How to send an email preview of a blog post in Ghost

Dan Rowden -

This is a quick tutorial to show you how to send out a preview of a blog post in your newsletter.

You may want to do this if

  • you don't like sending full posts over email and would rather your subscribers read full articles on your website
  • you have member- or paid-only content on your site and wish to share a teaser to your (free) newsletter subscribers

Step 1: Create the full post

The first step is to write out the final post. Don't publish it yet. Make sure you have decided on the final URL set, and saved in on the post, in this step.

Step 2: Write the teaser for your email subscribers

Now you should cut (Cmd/Ctrl+X) the whole post and write your teaser email. You can change the title and body to be whatever you want your email to contain.

It is essential that you leave the URL the same and work off the same post. This means that anyone receiving your email can click the post link in the email and visit the full post.

Important: If your final post will be limited to members only but you want the email to be sent to all subscribers, make sure you set the Post access option to Public in this step.

Step 3: Send your teaser to your subscribers

Now Publish the post and toggle Send by email on. Your subscribers will receive the shortened version in their inbox.

Step 4: Paste back in your full post

Now you need to paste back in the full post's content (and optionally update the title) into same post in Ghost and click Save.

Important: If your email was sent to all subscribers but you want the final post will be limited to members only, now you should set Post access to Members only or Paid members only.

And you're done 😇

The teaser version of the post was sent out over email to your subscribers and the full post is now available online.