Direct Mail Extension
Tutorial:Direct Mail Extension
Create a Newsletter with Direct Mail
Get started with sending mass emails by creating a Newsletter that you can send at a later date.
Get started with sending mass emails by creating a Newsletter that you can send at a later date.
Click on the Direct Mailer link under Web modules.
Select the folder where your Newsletters are stored.
From the dropdown, select Newsletters if you are not automatically taken there.
Click on the "create new page that you can later send as a directmail" link
Give your page the title of what you want your Newsletter to be called
Scroll down and select a Page Template Structure from the dropdown. Click the Save button
Scroll back up and just under the Page Template Structure you should now see "Use Template Design." Select a design from the dropdown or thumbnail previews.
Scroll down to the Pagecontent area. This can be the welcome message for your newsletter. Enter a Header.
Enter some text in the Text box. The marker will be substituted with the email recipient's first name.
Scroll down to the Category area. It is in this area that you can determine which groups to send the email to. The users would have selected their interest areas upon registering for the site or subscribing to the newsletter. Click the Save and Close button.
By default, your new newsletter page is hidden. Click on its icon in the Page tree and select "Unhide" from the context menu.
Navigate back to your newsletters by clicking on your Newsletter folder.
Select your new newsletter from the list to view its properties. From here you can edit the newsletter, preview it, or create a new newsletter based on its design and structure.
You can also re-assign which interest categories the newsletter should be sent to.
To add more content to your newsletter, click on Page under Web modules. Then select your newsletter.
You can see that the default message we added earlier has been placed in the Left Content area. We probably want it in the Main Content area. Click the Cut icon which looks like scissors.
Now, you can see that a Paste icon has appeared in several areas. To move the message to the Main Content area, just click the Paste icon that is in the position where you want to place the message.
To add a new content element, click the New Content icon that looks like a page with a plus-sign overlaid.
Select the type of content from the listing.
Enter a header for the content.
Type in text, bulleted lists, insert photos, etc. into the Text area.
Under Category, you can further target the interest group to send this information to. If you select just "Music" then this content item will only be sent to the Music interest group, while other content items in the newsletter may only be sent to the Adults group.
In this way, you can create one newsletter that will send specialized information to one group, and different information to another. Save and Close.
Let's try adding a list of files - maybe a PDF of your printed newsletter. Click on the New Content icon.
Select Filelinks from the list.
Click the file folder icon next to the Files field to select or upload a file.
Select the folder where your file is located, or where you want to upload a new file to.
Click the Browse button under Upload to upload a file to the Path.
Select a file from your computer and click the Open button. Your file path will display in the field.
Click the Upload files button.
You'll then see the file in the Files list. To select multiple, click the "+" sign or just select the filename to select one.
Scroll down and select which categories to send the file list to. Click the Save and Close button.
Now, let's add some dynamic News content. Click the New Record icon.
Scroll down the list until you see Plugins. Select "News" from the Plugins list.
Enter a heading for the news.
Scroll down and you will notice "Plugin Options." Here you can control how and what news will display.
Select what criteria you want to determine the order of the news listed. Date/Time is typically sufficient.
Scroll down still further to the Category Mode. To just display the topics you select, change the setting to "Show items with selected categories" and choose from the categories below.
Otherwise, leave the Category mode to "Show all" to display all news categories.
In the Starting Point field, click the folder icon to select where to draw the news records from.
For the WEC Package, Storage Folder is where the News records are stored by default. Otherwise, select the folder or page where your news items are stored.
Select Categories to filter which groups to send this News content to.
Click the Save and Close button.
Be sure you're on your Newsletter page and select Direct Mail from the Web modules on the left.
View your Content elements on the Information screen and modify the Categories if needed.
Click the Update category settings when you are through with changes.
