Creating a static newsletter

In this chapter, you will learn how to create a static newsletter and author the first newsletter issue.

 

Go to CMS Desk -> Tools -> Newsletter and click New newsletter. Enter the following details:

 

Newsletter display name: My newsletter (this is the name displayed to the users)
Newsletter name: MyNewsletter (this is the code name used in web parts and code)
Subscription confirmation: Subscription confirmation template
Unsubscription confirmation: Unsubscription confirmation template
Sender name: enter your full name
Sender e-mail: enter your e-mail address
choose Template based newsletter and use the Newsletter issue template

 

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Click OK. We will create a subscriber now. Go to the main Subscribers tab (in the top tab menu) and click New subscriber. Enter the following details:

 

E-mail: your e-mail address
First name: your first name
Last name: your last name

 

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Click OK. Go to the Subscriptions tab, check the My newsletter box and click OK.
 
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If you check the Send -email confirmation to the subscriber box, the subscriber also receives an e-mail confirmation of her subscription.

 

Your newsletter is configured. Now you can create new issues.

 

 

Authoring newsletter issues

 

Go to Newsletters and edit My newsletter. Click New issue on the Issues tab. The wizard will guide you through the process of creating a new newsletter issue.

 

Enter the following subject: Welcome to issue #1 of My newsletter

 

Enter the following text into the body:

 

 

Dear ,

 

welcome to the first issue.

 

Yours,

 

Me

 

 

place the cursor after the Dear word, choose FirstName value in the Insert field drop-down list and click the Insert button. The macro text {%FirstName%} is placed into the text. This macro is automatically replaced with subscriber's first name during the e-mail merge.

 

The issue now looks like this:

 

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Newsletter templates

 

The structure of the newsletter text is defined by the newsletter issue template that can be edited in section Templates. Templates are described in chapter Newsletter templates.

 

Click Next. Now you can preview the newsletter text for each subscriber. You can click Back and modify the text.

 

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Click Next. Now you can choose when the newsletter issue should be sent out:

 

Send now - the newsletter issue is sent out immediately to all subscribers
Scheduled newsletter mail-out - the newsletter issue is sent out on specified date and time.
Send the newsletter manually later - the newsletter is not sent and you can decide on the mail-out time later.

 

Choose Send now and click Finish. On the Issues tab, you can see how many e-mails have been already sent out and how many subscribers unsubscribed after receiving this issue:

 

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Newsletter mail-out delay

 

The mail-out of newsletter issue is scheduled as a task using internal Kentico CMS scheduling system. The tasks are processed every 1 minute by default. Thus, you may need to wait up to 2 minutes until the e-mails are sent.

 

If you do not receive the e-mail, please follow the instructions in chapter Troubleshooting the problems with e-mails.