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Sending website newsletters

Whether you have a free website or a VersionPLUS subscription, you can use your site manager to send newsletters to registered subscribers. Using newsletters to highlight site content is an important part of building a steady audience and ensuring repeat visits.

 

Add a newsletter subscription form to your website

In order to send newsletters, each future recipient will need to be able to sign up to receive your newsletters, and they’ll confirm their subscription once they’ve registered.

You can provide a newsletter subscription access for site visitors in three ways:

  • Add a subscription widget to your side menu: head to Settings > Menus, add a new widget to the menu, selecting the Site > Newsletter subscription widget.
  • Add a subscription widget to a Page: create or edit a page from the Pages > New page menu, and add the Other widgets > Site > Newsletter subscription widget to a new content block, or a new column in an existing content block
  • Add a link to the newsletter sign-up page: your site has a ready-made page, so you can add a menu link to the top, side or bottom menu directly to the page (choose “other link” or “external” as the Page link type, and add the link address manually – the address format is http://yourwebsite/newsletters). Head to Settings > Menus to add a link to your site menus.
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Add newsletter subscribers

Site visitors can subscribe to your newsletter by entering their email address using links in the subscription widgets or on the newsletter sign-up page (see above). You can add addresses from your website if you’d like.

To add addresses from the site manager, head to the Marketing > Newsletter menu.

  • Free site accounts enable you to add individual addresses, one by one.
  • VersionPLUS webmasters can import email address mailing lists in a .txt or .csv file - separate addresses using semi-colons (;) or pipes (|).
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Manage newsletter subscribers

Each address added, either from the site or the site manager, will generate an automatic email to the email address added, requesting confirmation of the subscription. The recipient will click a link in the email to confirm their subscription.

Your newsletter subscribers are listed in the site manager, under the Marketing > Newsletter > Subscribers menu. To the right of each address you’ll see whether or not the subscription is active (indication whether or not the subscriber has confirmed their subscription.

If you need to resend a subscription confirmation email to someone, simply delete the unconfirmed email address from the subscriber list, then add it again.

Personalize the design of your newsletters and site emails

You can personalize the look of emails that are sent from your website, including newsletters, from the Settings > Global settings > Email template menu of the site manager.

Choose colors and fonts, define borders and set colors for key text elements like titles and links.

You can send a test email using the email template for your site, by checking the test email box and entering the email address to which a sample email will be sent. Save the template to send the test email.

Create and send newsletters

To compose newsletters, head to the Marketing > Newsletter menu, and select the Newsletters tab. Click New newsletter to create your first newsletter (note that in order to create and send a newsletter, you’ll need to have at least one confirmed subscriber).

You’ll add content to your newsletter using an editor just like the visual editor in site pages, enabling you to easily add links to pages, images or even links to files. Each newsletter has a title that’s generated (and incremented) automatically, but you can change the title if you’d like to personalize it.

The email sender address used for newsletters is the “site email address”, and you can change it, and the email sender name that will appear on newsletters, at any time from the Settings > Global settings > Site info. menu.

Once you’ve finished adding content to your newsletter, choose an action before saving it. You can:

  • Queue the newsletter for publication: the newsletter will be added to the mailing queue, and sent within the next 30 minutes.
  • Save it as a draft: and publish it later on.
  • Schedule it for later publication: by setting the date and time of your choice, to automatically program the newsletter for publication at a time in the future.
  • Send a test newsletter: to check the content and layout, exactly as your subscribers will receive it.  Simply add the email address to which it will be sent, then save it (the text newsletter will be sent, and the newsletter saved as a draft for publication once you’ve checked the results).

Good to know!

  • Newsletters automatically include a link to enable recipients to cancel their subscription. They simply need to click the link to stop receiving newsletters.
  • To receive emails notifying you when visitors subscribe to your site newsletters, enable email notifications for your account from the Account > Account settings menu of the site manager, locate the Website email notifications section, and check the Newsletter box, then save your changes.
  • Free site accounts come with a 2-newsletter-per-month quota, and VersionPLUS websites have a 60-newsletter monthly quota. Both offer a newsletter sign-up page, and widget to add to a page or side menu.
  • VersionPLUS sites enable you to add a newsletter sign-up checkbox to your site member registration form.
  • Sent newsletters can’t be deleted, but you can delete any newsletter that is saved as a draft. To delete newsletters scheduled for future publication, first stop the publication scheduling, then delete the newsletter.