Newsletter Plugin
The newsletter plugin allows you to
create and send newsletters to a
managed list or multiple lists of users. Your
users can subscribe to one or more
mailing lists and also unsubscribe from
any lists individually.
You’ll find the newsletter menu on the
left of your Wordpress dashboard. In this
example it is located at the bottom left.
Move your mouse to the newsletter tab
and click on the expand arrow. (1)
The Main Newsletter Menu
Main menu options.
Newsletters
( gives you an overview of all activity including number of subscribers, emails
queued to go out, number of mailing lists )
Send Newsletter
( Allows you to create and send a newsletter to a mailing list )
Subscribers
( View , edit and delete your users who have subscribed to your mailing list )
Import / Export
( Import or Export mailing list users in CSV format )
Newsletter Templates
( Create a template that can be used for multiple newsletters)
Email Queue
(View outgoing emails waiting to be sent)
History / Draft Emails
( Your emails sent previously, from here you can re-send an email )
Subscriber Stats
(The subscriber statistics for the past 7 days)
Creating a Test Mailing List
In this tutorial we will create a test mailing list
and then walk through creating a simple
email.
First, click on the menu item Mailing Lists (1)
and then click on add new (2)
•note for this test mailing list we will use your
email address, it is a good practice to test any
campaign before sending it out.
In the Save a Mailing List window
Type the name “Test List” into the title area, the list is not
a private list so that can stay set to “no”
In the custom fields area use the “check all” checkbox
to select all the possible fields
*note your custom fields will most likely differ from this
example depending on how your site was designed.
Now click on Save Mailing List (1)
This code can be
copied to any page in
your site to add a form
where users can sign
up for this mailing list!
You have now created a blank mailing list called “Test List” but there are no users in it yet,
you can either manually add users to this group, or add a form on your website that will
allows users to subscribe.
Notice the code under Post/Page Embed [wpmlsubscribe type="list" id="3"]
Simply copy and paste that code to any area of your website and a subscription form will be
created for this particular mailing list.
Manually Adding Users to Email Lists
For the Test List we don’t want any users to
subscribe, so instead of pasting that embed
code into a page we will manually add an
email address (or several)
First, click on “Subscribers” in the main menu (1)
then click on “add new”
* Note – you may want to add several users to
the test list as sometimes an email campaign
will need to be reviewed and approved before
sending.
Manually Adding Users to Email Lists
Enter your email address and check the mailing
list called “Test List”, you do not need to register
as a Wordpress User (you’re already a
Wordpress admin)
Chose the email format you prefer ( most often
it’s html ) and fill in your first and last name.
Finally click on “Save Subscriber”
Next we will create a very basic newsletter and
send it to the Test List
*Note the difference between Html and Text is
that Html emails display the full content ( like
you would see in a web browser ) and Text is
plain text only with no images or web content.
Sending a Basic Newsletter
Save draft allows
you to come back
to this later.
First click on “Send Newsletter (1) and then fill out the newsletter like in the
Example. Under Mailing lists (2) make sure you check off the “Test List” group.
If you were not quite ready to send the newsletter out, you can always save it
as a draft. For this test however we will send this right now by clicking on
“Queue Newsletter”
Queue
Newsletter send
this to be emailed
now.
Once you click on Queue Newsletter your email has been sent ( or it is waiting to be sent if there are
emails waiting ahead of it). You will see a confirmation at the top of the page.
Variables and Custom Fields
Variables
If we sent out our previous test email
to multiple people everyone would
get the text
“Greetings Rob Jones,”
Using Variables we can pull data
from each users account and add
that dynamically.
If you expand the Variables &
Custom Fields menu you will see a list
of variables that you can use.
Always give your recipient
a chance to unsubscribe.
For example [wpmlunsubscribe] will
create a link to automatically
unsubscribe from this list.
You can apply any formatting you’d like to the text in your newsletter such as bold or underline. You can also insert
pictures or clip art.
* Note keep images small, a large or un-optimized image can cause the email to take too long to load and also
puts a heavy load on the server causing emails to be sent out slowly.
Importing Email Recipients
If you have a spreadsheet with customer data you wish to import it’s easy to get those addresses imported, For
example; lets say I have an Excel spreadsheet with 4 columns.
In this example there is only one person in the sheet. We first must prepare this data for import but saving the
spreadsheet as a MS-DOS CSV file. To do this from Excel go to File / Save As and select the correct type.
If you don’t see the CSV
options use the scroll bar to
scroll down.
Click “Import / Export” on the main menu
Use the Browse button to navigate to the
CSV file
Select the Mailing List you would like to
import to.
Chose “CSV Spreadsheet” as the file type
Line up Data with the columns in your
spreadsheet
Column 1
Column 2
Column 3
Note that the data in column 4 was not used, so it will be ignored upon import.
Click on “Import Subscribers” and your data will be imported.
Export will return data in CSV format
"ID","Email Address","First Name","Last Name",
""169","me@here","Rob","Jones”,