsletter, or select Create new.

  4. Click Next in the bottom right-hand corner until you reach Step 2: Customize template.

  5. From there, customize your template by following the below steps.

Styles

  1. Click Styles

  2. Here, you can select the Page Background and Body Background

  3. Select the colors based on hex, rgb or hsl, the color dropper or recently used

  4. Click Apply

Layout Options

  1. Click Layout Options

  2. You can click on any part of the template to update and customize

  3. Or from the layout options menu, toggle on and off and update:

    1. Header - Add Logo, name your newsletter, date your logo

    2. Hero - You can add or remove an additional section for a title and date (Logo isn’t available here)

    3. Banner image - where you can upload a designed banner image

    4. Section navigation - a menu that outlines each section of the Newsletter

    5. Sign-off text - brand your Newsletter even further by adding your company’s tagline or slogan

  4. Social Share Icons: Easily display or hide social share icons directly on your articles in the Newsletter. Whether it's sharing positive coverage or engaging with your audience on social media, this feature is designed to make your newsletters more interactive. Simply toggle the social share icons on or off in the template editor to customize your newsletter's look and feel. Please note: Due to terms of service agreements, some premium content partners prevent the addition of social media icons to their content.

  5. Footer Social Media Links: Add a branded touch to your Newsletter by adding hyperlinks to your organization's social media channels in the footer. Seamlessly integrate your social media presence into your newsletter template, ensuring a cohesive experience for your audience. Customize the text, font styles, and URLs to align with your brand identity.

  6. Discoverable similar articles based on reach: Now you can easily choose the most impactful syndicated article, not just the latest one, when adding stories to your newsletter. We'll show you both options in your search results, grouped together. You can easily select which one should be included in your Newsletter. As you add articles to your Newsletter, click on the section you'd like to add content to. Click Add Inputs on the right-hand side, and select your searches or tags. Click on Duplicates at the bottom to expand similar articles.

  7. Click Apply after making any changes

Add Section

  1. Click Add Section

  2. Add a section name

  3. Select a section to copy styling from

  4. Click Add

    Tip: We recommend adding your logo first. This way, if you want to use any colors from the logo, you can use the color dropper to easily pull the color into other areas of the document. Here’s how:

  5. Toggle on the Header

  6. Click on the logo

  7. Update the Logo Image section: Add the logo by drag-and-drop, upload, or add the URL link.

  8. Click Next

  9. The Select Content page will open. Learn more about Selecting Content for Your Newsletter.

You can also create Subsections in your Newsletter. Learn more about Adding Subsections to Your Newsletters.

Including Engagement for Social Posts

Toggle on engagement for social to inform stakeholders of a social mention’s impact without opening a link to the post.

  1. In the Customize template step, click on the Newsletter section to expand Content settings

  2. Toggle on Engagement in the right-hand navigation bar

When No Content Is Available

Hide the Newsletter section or set a default message that appears when no articles are available, so recipients don’t see blank sections.

To set a default message when no content is available, follow these steps:

  1. In the Set up guidelines section, navigate to When there is no content available for a section

  2. Select Hide the section from the Newsletter to prevent the section from displaying

  3. Or select Show section anyway and include the following message:

Note: By default, the message will be displayed as "No content available", but you can customize it to show any text.

Duplicate Settings to Include "Also Featured In"

Showcase the other outlets that published your article with a new duplicate setting.

  1. In the Set up guidelines step, navigate to Duplicate setting

  2. Select Include the highest-reaching article and mention other outlets that covered

💡 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.

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