Balena newsletter generator

The purpose of this tool is to help with the creation of balena newsletters and other marketing emails. It uses templating principles and a responsive email framework to convert simple HTML tags into the complex table HTML required for emails, so you don't have thousands of tables in your markup. The main technologies used are:

• Handlebars semantic HTML templates
• MJML responsive email framework
• Browsersync Built-in synchronised server for testing
• Mailchimp integration

Features

• Generates the email as a responsive HTML file.
• Mailchimp integration
  • Creates a Mailchimp campaign
  • Adds the HTML email to the campaign
  • Sends test email (will not be sent to audience, only specified tester)

Installation

You will need Node.js 8 or greater.

git pull https://github.com/balena-io/balena-emails
cd balena-emails
npm install

Usage

To use the tool you will need to:

• specify which email template to use (see the templates section)
• provide a JSON file with the template content (see the datafile section)

Watch

If you want to develop a new template, edit an existing one or just see how the template looks like:

npm run watch -- --datafile path/to/datafile.json --template <newsletter>

All files except the .json datafile are watched so you will see the changes imediately on your browser. If you modify the datafile you will need to re-run this command.

Build

If you just want to generate the responsive email run this command. The generated output can be located on the dist folder:

npm run build -- --datafile path/to/datafile.json --template <newsletter>

Staging

If you want to generate the responsive email and publish the result to a netlify webpage you can run:

npm run staging -- --datafile path/to/datafile.json --template <newsletter> --netlifytoken <NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN>

Here is how you can get your Netlify token.

Publish

If you want to generate the responsive email, publish to netlify, create the mailchimp campaign and send a test email (this will not send the campaign to the end users):

npm run publish -- --datafile path/to/datafile.json --template <newsletter> --netlifytoken <NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN> --mailchimpkey <YOUR_MAILCHIMP_API_KEY>

Here is how you can get your Mailchimp API_KEY.

Templates

This are the templates currently available:

• newsletter

Datafile format

The datafile must be a JSON file with the following parameters (there is also a sample file in the data folder). Parameters in bold are required.

Global configuration

| parameter | type | description | | --------- | ------- | ------------------------------------------------ | | configuration | object | Settings for the template | | configuration.mailchimp_recipients | string | The target audience id. Some common ones are: 1c73cb7379 for 'Balena Users (Newsletter)', ab92290a0b for 'Test audience', 79b41f7587 for 'Testing'. Here is how to find the recipient/audience id. Default: ab92290a0b| | configuration.mailchimp_title | string | The title of the campaign. Default: Autogenerated campaign -- Default title | | configuration.mailchimp_subject_line | string | The subject line for the campaign. Default: Autogenerated campaign -- Default subject line | | configuration.mailchimp_preview_text | string | The preview text for the campaign. Default: Autogenerated campaign -- Default preview text | | configuration.mailchimp_from_name | string | The from name on the campaign (not an email address). Default: balena | | configuration.mailchimp_reply_to | string | The reply-to email address for the campaign. Default: [email protected] | | configuration.mailchimp_test_emails | string array | An array of email addresses to send the test email to. Default: [] | | configuration.netlify_site_name | string | Name of the website on netlify. The site can be accessed on https://<netlify_site_name>.netlify.com Default: balena-default-site | | configuration.assets_folder | string | Path to folder with images or other media embedded on the template. Relative to root. |

Template: Newsletter settings

| parameter | type | description | | --------- | ------- | ------------------------------------------------ | | header | object | Settings for the email header | | header.title | string | The title shown on the email header (top right, eg: October 2019) | | header.image | url | Background image for the header. For compatibility reasons it's better if the image has a 600/380 ratio. Default: here | | header.image_height | numeric | Height for the image header. Default: 380px | | header.image_width | numeric | Width for the image header. Default: 600px | | header.color | string | Background color for the header. Default: rgb(41, 80, 111) | | featured | object | Settings for the featured intro section | | featured.text | string | HTML formated content to be shown on the featured section (does not need to be escaped) | | news | object array | Settings for the News from balenaHQ section. Each object is constructed as follows below. | | [news].title | string | News card title | | [news].image | string | Left side image on the news card. | | [news].button_text | string | Text to display on the button | | [news].link | string | URL if button/image are clicked | | [news].text | string | HTML formated content to be shown on the news card (does not need to be escaped) | | posts | object array | Settings for the The latest from our blog section. Each object is constructed as follows below. | | [posts].title | string | Blog card title | | [posts].image | string | Left side image on the posts card. | | [posts].button_text | string | Text to display on the button | | [posts].link | string | URL if button/image are clicked | | [posts].text | string | HTML formated content to be shown on the blog card (does not need to be escaped) | | projects | object array | Settings for the Projects of the month section. Each object is constructed as follows below. | | [projects].title | string | Project title | | [projects].link | string | URL if title is clicked | | [projects].text | string | HTML formated content to be shown on the project description (does not need to be escaped) | | jobs | object | Settings for the jobs section | | jobs.text | string | Additional text to display under the jobs section. | | events | object array | Settings for the Events section. Each object is constructed as follows below. | | [events].attending | string | Whether there will be balena representation on the event or not. yes|no | | [events].title | string | Name of the event | | [events].link | string | URL if title is clicked | | [events].location | string | Location of the event. Usually City, Country | | [events].event_date | string | Date of the event. Usually Month datefrom - dateto, year |