Posts Tagged ‘email’

• Description
• Installation
• Quick Start
• Usage
• Release Notes

Description

The WordPress Newsletter plugin is a versatile newsletter plugin which installs in a flash and integrates well with your WordPress website. Using the WordPress mailing list plugin is effortless and will improve your business’ marketing drastically.

System Requirements

• WordPress 2.9 or higher
• MySQL 4 or higher
• PHP 4.2 or higher
  • short_open_tag On
  • safe_mode Off
• Mail Server (Local/Remote)

Theme Requirements

Any theme will accompany the Newsletters plugin and there aren’t any special requirements but ensure that your theme has wp_head and wp_footer hooks so that the CSS, Javascript and other elements of the Newsletters plugin can be loaded into your theme.

First, the wp_head hook should go anywhere in between the HEAD tags of your WordPress theme. Put the following code between your HEAD tags which will most likely be in your theme’s header.php file. If it is already there, you don’t need to add it again.

In a similar fashion, add the following code below to your theme just before the ending BODY tag which will most likely be in your WordPress theme’s footer.php file. Again, if it is already there, you don’t need to add it again.

Please have a look at the default WordPress theme as reference since these hooks are in there already as they should be. Open up its header.php file to see the wp_head hook and its footer.php file to see the wp_footer hook being inserted.

Installation

UPGRADE: If you are going to upgrade from an older version you need to deactivate the current version first, then upload the files and overwrite all existing plugin files from the older version with that of the newer version.

1. Download the ZIP package from the downloads management section.
2. Unzip the package in order to obtain the wp-mailinglist folder of the plugin.
3. Upload the wp-mailinglist folder to the wp-content/plugins/ directory.
4. Log in to your WordPress admin and go to the “Plugins” page in your dashboard.
5. Activate the “Newsletters” plugin by clicking the “Activate” link.
6. To start using the plugin, click on the “Newsletters” menu item in your dashboard.

Quick Start

Activation

• Go to ‘Plugins’ in your WordPress dashboard.
• Go to Newsletters and click the ‘Activate’ link.

Configuration

• The menu item ‘Newsletters’ will appear in your menu. Go to ‘Newsletters’ > ‘Configuration’.
• Click on Auto-import users from WordPress if you want to import your current users into a list.
• Read carefully through the Configuration and select the options that best suit what you want.
• If you have more than 100 subscribers, be sure to turn On the email scheduling feature. Keep the interval as low as possible and try to keep the number of emails per interval below 100.
• Click on the blue ‘Save Settings’ at the top of the page when you are done.

Get Additional Data from Subscribers

• Go to ‘Newsletters’ > ‘Custom Fields’ and click the ‘Add New’ button.
• Enter the title, such as ‘Name’.
• Click ‘Required’, fill in Error Message such as “Please fill in your name”.
• Select the field type. i.e. ‘text field’ in the drop down.
• Tick/check the lists with which you want to associate the custom field.
• Click Save Custom Field.

Put a Subscription Form on Your Site

• Go to ‘Appearance’ > ‘Widgets’.
• Drag and drop ‘Mailing List’ into a sidebar.
• Type in Appropriate title. E.g. Stay Up To Date.
• Fill in the other fields such as the button. E.g. Subscribe Now
• Click on the ‘Save’ button.

Send a Post as a Newsletter

• Go to ‘Posts’ > ‘Add New’ in your dashboard to add a new WordPress post or simply edit an existing one which you want to send out as a newsletter.
• Below the WYSIWYG editor, tick/check the specific mailing list(s) to which you want to send out the post as a newsletter.

Start a Newsletter from Scratch

• Go to ‘Newsletters’ > ‘Send Newsletter’ and start writing a newsletter just like you would write a WordPress post.
• Tick/check the appropriate mailing list(s) to which you want to send the newsletter.

Usage & Integration

Release Notes