Launching Your Newsletter, Step by Step

Once the Newsletter is on your account, there are two places that walk you through getting ready: the setup checklist on your Newsletter overview, and a guided set of pages called Launch my newsletter. Use whichever suits you. They save to the same list, so work done in one shows up in the other.

What has to be in place before you can send

Most of the setup is up to you, but a few things are needed before any email can go out:

• A verified newsletter address on your own domain, like e.yourbusiness.com. See Setting Up Your Sending Domain.
• A postal address. The law requires one at the bottom of every marketing email, and we start it for you from your billing details.
• At least one subscriber on the list.

If something is missing when you try to send, we tell you what it is and where to fix it.

The setup checklist

Go to Newsletter → Overview. At the top you'll see Set up your newsletter, with a count of how many steps are done. The steps are:

1. Create a subscriber list
2. Verify your sending domain
3. Set your sender and reply address
4. Add your mailing address
5. Choose your brand color
6. Add your logo (optional)
7. Create a signup form
8. Add your first subscribers
9. Send yourself a test email
10. Schedule your first email
11. Set up a welcome email (optional)

Each step ticks itself off once it's done. Next to each one:

• Set up (or Edit) opens a short form for your list name, sender name, sender email, reply-to email, mailing address, brand color and time zone. Click Save details when you're finished.
• Open settings takes you to the right page for that step.
• Skip hides a step you don't need. Skipped steps sit under Skipped steps, where Restore brings one back. Skipping a step doesn't change what's needed to send.

Click Hide checklist to put it away, and Show setup checklist to bring it back. What you skip or hide is saved for you and for that list only. Your teammates keep their own checklist.

Launch my newsletter

This is a guided version of the same setup in four steps. Go to Newsletter → Overview, click More, then Launch my newsletter. You can jump between steps with the numbers along the top.

1. Your newsletter

Fill in:

• Newsletter name
• Sender name, the name people see in their inbox
• Sending email address: type the part before the @, like hello or news. It sends from your verified newsletter address. If your address is not verified yet, you will see a link to Go to Plan & sending instead, and you can carry on with the rest in the meantime.
• Postal address, started from your billing details. Check it before saving.
• Timezone, so scheduled emails go out at the right local time

On the right, under Make it yours, pick an Accent color and upload a Logo. If we host your WordPress site, choose it under Your website and click Suggest my website branding to pull in the logo and color your theme already uses. Check the suggestion before you save.

Click Save and bring my readers.

2. Bring readers

If you're moving from another email service, upload a spreadsheet of your subscribed contacts. We match up the columns and show you duplicates and bad addresses before anything is imported. Leave out anyone who unsubscribed or bounced at your old service. More detail is in Importing a Spreadsheet of Subscribers.

Starting fresh? Click Continue to signup form without importing.

3. Signup form

Write a Form heading and a short Invitation, then click Save signup form. The preview on the right shows what readers will see.

Once it's saved you can:

• Choose a site under Place on this website and click Add below my blog posts. This works for websites we host, for anyone allowed to change websites on your account. Your pages and any signup forms you already have stay as they are. Remove from my posts takes it off again.
• Copy the link under Share this signup link to put in social posts or your email signature.
• Open Embed on another website for a code snippet to paste into a site we don't host.

See Signup Forms for Your Website for more. Click Check my setup when you're ready.

4. Ready to send

This page sums up your sender details, how many subscribed readers you have, and whether your signup form is out there. If anything still stands in the way of sending, it's listed under Before your first send, with buttons to fix it: Edit sending details, Set up my sending address and Bring readers.

When everything is in place you'll see "Your list is ready." From here, Design my blog emails sets up automatic emails for your new blog posts. Nothing sends until you turn it on.

Your first email

Prefer to write one yourself? Go to Newsletter → Overview and click New campaign. Send yourself a test first, then schedule it or send it. Writing and Sending a Campaign covers it step by step, and Emailing Your New Blog Posts Automatically covers the blog route.

Stuck on any step? Open a ticket and a real person will help you get it over the line.