Email Automation RSS Import with THEA
Generate and Send Automated Newsletters for New Blog Posts
Our automation tool THEA turns your blog posts into newsletters to your subscribers – completely automated. Use the new “THEA RSS Import“ automation workflow to send the latest news and posts to your recipients.
The new multi-level automation workflow makes it much easier to keep in touch with readers and contacts for all those doing a blog, corporate blog or blogazine with regularly updated content. Send out automated email campaigns filled with the content in an RSS feed with the email automation tool THEA.
People with their own website who regularly publish new content and posts can offer them as an RSS feed. RSS is short for “Really Simple Syndication“ or “Rich Site Summary“. Readers who don’t want to miss out on anything you publish subscribe to your RSS feed and automatically sees your latest posts in an RSS Reader. That’s how they don’t miss any of your new posts. This comes in quite handy – RSS triggered newsletter campaigns make it even more convenient, though – for the content creator as well as the reader.
When an RSS feed is updated with new blog posts, CleverReach© transfers the content to the email campaign and sends it to the selected recipients at the scheduled sending time.
This means: You create an RSS feed automation workflow once – and your subscribers regularly receive automated updates on your latest posts via email. This allows you to stay in direct contact with your subscribers, as a personalized newsletter in their inbox is much more personal than an RSS feed.
Our customers schedule their THEA RSS feed automation workflow to any sending time they want to send out their blog updates.
Please note: For using the RSS feed automation, a valid RSS URL is required (RSS 2.0, Atom, etc.).
All Your Posts Directly in the Email Inbox
Subscribers Won’t Miss Out on Any of Your Posts with the THEA RSS Import Automation
More Traffic, Less Effort
The THEA RSS Feed Automation is useful for all CleverReach© users who regularly publish new blog posts or other online content. It doesn’t matter how often you publish new content: several times a day, every morning, once a week or even less frequently. In our RSS feed automation workflow you can determine when and how often the content of your RSS feed is sent out to your subscribers via email.
Example 1: An online magazine publishes news updates in their blog every day. The magazine wants to send out the 5 latest posts via email to their newsletter subscribers every day at 8 am by using THEA RSS import.
The RSS feed automation is the way to go: it is created once, and newsletter subscribers receive daily updates with the latest post directly in their inbox.
Example 2: You’re a self-publisher and only publish new posts from time to time based on WordPress, Drupal, Typo3 or Joomla? You automatically want to send new posts to all recipients from your email list? Adjust the frequency of automation emails to the number of your publications. You publish news several times a week? Send an email once a week that contains all your latest posts. If you are sending ever less frequently, sending a newsletter once a month should do. This way, your readers and followers never again miss out on any of your new posts!
Customers benefit from an RSS feed automation in several ways:
• Time saving/ less manual effort through automation
• Increased traffic on your blog
• Send the latest content to your email recipient list the same time you publish it
THEA RSS Import: Log in, Customize, Get Started!
The THEA RSS Import Automation is not only set up fast, it is also very easy! The essential part, the automation workflow, is already waiting for you in CleverReach©. Everything you have to do is customizing it to your needs. An RSS URL is a prerequisite. Our newsletter tool uses the URL to place the posts in the email.
The automation workflow THEA RSS feed consists of very few modules. They ensure that your recipients receive regular updates on your latest posts. Simply determine the following parameters once and the tool will do the rest:
• When do you want to send out post updates via newsletter?
• Who is the target group of your emails – your entire recipient list or certain segments only?
• How about the layout of your email – do you want to send whole posts or teasers only?
Sounds simple? Well, it is!
How to Create the THEA RSS Import Automation in CleverReach©
Here’s how to create an automation workflow to send automated blog or magazine content updates to your readers:
Log into your CleverReach© account and navigate to the menu item “Automation THEA“. Select the „Multi-level Workflow“. Search for the automation template called „RSS Feed“. When clicking on the template, a dialog window pops up for you to name the workflow and add an optional description.
When that’s done, click on “Create“. You now end up on our virtual drawing board and see the THEA RSS Import automation workflow. It consists of these relevant modules:
– Calendar Event (orange)
– Recipient Module (green)
– RSS Feed Module (green)
– Select Email (green)
Set the modules as you wish for your planned RSS automation:
• The „Calendar Event“ module allows you to schedule the time you want to fill your newsletter with the latest posts via RSS and when you want to send it – for example every Wednesday on 8 am.
• Select your target group in the recipient module (entire list or a segment).
• Settings in the RSS module:
o Add the RSS feed URL in the first step. The feed URL comes from your system (your online magazine or blog in WordPress, Drupal or other CMS). The RSS URL must have the correct format (Atom, RSS 2.0,..). In case it doesn’t, you’ll receive an error notice. Unfortunately, the automation cannot be created without the right format.
o If the URL check was successful, you can continue with the settings for your THEA RSS Import automation workflow. Now determine the number of posts from your blog or magazine you want to embed in your newsletter via RSS feed. The predefined numbers range from 1 to 10.
o In the next step, you determine the age of your posts in the RSS feed.
o The predefined times are 1, 6, 12, 24 and 48 hours or 7, 14 and 30 days.
o The last things to define in the RSS module is the layout of the RSS elements within the emails. There are already some preset options: image left and text right, text left and image right or text only. The default setting is: image left, text right. Additionally, you can enter an individual link text. The preset text is “Read more“.
o You can also determine whether you want to display the whole post from the RSS feed or simply an extract (e.g. max. 100 characters).
Set up everything as you want? Then let’s continue with setting up the email templates.
Setting up the RSS Email Template
The last step in setting up your RSS campaign is creating the email. Click on the green email module. You can either select an „existing email“ or „create new email“. When clicking on „Create new email“ an input window opens up. The “RSS E-Mail Template” is already selected by default. The “RSS Email Template” is especially suited for newsletters linked to dynamic content, similar to the CleverReach© “Tell a Story” Template. After clicking on “Continue“ you can enter the subject, campaign name, sender name and sender address.
When clicking on „Edit Email“ you are forwarded to the email editor.
Edit the “RSS E-Mail Template” in the email editor. This is the newsletter that regularly goes out and is automatically filled with dynamic content and sent to your recipients.
Below the header image, the variable parameters from the RSS feed are added on the basis of the previously selected design. The standard layout is image left and text right.
The variables are:
{IMAGE} = With current content from the previously defined feed
{TITLE} = With current content from the previously defined feed
{DESCRIPTION} = With current content from the previously defined feed
{LINK} = Contains default text „Read more“ or individual text
Basically all available variables from the RSS feed can be used.
Please note:
The Preview Feature contains standardized content which is loaded and used for test delivery.
If a text+image element was selected for the dynamic content and four posts have an image but the fifth does not, a previously stored default image is displayed.
If there’s no new content, no email will be sent out.
The same applies if no dynamic content can be loaded due to an error (downtime at the external server on which the blog / magazine is hosted). This avoids that an empty email is sent to the selected recipients.
Evaluate RSS Feed Campaigns
The THEA reports allows you to find out better what your readers love reading. Which of your articles resulted in a click on the “read more” button (if set up appropriately in your RRS feed newsletter).
When clicking on „Report“ in the THEA RSS email, a page showing the last ten reports opens up. In addition, it is possible to filter by the time range “Last 30 days and Last month. You can also enter a time frame. The latest report is also at the top of the first page.
The THEA report also monitors the success of your RSS campaigns. The following are the standard CleverReach© figures:
• Delivered emails,
• opens,
• unopened,
• clicks,
• unsubscribes,
• Bounces.
Furthermore, there are additional ways to evaluate email marketing campaigns:
The Connect Link Extension is a measurement tool to evaluate purchases via an email with CleverReach©. The following data can be measured with it: Orders generated, Sales generated and Order rate.
You can also evaluate purchases and other figures with the Google Analytics Integration.
Get started for free with CleverReach®!
Manage
- up to 2,500 recipients
- and send up to 10,000 emails per month for free!
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For more emails and features, choose between our Flex, Essential or Enterprise plans. Our price plan calculator will tell you which plan is the best for you!
