Webinar recording: Build an enterprise newsletter in minutes

It’s no secret that we’re fans of Gutenberg, WordPress’ new visual editor. We have been tinkering with it since it was announced, creating middleware & custom blocks (library coming soon!) and using it to deliver powerful editing capabilities for our clients.

But while Gutenberg undoubtedly changes the way that traditional content like posts and pages are created, its flexibility allows it to power editorial experiences of all kinds.

In the case of the Mortgage Bankers Association, we saw the opportunity to use Gutenberg to build a flexible & modern interface that brought newsletter creation to the same place that their content lives. 

With our solution, MBA was able to focus on building great newsletters that inform their large audience while reducing reliance on their tech & design teams. 

We presented this story in a webinar titled “Build an enterprise newsletter in minutes”, alongside our friends over at WordPress VIP. Access the full recording:

The second half of the webinar was reserved for Q&A, during which we received some great questions we’d like to expand on here.

Integration with other platforms

Most businesses use a set of specialized tools to accomplish different tasks within their marketing and sales processes. In the case of newsletter creation, for example, a business can use a platform like WordPress to manage content, something like Raiser’s Edge for CRM and Mailchimp for email distribution. Integration between these platforms, while essential for unified and efficient workflows, can be challenging to implement.

Take for instance Constant Contact and Mailchimp, which provide a very limited way to import WordPress posts via RSS feeds – only pulling in one or two articles at a time and limited to the title, header image, short excerpt and link. 

Furthermore, they don’t provide an easy way to embed the metadata needed to track advertising campaigns, nor the full range of styling and design capabilities of WordPress and Gutenberg.

In the case of Mortgage Bankers Association, we were able to do so much more by configuring WordPress to generate a fully rendered HTML template of each newsletter edition that could be imported straight into an email distribution system like Higher Logic.

This allowed MBA to continue using their existing database, distribution and analytics platforms while giving them all the content management and editorial workflow benefits of WordPress and Gutenberg. It would be possible to bring this kind of workflow to any other system that allows a similar import of a flat HTML file.

We’ve also built solutions that use WordPress’ REST API to interface with other systems for several of our clients. This allowed solutions that, for example, could push articles, metadata and asset references to platforms outside of WordPress. Similarly, the API can also power solutions that can pull data like analytics, subscribers, clickthrough rates and engagement into a consolidated dashboard right within your CMS.

Content distribution

Integrations with email marketing platforms, as described above, are common. However, these are not strictly necessary, as WordPress can handle email distribution by itself at scale. The process of sending newsletters can also be automated.

The powerful Gutenberg editor doesn’t have to be just for external comms though. Because of its flexibility, it can be your singular editing interface when deployed on intranets, for internal documentation websites, segmented email lists, and announcement boards.

WordPress

One of the main advantages of WordPress is its mature codebase that is not only rock-solid, but also extensible for your specific needs. 

For example, we helped American Eagle create fresh new landing pages, blog posts and dedicated pages for their brand ambassadors using a consistent, yet powerful Gutenberg editing interface.

WordPress also supports robust structures for organizing and presenting your content, whether that be through data taxonomies or, in the case of multiple distinct pools of information, a seamless multi-site setup.

Finally, you are always in control of your codebase and any data within WordPress, making it much simpler to export your data or move between vendors in the ecosystem.

Ask us: Can WordPress do ___ ?

We believe that WordPress can be the center of your content while delighting both your customers and employees. We’d love to connect with you and chat about WordPress’ capabilities or brainstorm creative ways to approach a business problem.

While our focus is on WordPress, we regularly work with clients that have part of their publishing workflows on other platforms. We are happy to serve as resources and solutions providers. 

Drop us a line at hello@rtcamp.com or call +1 (516) 537-8477.

Links: Mortgage Bankers Association Case Study | WordPress VIP