RSS-to-Email Newsletter: GetResponse Tutorial for Newbies #5

RSS-Email Newsletter – GetResponse Tutorial for Newbies Part 5

By the time you have gotten to this Part 5: RSS-to-Email Newsletter, you already know how to Create GetResponse Campaign and (if needed), how to import contact/subscribers into your GetResponse campaign.

As I mentioned in the post “AWeber Review – Sadly Switching“, it is quite standard to be able to automate your RSS feed to be sent as emails newsletters to your subscribers.  In a simplified nutshell, that means that:

1. you find your RSS feed URL
2. your do your normal blog posts
3. your autoresponder automatically picks up your posts (via your RSS feed) and sends it out to your subscribers
4. your subscribers automatically get updated of your new postings

So using the on-going example in this GetResponse for Newbies Tutorial series, we want to set up a way so that each time we have a new blog post, GetResponse is able to automatically send ofF a newsletter (comprising of our latest blog posts) to your subscribers (i.e those who have signed up for these updates).

In simple practical terms, this means:

1. we want our blog’s feed
2. to give to GetResponse
3. and tell GR we want it to automatically mail each of our new postings to our list of subscribers
4. and we need to specify which campaign (i.e. which list of subscribers) we want that RSS-to-Email newsletter to be associated with

I will assume you know how to find your blog’s feed.

Create RSS-to-Email Newsletter in GetResponse

GetResponse – Create RSS to Email Newsletter

Go to GR top menu bar >> hover over Messages >> click Create RSS-to-Email

Configure RSS-to-Email Settings

GetResponse RSS-to-Email Settings

RSS Feed URL: enter your blog’s feed URL
Important: you need a trailing slash (/), otherwise the little tick will remain red (not seen here)

Frequency: select the how often you want to mail the subscribers in this campaign.  I have specified Daily here as an illustrative example only.

Message name: Name this message (aka newsletter) with something that will help you keep organised when your list of campaigns and/or newsletters grow.  This name is only seen by you.

Subject: the default is a RSS-field [[rss_title]]

For example, I changed my subject to:
[NetWebbing Updates] [[rssitem_item]] and more..

Tip: you can find a list of GR RSS-fields here.

Tip: you can find a list of personalization fields here.

From: this is the from-address that your recipients will see in their email newsletter. Recommended to use an email address that is specific to your blog’s domain.  This provides the least confusion to your subscribers.

If you have already recorded a list of email addresses (on GR), you can use the drop-down arrow to select from a list.

You can use the “Change Reply-To” to specify another email address in case any recipient chooses to reply to your email newsletter.

Track: you can toggle on/off as to whether you want to track if anyone clicks links (click-through) in your email newsletters.  You can toggle on/off Google Analytics

Publish & Share: This is very handy. You can set up to link to your Twitter and Facebook accounts.  If set up, you can then have GR automatically publish to your Twitter and/or Facebook each time this email-newsletter is sent out.

When ready, click the “Next Step” button. Next, we will determine how our email newsletter is going to look like.

Predesigned Templates

GetResponse Predesigned Templates for RSS-to-Email

On the next screen, you can choose from a selection of GetResponse Predesigned Templates to create the look and feel of your RSS-to-Email newsletter.

The visual steps indicator at the top of screen is very handy.  It shows you the steps you have to yet to do.  Once each step is completed, you can move back and forwards.

For each of the templates offered, you can use the eye icon to have a large preview of the chosen template.

You can select the various colors available per template. The colors selected will show up immediately even in the thumbnail views.

Note that you can also click the “Exit” link (top right) to get out of this screen.

Customizing Your RSS-to-Email Newsletter Template

Customize your RSS-to-email Newsletter Template

This next screen is where you can fully customize the template you have chosen.

In GetResponse, real snippets of your blog posts are shown in the preview and templates.  Very handy!

The “Text Message” I have highlighted is especially useful.  It allows you to send a test email to yourself so you can check what it looks like.

The “Inbox Preview” is pretty amazing.  It will show you how your email newsletter will look like on a whole range of devices.

You can also check if your email newsletter will pass a spam check.

There are too many features for me to cover in detail. You can easily play around with making changes and previewing those changes.

You can save as you make changes.  At the right bottom of the screen, there is a “Save as” button which will allow you to save this customized RSS-to-email newsletter template as a Draft.

Important Tip: use the “Save as” (draft) regularly because the working interface can be buggy.  Saving as draft ensures you don’t lose your changes. Save regularly!!

Select Campaign

viz. Who are you going to send your RSS-to-Email Newsletter to?

Select Campaign for the RSS-to-Email Newsletter

When you are done customizing your RSS-to-email newsletter template, you click the “next step”.

In the next screen, you get to specify which campaign (list of subscribers) you are going to send this to.  So select the appropriate campaign.

Following that, you will Save.

Important Tip:

If you have saved but have not fully finished with customizing your newsletter template or any other aspect, then you need to turn the following status off.

Turn off RSS-to-Email

You can still continue to edit it via the “actions” drop-down menu.

REMEMBER: Remember to TURN ON your RSS-to-Email newsletter when you are happy with the template and are ready for GR to take over your automatic mailing for your blog updates.

Next (part 6): Online Signup Forms

Now that you can:

• create your GetResponse campaign(s)
• add/import contacts for your campaigns
• create and customize a RSS-to-Email newsletters for your subscribers …

we will now move on to Creating an Online Sign-up Web Form to put on your site. I mean, how else would your readers be able to sign-up to your fabulous newsletters, right?

For a refresher, you might want to watch this GetResponse video on How to create RSS-to-email.