Mailrelay's new newsletter editor

Mailrelay's new version has many advantages for managing your email marketing campaigns, including a new newsletter editor. In this post, we'd like to talk about the benefits of this new editor, as well as some advanced features for sending targeted newsletters. Keep reading for more information.

ÍNDICE

• Mailrelay's new newsletter editor
  • Drag & drop newsletter editor
  • Newsletters adapted to multiple device configurations (responsive designs)
  • Working with blocks
  • Image manipulation
  • Working with images and text
  • Groups of images
  • Adding videos to the newsletter
  • Dividers and buttons
  • Share and follow on social media
  • If you still want to use the HTML editor, it is still available
  • Bonus: Advanced feature > Newsletters with conditionals based on subscriber variables

Drag & drop newsletter editor

The newsletter editor is drag & drop, this is its main interface:

On the left, you can see the editing screen and on the right the blocks you can insert.

You just have to choose the block, click it and drag it to the editing area. No knowledge of HTML or similar is required.

Newsletters adapted to multiple device configurations (responsive designs)

No matter what software and device your subscribers are using to read your newsletter. The editor will add code to adapt the layout to different devices, so you won't have to do that manually.

For example, we have this newsletter:

It will be displayed like that on a desktop.

And the system will change it to:

On a mobile device.

As you can see, the width has been adapted to the device size, to ensure that the message will be displayed correctly and that the user will be able to click on the links without any problem.

Working with blocks

The advantage of working with blocks is that we can rearrange them at any time to change the layout and structure of our message.

It's as easy as dragging the item by clicking and dragging it, using the “move” icon:

It is certainly a very interesting advantage, because in a normal editor if we want to move the content; we risk damaging the HTML code, which could affect email delivery andthe message would not be displayed correctly. In this case, it offers several options: Move, Edit, Duplicate and Delete.

Image manipulation

Working with images is very easy with the new newsletter editor. To add them, simply create an image block and upload the file.

We will have several options:

• Resize image> this allows us to reduce or enlarge the image. But remember that the size will remain the same, so you should still use an app to reduce the size of your file before uploading it to the software.
• Show link:> This option can be used to insert a link into the image. When the subscriber clicks on it, he will be taken to the link you have added.
• URL> Here, we'll enter the URL we want to display when the subscriber clicks on the image.

With these three options, we can edit images very easily. And there are even more options, of course.

Working with images and text

To add text to images, we can use the block "image with a caption," with these settings: 

You can configure the block in the "Configuration" tab:

• You can configure the block in the "Configuration" tab:
• Number of images> you can choose to create a block with one or two images
• Column position> if we want to work with one column above the other or side by side.
  

• Caption position> to place the caption above or below the image

This setting will generate a block like this:

From here, we can add the images and modify the texts.

As you can see, we can choose to edit one image or another in the tabs.

Next, we have a text block. This is the text block below the image, and we can add text, links, etc.

We can also create links to the image in this way:

First, we click on "Show link" and then we add the URL, so that when a subscriber clicks on the image, they will be taken to this URL.

In short, we can easily create blocks of images and texts that will be displayed in column format, or one below the other. And making sure that they will be displayed correctly on different devices.

Groups of images

If we want to display several products or include several images, we can use the Image Groups block:

The configuration of this block is similar to that of the previous image blocks:

We can add up to five images.

All of them can be linked, as we saw earlier, so this would be a way of creating a small gallery of products linked to our online store.

Adding videos to the newsletter

Video support in the different email clients is rather poor and so a video inserted into a newsletter will not play in most email software.

The most compatible solution today for most scenarios is to add an image, linking it to the video URL.

To do this effortlessly, we'll use the Video block:

All we need to do is choose a YouTube video and add it to the Video URL field:

And the result will be as follows:

The newsletter editor will automatically include an image, the video symbol and it will link to the video.

This way, the subscriber who receives the newsletter will know that it's a video and, when they click on it, they'll be taken to the page where they can watch it.

A convenient solution for sharing videos in your newsletters.

Dividers and buttons

The Buttons and Dividers options will allow you to create space and calls to action as required:

For example, to create a button with the text. 

Share and follow on social media

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The new newsletter editor includes the Follow on social media and Share on social media options:

These options allow you to create blocks for subscribers to subscribe to your social media and share the campaign on social media:

If you still want to use the HTML editor, it is still available

Yes, if you want to create a newsletter with a more HTML-oriented editor, that's also possible.

If you already have a template or work with a design team, agency etc. that has sent you a specific design, you can use the HTML editor; there are several options available for advanced users.

These options are perfect if you have already created your own HTML design and can be found under Newsletters>>Add.

As you can see, there are three advanced options:

1. paste HTML code

2. import the design from a ZIP file

3. Or import it from a URL

Important: these options are considered advanced, so if you don't know anything about HTML, we recommend using the drag & drop editor (the first of the options on the previous screen, by clicking on Create newsletter).

Bonus: Advanced feature > Newsletters with conditionals based on subscriber variables

This is one of the fantastic features included in the new editor, but not so visible.

We've already seen how to create custom fields and how to use them to segment our subscriber list.

But in addition, these custom variables can be used in newsletters to display one piece of information or another, depending on the value of these fields.

A simple example: imagine you have a Sport field in which you have stored the type of sport practiced by each contact.

Like this:

You could then address each contact by mentioning their favorite sport.

But there's more, you could even have other blocks within the condition, see:

You could send some products or others to the contact, depending on the value of the variable.

In this way, you can make your campaigns more specific to the interests and needs of your subscribers, and with little effort.