The Newsletters module allows the creation and management of highly configurable newsletters. Newsletters are used to regularly send e-mails about a certain topic to users who agree to receive them by subscribing.

 

When a newsletter issue is sent, e-mails are created and personalized (if applicable) for every individual subscriber. This procedure is performed by the Newsletter queue and any e-mails lost due to errors are automatically re-sent. This is handled by the Send queued newsletters scheduled task. Once this process is complete, the e-mails are sent either directly to the SMTP server or to the E-mail queue if the given newsletter is configured to do so (later topics in this chapter describe how this can be done). Using the e-mail queue is recommended for newsletters with large amounts of subscribers to ensure that all e-mails are delivered correctly.

 

The newsletters can be of two types:

 

•Static newsletters - every issue is edited and sent manually. The newsletters are based on predefined templates.

•Dynamic newsletters - issues are sent out to all subscribers automatically at a specified interval. The content is dynamically taken from a specified page, which is usually updated between newsletter issues.

 

Users can manage their subscriptions and find information about newsletters directly on the pages of a website if it contains the appropriate web parts. Please refer to the Integrating newsletters into the site topic to see what web parts are available.

 

Newsletters make use of templates to give all issues and related notification e-mails a unified appearance by utilizing design elements such as a company logo or footer. Templates may also contain various macros that are resolved into data matching individual recipients during the mail merge. For more details, please see the Newsletter templates topic.

 

The subscribers of all newsletters are stored in the system and can be monitored and managed as shown in the Subscriber management topic. The Subscriber import and export topic describes how tasks affecting large amounts of subscribers can be performed.

 

Newsletters also offer several tools that help track, monitor and optimize issues, which can be very useful when carrying out e-mail marketing campaigns. More information about this is given in the On-line marketing chapter.

 

The Troubleshooting topic contains a list of solutions that can be used to resolve common problems with newsletter e-mails.