Sending out emails containing your latest articles is easy with StoryChief. Just connect to one of our Email marketing channels to get going. We currently support MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, and Active Campaign. These applications use our RSS feeds to dynamically include your articles in campaigns.
Watch our Academy video 📹 on Creating Email News Digests for a step-by-step guide.
🔔 Note: do you use a different platform? Many offer the option to use RSS feeds to create content. Find out how to create an RSS channel for your articles.
Table of Contents:
1. MailChimp
Step 1. Go to your Channel Page and then go to the section Email Marketing and click on Mailchimp. Choose "Add new destination".
Step 2. The new destination has now been created for you. We recommend changing the display name to be more memorable. Click on "Save settings" to confirm.
Step 3. The "RSS Feed URL" is used for your MailChimp campaign. Press the "Expand" button next to Setup Instructions. You will be presented with two ways to use your feed in MailChimp.
Option 1: Include a block of recent articles inside a regular campaign. This is a great way to include your latest articles in addition to other content.
Go to your email template in MailChimp
Drag & drop a 'code' block to the email template
Click on the code block to edit it and enter the code that you've been given under option 1 in your StoryChief account
4. The code block will now look like we show in the image above |FEEDITEM:ITEM|
5. Start publishing articles to the MailChimp channel to see a preview of them:
Option 2: Automatically send out digests of recent articles on a regular time frame.
By using MailChimp's built-in RSS campaign creator, you can schedule newsletters to be created from your newest articles. Emails will only be sent if there are new articles available. Find out here how to add your RSS feed given by StoryChief to your MailChimp campaign.
Step 4. Once you have added your RSS feed to a MailChimp campaign, you are good to go. The next time you publish an article, make sure to activate it in the Audience tab.
2. Campaign Monitor
Step 1. Click on Campaign Monitor and choose Add new destination.
Step 2. The new destination has now been created for you. We recommend changing the display name to be more memorable. Click on "Save settings" to confirm.
Step 3. The RSS Feed URL is used for your Campaign Monitor campaign. Press the "Expand" button next to Setup Instructions. You will now be shown the steps needed to create the campaign in Campaign Monitor.
Step 4. You are now ready to include your articles in a campaign. Activate your new channel from the Audience tab the next time you publish an article.
3. Active Campaign
Step 1. Click on Active Campaign and choose "Add new destination".
Step 2. The new destination has now been created for you. We recommend changing the display name to be more memorable. Click on "Save settings" to confirm.
Step 3. The RSS Feed URL is used by Active Campaign. Click on the "Expand" button next to Setup Instructions. You will be shown 2 options for setting up your newsletters
Option 1: Include a block of recent articles inside a regular campaign. A useful way to include not only your articles but also additional content.
Option 2: Automatically send out digests of recent articles on a regular time frame. Schedule newsletters containing just your articles. You can even set how frequently emails will be sent out.
Step 4. You are now ready to include your articles in a campaign. Activate your new channel from the Audience tab the next time you publish an article.
4. Limit the size of images
Embedding large images in a newsletter may result in the layout of the email becoming stretched. If this occurs, decrease the maximum allowed size using the "Image Width" option.
5. Adjusting the output
It is possible to limit your RSS feed when using it with an external application/service.
Add a ? followed by skip=X or limit=X to the end of the address, and add a & to combine them.
This example skips the first article and will only show 10 in total.