At this point, our TownSite and our Social Media Channels should be nearly ready to go. However, there is one piece to the puzzle that still needs to be set up. The Newsletter ensures constant contact between the TownSite and its subscribers, even when they haven’t visited in a while. It is the keystone piece to the website staying prominent in the minds of its visitors.
The Newsletter is autonomous in nature: Each week it will automatically take the latest content on the TownSite and its Social Media Channels and assemble it into a newsletter format, then send it out to its subscribers, no human interaction necessary. But first we need to set it up. Here are instructions on doing so.
Importing Contacts
So that our Customer has a list of contacts to start their Newsletter with, let’s import their current contact list into the Newsletter.
Go back to the Customer’s Onboarding Submission and download the CSV file they should have uploaded that contains their CRM Contacts. Then log into the TownSite Dashboard.
From the left-hand menu, select Newsletters → Subscribers.
At the top of the page, click the Import button, then click Got it, I’ll proceed to import → Upload a file. Upload the CSV file, then click Next step.
In the table that appears, make sure Email, First name and Last name match up to the right columns.
Below the table, in the field labeled Pick one or more lists, ensure Newsletter mailing list is selected. Leave the other fields unchanged.
Click the blue Import button. The contacts in the CSV file should be added to the mailing list.
Changing the Header on the Newsletter
Next we’ll change the header of the Newsletter to match the one on the TownSite. Start by visiting the homepage in a new tab.
(To do this, right-click the button in the top-left and select Open link in new tab.)
Once you are on the homepage, Press Ctrl + Shift I followed by Ctrl + Shift + M (If on a mac, press Cmd + Shift + I followed by Cmd + Shift + M). This will cause Google Chrome to go into Responsive Design Mode.
At the top of the screen, click Dimensions and select iPad Mini. Then set the Zoom to 100%. See the image to the right for reference.
Now, capture a screenshot of the newly formatted header and save it to your computer.
Press Ctrl + Shift + I (Cmd + Shift + I on a Mac) to exit Responsive Design Mode.
Close the new tab to go back to the Newsletter.
We are going to change the header of both the Welcome Email and the Post Notifications emails. From the left-hand menu, select Newsletters → Emails. Click the Welcome Emails tab, then click the Edit button on the email listed.
Click the existing header image, then on the right-hand menu, click Select another image. Upload the screenshot you captured, then click Select Image.
Click the blue Done button, then click the Next button on the top right.
On the next page, click the blue Activate button.
Back on the Email screen, click the Post Notifications tab, then click the Edit button on the email listed.
Repeat the steps above to replace the header on the Post Notifications email and activate it.
Populating the Newsletter with Content
We have one more step: We need to populate the newsletter with the content we created earlier. To do this, click Tools → Posts From Feed from the left-hand menu.
On the next page, click Purge and wait for the task to complete. Then click Retrieve and wait for the task to complete.
That’s all—The Newsletter should now be activated and ready to send content to subscribers.
