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Writing and sending a newsletter

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Create a newsletter under Newsletter › Newsletters, work through its four steps — Setup, Design, Test and Send — and read the numbers afterwards.

Before the first send, set up your sender, a verified sending domain and your imprint link: Setting up the newsletter. The newsletter must be booked first: The newsletter: booking, plans and extra mails.

Creating a newsletter

Choose New newsletter, give it a Name (only your team sees it; readers see the subject) and choose how to write it:

  • Build with blocks — add text, pictures, works and buttons and see the email as you go.
  • Start from HTML — paste or upload HTML you made elsewhere. WrkLst cleans it up, adds the footer and makes the plain-text version itself. Only people who may send newsletters can do this.

Under Start from choose what the newsletter begins with: The account's design (empty, with your header, footer and style), Your last newsletter, A template your team saved, or A starter — a ready layout with sample text in your own typefaces and colours: Invitation, Exhibition or Letter.

A newsletter is saved as you work. In Newsletters you can open, duplicate or delete each one; its status is Draft, Scheduled, Starting, Sending, Sent, Cancelled, Paused or Failed.

The four steps

Setup

  • Who receives it — tick Topics (people on at least one ticked topic receive it) and, optionally, Only people who are also in… segments to narrow the audience. Only people who agreed to receive newsletters are ever included.
  • Languages — each language has its own subject and text. A reader gets their own language if it is ticked, otherwise the Main language.
  • Subject and Preview text, the line many mail programs show after the subject.
  • If the first name is unknown — the word used in place of the first name, for example "friend".
  • Sender — filled in from Settings › Newsletter; change it here for this newsletter only.

Design

Build the newsletter from blocks, or edit your HTML. Style, header and footer follow the account's design; you can change them for this newsletter only, reset them, or Save as the account's design. Save as template… keeps the design for later newsletters.

The preview shows the email and its text version, in each language. It also tells you what WrkLst noticed, for example an image without a description, and the size of the mail: Gmail clips mails over 100 KB and hides the footer, so shorten the text or use fewer pictures. WrkLst always adds the legal lines at the end.

Test

Send a test shows the newsletter in a real inbox before it goes to your readers. A test is the one kind of mail that is free: it is not counted. Choose My address or colleagues, pick the language, and optionally Show it as a certain reader to see their name and language. The subject stands above the preview. Links in a test record nothing.

A test leaves only from a verified sending domain: until your sender address is on one, no test is sent, Send test is disabled and the step tells you why. A refused test is explained in plain words.

Every test mail carries the line "Reply to this mail to leave a comment for the team". A reply becomes a comment on that newsletter — see Comments below.

The Test group holds addresses outside your team that may receive tests (at most 25). Each confirms once by clicking a link we email to it. You can send tests to 50 addresses a day.

Comments

The Comments card in the Test step holds notes for the team, kept with the newsletter. Choose Add a comment, write and save with Add comment. Mark a comment Done when it has been dealt with, or Reopen it; done comments fold away under Show done. The number of open comments shows beside the Test step and in the newsletters list.

A reply to a test mail arrives here too, as a comment "by reply", whichever address the person answers from. The quoted original and the signature are left out, and attachments are not kept (the comment says how many). The person who sent the test is told in WrkLst and by email.

Send

The send screen checks everything before it starts and tells you what is missing and where to fix it: a sender address on a verified sending domain, a subject, content, your company name and postal address, your imprint link, a plan, and readers.

  1. Readers — the number is counted live from your choice. Left out, and why lists the people who will not receive it: unsubscribed, not yet confirmed, consent not yet provable, blocked after bounces or complaints, or on a topic or segment you left out.
  2. Narrow or widen the audience. Leave out drops readers on ticked topics or segments, and Leave out readers of earlier newsletters drops those an earlier newsletter reached. Under collectors of an artist you can add everyone who bought from them.
  3. Optional: Early access lets chosen segments go first and everybody else follow later. Readers likely to buy — those who bought from the artists in the newsletter, or have an open hold, offer or lead on their work — get it first, then those who clicked earlier newsletters.
  4. When — Send now starts as soon as you confirm, or Schedule for later with date, time and time zone.
  5. If it goes beyond your plan, the send screen shows the extra cost. See mails beyond your plan.
  6. Choose Send now or Schedule and confirm. Once it has started, emails already handed over cannot be taken back.

While it sends, the screen shows the progress and an estimate of the time it takes. A new sending domain starts slowly; the screen says how long your newsletter will take. You can Cancel sending (mails not yet handed over are not sent) or Cancel and send the rest corrected, which gives you a draft that leaves out everyone already reached. A scheduled newsletter can be changed or cancelled with Cancel schedule; it then goes back to a draft.

Sending pauses by itself when something looks wrong, for example when too many mails bounce or are marked as spam, and the screen says why. This protects your readers and your sending domain.

Reports

Open a sent newsletter to see The numbers. Delivery is reported by the sending service and fills in over about four weeks, so later figures can still change.

  • Handed over and Delivered
  • Opens (an estimate) — mail programs can open a mail by themselves, so clicks are the more reliable sign of interest.
  • People who clicked — automated fetches are left out. Clicks per link shows each link.
  • Unsubscribed, Bounced (the address does not exist or refuses mail for good), Marked as spam (these readers are not mailed again) and Temporarily refused.

Opens and clicks are counted per reader only for readers whose consent says so; for the others links are counted per link.