Transforming Web Pages into Newsletters: Need Ideas!

How about using any of the gazillion email newsletters plugins out there already? Functionality will differ, but the best ones will allow you to:

— completely design the newsletter template itself,
— add any custom text anywhere in the template,
— pull in WordPress content from any post type/taxanomy,
— and optionally use your preferred mailer (Brevo) to send out the emails.

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search/newsletter/

I didn’t think this type of plugin could be set up. Since the emails are sent from a Gmail address, I had reservations about sending them directly from the website, especially considering the volume of around 1500 emails per month. I’m not sure where I read that Gmail might not like this, but it could be incorrect information.

Do you have a specific plugin to recommend?
If not, I’ll try out a few.
I only know that the one from Brevo doesn’t allow this functionality.

thanks for suggestions !

Since the emails are sent from a Gmail address, I had reservations about sending them directly from the website, especially considering the volume of around 1500 emails per month.

Eh, I thought you said you’re using Brevo (formerly SendInBlue)?

Why are the emails sent from a Gmail address and not your own domain name if you’re using Brevo — a transactional email provider?

Initially, I thought about using an RSS feed. It’s not too complicated for the articles, but is it possible to include a text block and a dynamic shortcode in an RSS feed?

Do you have a specific plugin to recommend?
If not, I’ll try out a few.
I only know that the one from Brevo doesn’t allow this functionality.

Actually, Brevo supports RSS to Email functionality. So, in principle, you should be able to do all this from your Brevo dashboard, without installing any WordPress plugin or doing any work in WordPress at all.

Just as with the WordPress plugin solution I outlined, you’ll create the email template in your Brevo dashboard and provide the RSS feeds for the content you want to pull. And you should be able to add any static content in the template’s header, footer or sidebar (if using a 2-column template).

Here’s Brevo’s documentation on the feature: https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013130059

If for whatever reason Brevo’s native RSS to Email doesn’t work for you, I’ve only used the Mailpoet plugin in the past for a client project, and had a good experience with it.

FWIW, you can customize a feed to contain any content you like, assuming it’s in your DB or otherwise accessible to the server.

You can also build a custom page template that would contain all the information you’ve described. Even though it’s separate from a feed template, they could each do exactly the same thing. You can likely re-use most of the source code from one for the other. Similarly, it’s possible to send such page content directly as an email body, without a feed being involved at all.

It’s often possible to assign a Gmail From: address to web server emails. The Gmail servers would not be involved at all in the process, unless the recipient is a Gmail address. However, it’s more likely such a scheme will be tagged as spam. It’s much preferable as George suggested to use one of your domain’s email addresses.

That said, I recommend utilizing an email newsletter service all the same. They are generally regarded as less spammy than web server emails. You also don’t want to risk your domain being blacklisted as a spam source. But if and how you’d export a page’s content to such a service for mailing depends on the specific service.

Eh, I thought you said you’re using Brevo (formerly SendInBlue)?

Why are the emails sent from a Gmail address and not your own domain name if you’re using Brevo — a transactional email provider?

There is no mail server associated with the website, just hosting. And the client wants to keep using Gmail, even though I agree with you; I would prefer sending emails from the domain name, at least for the newsletter. However, they are not willing to pay extra for email services.

Actually, Brevo supports?RSS to Email?functionality. So, in principle, you should be able to do all this from your Brevo dashboard, without installing any WordPress plugin or doing any work in WordPress at all.

As for the blog, yes, the RSS feed works well, but can I also send text and dynamic content that changes through a shortcode? That’s the main challenge I’m facing.

FWIW, you can?customize a feed?to contain any content you like, assuming it’s in your DB or otherwise accessible to the server.

I’ve read the explanations for customizing a feed, but they only cover comments, articles, and CPT. There is no mention of adding text blocks or dynamic shortcodes.

I’ll explore what MailPoet has to offer. Thanks for your assistance !

Documentation on customizing feeds to this extent is lacking, but this does not mean it’s not possible ??

Feed templates can execute any valid PHP code. As long as PHP can somehow get specific text blocks, they can be included in the feed. For example, the desired text block could be from a custom field or the sole content of a particular post. It can even be unrelated to the current post, as long as PHP knows how to get the desired content.

Feed templates can expand and output shortcodes with something like echo do_shortcode('[my_shortcode]');

Oh, very interesting. I’ll test it right away. Thx !