Wysija - Automatically Send Newsletters from WordPress

Wysija is a newsletter program that will let you send out newsletters from your WordPress admin.

Wysija is easy to use and allows you to design your newsletter with a drag-and-drop interface. Once it’s been set up, Wysija is a perfect solution for automatically sending your new posts to subscribers.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to create, design and send your first Wysija newsletter.

Step 1: Installation

Go to Plugins > Add New.
Search for Wysija.
Click Install Now.

Doing this wlll download the free version of Wysija. There is also a premium version of Wysija that requires an annual membership.

Step 2: Design your first newsletter

Go to Wysija > Newsletters.
Click Create a new email.

Choose a type. Regular means you’ll manually send the letter. Choose Automatically and you’ll get the schedule dropdowns.
Give the newsletter a subject line.
Choose which list you want to send to. You’ll be able to create multiple lists as you go. When you first installed the plugin, it automatically synchronized all your current users to the mailing list. Choose Synched WordPress to mass mail all current users.
Click Next Step.

You’ll now see a pre-filled sample you can use as a guide for creating your own.
Now we’re going to add your logo to the newsletter. Click the Add Images and upload the header or logo image.

Once your image is uploaded, drag-and-drop your logo from the image tab into the header area.

Mouse over the section and you will get editing controls so you can edit the image in-place.

Now let’s move on to the content section. You have two choices for adding content.

You can automatically add recent posts.
You can type text directly into the newsletter.

First, let’s see how to automatically add recent posts.

From the Content tab drag WordPress post to the area you want the posts to appear. In the image below, we’re putting them directly under the header.

You have an option when you select the posts. You can insert the entire post or just the excerpt.
In this example, choose insert entire post, not just excerpt.

Click the title of the post to insert it into your newsletter.
Mousing over the post pops up a toolbar.
- The first icon lets you drag this to another position.
- The second lets you choose background colors.
- The third will delete it from the newsletter, not from the site.

Now let’s add a divider to separate this post from the article below. The process is similar.

Go to the Content tab.
Click the gear icon.
Choose which divider you want to use from the popup window.
Drag the Divider to the newsletter just like you did the WordPress post.

Next, let’s write a news item directly into the newsletter.

From the Content tab, drag Plain text to the place you want to write the article. You will have editing controls to create the content.
Enter text and format it.

To add a picture, go to the Image tab and drag the picture into your content area.

From the Content tab, you can also drag-and-drop docial bookmarks into the newsletter.

Finally, let’s complete our newsletter design and add a footer image.

Go to the Images tab.
Upload a footer image.
Drag and drop it to the footer position.

Finally, you can design the newsletter by using the Styles tab:

Below is a copy of the newsletter we just created. If you’re happy with this layout and design, we can move on.

Step 3: Add the subscription form to the site

Go to Appearance > Widgets on the dashboard.
Drag the subscription widget to a widget area.

Set the widget options.

Check your site and you’ll see the newsletter widget:

You’re now ready to start building subscribers and sending mail!

Optional themes available

In this tutorial we saw the default newsletter theme that ships with Wysija. It is possible to add more themes.

In your newsletter, go to the Themes tab.
Click Install themes.

You’ll see a range of extra themes. Most of the themes are marked as premium, but there are some that are free and we’ve marked those in the image below.

One thing that the Wysija team notes about their themes is that many are responsive, allowing your newsletters to display correctly across different screen sizes.

Choose the theme and double click it to add it to your site.
A new theme is going to overwrite anything you did previously, so please be careful when doing this.