Maintain an ongoing relationship with your customers by communicating regularly through the Newsletter and Product Notification feature in Zen Cart.  These communications are great for keeping your customers informed about specials, new products, discount coupons and other promotions or changes in your online store.

Your customers are more likely to stay subscribed and keep your online store in mind if you communicate regularly and engage customers with tips and tricks, special offers and other relevant content (such as recipes or handyman projects – something that complements the products in your store) that adds value for your customers.

To send a newsletter:

1. Log in to your Zen Cart store Admin
2. From the Tools menu, select Newsletter and Product Notifications.
   
3. Click the New Newsletter button.
   
4. In the subject field, enter your email message subject.
    
5. Enter the newsletter content in the Rich Text Content area.  Customers that have selected the HTML version will receive this content.
   
6. Next, copy and paste your email content in to the Text-Only Content area.  You may need to modify the contents in this area so that your email is still legible without any formatting.
   
7. When you have finished creating your newsletter, click Save.   You will be returned to the main Newsletter and Product Notification Manager page.
8. The saved newsletter is shown with the Subject, Message Size, Message Type and an indication that it has not yet been sent.
   
9. Now it’s time to send the newsletter.  It is highly recommended that you send a test message to yourself before sending your new newsletter to customers.  Click the Send button next to your saved Newsletter.
   
10. From the drop down menu, select the intended audience for your newsletter.  In this instance, we will select Administrators.  The process is the same for all options under the audience menu.  Click Select.
11. The newsletter is displayed for a last minute check.  If you are happy to proceed, click the Send Mail button.
12. The next screen will confirm when your newsletter has finished sending to all recipients.
    
13. As you will see, the HTML version of the Newsletter uses the HTML Email template from /email/email_template_newsletters.html.  You may need to modify the email template to in conjunction with editing the newsletter contents to achieve the look you are after.  Remember to keep the email template generic though so it is ready for your next email newsletter.

Note:  your email program may send your newsletter email messages to the junk folder.  This is generally due to the sender email address and the recipient address being the same address.