Hello!
My name is Oveante Magsby. I am writing to inquire about some accessible resources for creating a news letter. I am in the process of creating a news letter for my website.
Does anyone have any tips or know of any resources?
By Oveante Magsby, 23 December, 2023
Forum
macOS and Mac Apps
Comments
Email list
You need to build an email list by collecting email ids and distributing the newsletter with the help of say Convertkit and other such services.
Inspiration
This website has 5 templates that are meant to showcase what an accessible newsletter should be like.
Just scroll down the page, there are 5 links that are all together and if you click on them, a sample newsletter will load.
Check it out.
https://www.e-shot.net/insights/blog/accessible-newsletter-templates
My experience
It's pretty sad. Every website that lets you send out email newsletters thinks they have to create their own block editor from scratch, and every single one of them drops accessibility on the floor. What I'd like to do is create my own newsletter using the local editor of my choice, upload it, and send it out. Not a single newsletter website provides this functionality in a clean and accessible way.
The closest I've found is MailerLite. I use MailerLite.com to manage a list of subscribers to my website and periodically send them a newsletter. I would not call it accessible, but I've used it enough now that its quirks don't impede me too much. I compose my newsletter locally, select all, copy, go to their web site, start a new newsletter, open their block editor, paste, and pray. Most of the time, I get acceptable results.
I'm also part of a group that uses Brevo.com, which used to be SendInBlue.com. I have emailed their support about multiple accessibility issues, but there have been no updates or improvements to the website with respect to accessibility, even though they did a major overhaul as part of their name change. It's like they wanted to preserve all those unlabeled buttons and invisible controls.
I understand ConstantContact is accessible. But it's a paid service, and last time I investigated, it was quite pricey, so not really an option. Neither of my two websites bring in enough money to justify the cost of an annual ConstantContact subscription.
Let us know what you end up using.
Mailchimp could be an alternative
I use Mailchimps ability to send a prepared Newsletter as an e-Mail to my Mailchimp account. Mailchimp then distributes the newsletter to my customers.
And why not sending via Apple Mail?
Because if the list of receivers is to large the e-Mail would be marked as Junk. Sent through Mailchimp works fine and aup to 2000 receivers it's free of charge.