Overview
Newsletters are a great way to communicate upcoming sales or convey special messages to your customer audience. Similar to communication profiles, they allow you to target specific types of customers and automatically pull in personal data using placeholders. The primary difference is that a newsletter is a one-off notification that you manually send, while communication profiles are a series of notifications that are automatically sent based on the job triggers. In this article, we'll review how to create an email newsletter. If you would like more information about sending an SMS newsletter, check out this article.
Creating a Newsletter
There are two ways to send newsletters (Click to enlarge):
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| A. From the Selling tab within a photo job. Using this option will send your newsletter to applicable customers within this specific job. | B. From the Newsletters tab under the Customers tab. Using this option will send your newsletter to applicable customers out of all your customers. |
Once you're on the newsletter page, you'll find a number of settings as indicated in the screenshot below.
- Name: Provide an internal name for your campaign. It's good practice to use a name that will be meaningful in the future, as it's possible you'll have multiple campaigns at any given point.
- Recipients: When you click Add/Edit, you'll be redirected to a new window where you can select any number of recipients. Note that you have a number of filters at your disposal, including job, customer status, year, album, etc. You can add multiple jobs by selecting them in the dropdown and then narrow your target market even further by selecting specific albums/groups.
- Automated Scheduling: Tell the system to send the email immediately once you click send or alternatively, have the newsletter sent at a specific date and time of your choosing. Please note that people are most likely to open/read emails in the morning.
⚠ Important: Once you have scheduled your newsletter and saved the settings, you still need to hit the "Send Newsletter" tab to activate the scheduled newsletter. - Design: Design the body and content of your email. HTML is supported and needs to be input into the source code by clicking the <> icon on the top right of the text editor toolbar:
There are a number of pre-loaded templates available on the right hand side under the Template dropdown menu that can be a useful jumping-off point (especially with our tried and true holiday templates!). 
Adding Images to a Newsletter
Follow the instructions below to add images to your newsletter. This method can be used in other text fields throughout your admin area.
- Open the File Manager page via the Settings Tab. Click the Upload button to upload your image(s) to your GotPhoto platform. For banners, we recommend using an image that is 600x200px. A URL will be created for each file you upload. Make sure to copy this URL for the next step!
- Back in the newsletter template, click either on the Image icon in the toolbar or in the right-click menu:
- In the menu that appears, paste the image URL that you copied in Step 1.
- Next, add an image description (This will be displayed if images in emails are blocked), and feel free to adjust the dimensions of the image.
Finalizing and Sending Your Newsletter
Once you've completed the design and content of your newsletter, click the "Save and preview newsletter" button at the bottom of the page – you'll then have an opportunity to preview the email with populated placeholders and make any last-minute changes before you hit send.
The Takeaway
Whether sending from a specific photo job or your entire customer base, you can effortlessly create impactful newsletters, conveying special messages, promotions, or updates directly to your audience.