Create a newsletter

A newsletter is a mailing list that belongs to your organization. Unlike a course, which reaches each learner lesson by lesson on their own schedule, a newsletter sends one message to everyone on it at the same moment — announcements, updates, a new course opening.

Newsletters are part of your plan. If you do not see a Newsletters tab on your organization, your plan does not include them.

Creating one

Open your organization and go to the Newsletters tab.
Choose to add a newsletter.
Give it a title, and pick its language.

Only admins can create a newsletter, and only admins can write and schedule what goes out on it. Editors and viewers can see newsletters but not change them.

The title

The title is what people see when they subscribe — on your organization page and on any subscription form you embed elsewhere. It has to be unique within your organization.

Name it for what a subscriber gets, not for how you file it internally. "Course launches and updates" tells somebody whether to sign up; "Newsletter 2" does not.

How people join

From your organization page, which shows a subscription form for each of your newsletters.
From a form on your own site — see Put an enrollment form on your own site.
When they enroll in a course that has the newsletter attached — see Subscribe learners automatically when they enroll.

Nobody needs an account to subscribe, and every email you send includes a link to unsubscribe in one click.

Subscribers must confirm before they receive anything

Somebody who subscribes from a form is sent a confirmation email, and is not sent anything else until they follow the link in it. Unconfirmed subscribers are left out of every sendout.

If they confirm later, they receive your next sendout — not the ones they missed. So a subscriber count that looks healthy can include people who will never actually get an email.

Learners subscribed through a course enrollment are confirmed at the same moment they confirm the enrollment, so they are never asked twice.

What your plan allows you to send

Your plan sets a monthly limit on newsletter email, and it counts emails, not sendouts. One sendout to 400 subscribers uses 400 of your allowance.

The count starts again on the first of each month. A sendout that would take you over the limit is not sent, and shows as Blocked.

Deleting a newsletter deletes its subscribers and its history

Every subscriber, every scheduled sendout, and the record of everything already sent go with it, immediately. There is no undo, and no way to get the subscriber list back.

Export your subscribers first if there is any chance you will want them.

An exported list comes with the same obligation as the newsletter it came from: under the Course Provider Terms of Service, a subscriber's email address may only be used for the newsletter they subscribed to — not for other marketing, and not shared with anyone else. That still applies after the newsletter itself is deleted.