Getting ready for your first send

Work through these steps in order and your first newsletter goes out on a domain that’s ready for it. Most of the setup is for a company admin; if you’re a channel admin or content contributor, skip to the steps for your role.

If you’re coming from another email platform, read Moving your newsletter to Letterhead alongside this list.

1. Sign in and secure your account

• Your invitation comes from [email protected]. Add it to your contacts so it doesn’t land in spam.
• The first time, the Log in to Letterhead button in that email takes you to set a password.
• Letterhead asks you to set up multi-factor authentication.

2. Find your way around

Letterhead has a company workspace for your whole account and a workspace for each newsletter, called a channel. Read Understanding company and channel workspaces so you know where each step below happens. Keep the Letterhead glossary handy for new terms.

Need another channel? Contact support with the newsletter’s name, sender name and email, and timezone.

3. Set up sending (company admin)

1. Connect your sending domain and publish its DNS records, so mailbox providers trust your mail. See Setting up your sending domain.
2. Add your verified senders and choose each newsletter’s default sender. See Managing verified senders.
3. Connect your other tools, such as another email provider, Stripe or Zapier. See Working in Integrations.

4. Invite your team (company admin)

Add people from your company’s Settings → Teams and give each one a role and the channels they can reach. See Managing your team and roles.

5. Set up each channel (company or channel admin)

In each channel’s Settings, check the newsletter’s name, logo, timezone, social links, sender and look and feel. See Managing a newsletter’s settings. Audience policies such as double opt-in apply to every channel, though a channel admin can turn double opt-in on or off for their own channel.

6. Bring in your audience (company or channel admin)

Import your subscribers from a CSV, with tags, or add a signup form to your site. Then organise them with tags and segments. See Importing your audience and How tags and segments work.

7. Build and schedule your first newsletter (everyone)

1. Open a channel and go to Campaigns.
2. Create a newsletter from a template, from scratch, or by copying a past one.
3. Build it with content blocks: text, images, stories from your content library, promotions and more.
4. Preview it, send yourself a test, and schedule it. See Create and schedule a newsletter.

Then set up a welcome letter so new subscribers hear from you straight away. See Working in Automations.

8. Check how it went

After it sends, open the channel’s Analytics for deliveries, opens and clicks, or the company Analytics to compare channels. See Working in Reports.

Prefer to have it done for you? Penpal can start a draft or schedule a send when you ask in plain words.

If something on this list won’t work the way it’s described here, contact support.