Thursday, August 29, 2013

Video: Tour our new User Interface!

As part of our continuing effort to provide the best service and functionality, we've recently upgraded our user interface.  Our very own Dave Walker has recorded a brief overview to help our customers better understand the changes we've made.  Click on the video below to watch!



As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call us at 855-709-4099, or submit a ticket at jangomail.com/support.

Don't Miss The School Bell, Email Communicators!


Hey parent group leaders, school administrators and after-school program organizers, this one's for you. Email communications distributed through schools ensure everyone plays nice on the playground. More specifically, keeping parents and teachers in the loop about school-related events is critical to their happiness - and yours.

What? Email's not part of your curriculum? K - have fun with this all year ...



Still here? Awesome - no one wants to face the wrath of an angry parent. So don't! 
Email is the most cost-efficient, time saving distribution channel for school-related communications. The backpack express is anything but reliable, and word-of-mouth is lost on the young (i.e. they forget A LOT). We're sure you have plenty of content to pass along to parents and teachers. 

So the only question that remains: How do you get everyone on the same page - or in this case, on the same school email distribution list?

The answer is simple.  Most parents are plugged in - email, calendar alerts, Facebook & Twitter. And connecting to where your parents are is as easy as offering them a few choices in the places they're most apt to stay in touch with your school. Oh - and using JangoMail. (Duh.)

The choices:

  • Add an Email List Signup Form to your school's website. Most parents prefer email, and it's highly effective way to communicate daily updates, weekly newsletters and time-sensitive alerts. You can determine what information you want to collect (name, telephone #s, address, etc.) on JangoMail's customizable, email signup forms to create distribution lists for specific grade levels, neighborhoods, volunteer rosters, etc.
  • Share the announcement via Social Media. For parents who are less likely to open emails after work hours, but are plugged into social updates on their mobile devices, Facebook and Twitter are great ways to keep them in the loop last minute. Create a View as Webpage link in your email and share it on your profiles. It's a handy way to guide parents back to your email communication. If you know there's a lot of chatter on your profiles - or that of your PTO/PTA, take a few minutes to share your announcements on those pages.
  • Backpack express? Sure, why not, you can try to send your signup forms through and hope they come back to school in one piece for you to then manually enter in your copious free time (exhale). But then again, save your sanity and skip straight to the bullets above. Plus, you'll be 'going green' by holding off on paper. Aren't you eco-clever?

Got questions? We'd like to think we have answers. Hit us up anytime. And to all the kids, parents, teachers and school staff heading back this month ... best of luck to all of you this year. It's going to be a great one!

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Got a few cooks in the kitchen? Bring it - you've got JangoMail.


Managing multiple clients or in-house departments is child's play using our cutting-edge email marketing features. Some of our clients' favorites include the ability to create any campaign, capitalize on results reporting, and share out to as many or as few team members and partnering agencies as you want.

Here's how to do it:

Create sub-accounts
Easily create sub-accounts for your clients underneath a master umbrella account. With your consent, internal or external marketing, design, public relations and digital agencies can take full advantage of our highly flexible client sub-account capabilities. This feature allows you to maintain multiple JangoMail accounts; each distinctly modified to best service the unique needs of each entity.
It’s a smart deal for your business, too. All accounts are billed together, so you’ll get the lowest cost per email of the combined total sending volume.

Create multiple logins

You can create unique login credentials (username and password) for your account, without requiring the creation of additional accounts.
Any authorized user can have access, with the same permissions as the main username/password. For added protection, only the Administrator's login has API access, and the authority to initiate mass emails through an external email client or FTP to the JangoMail server.

Reporting only logins
Not everything is for everyone’s eyes – or usage. JangoMail lets you create separate logins for your account that allow a specified user to see and utilize reporting functions. However, they don’t have the ability to access other functions of the site that you’d rather keep proprietary.

Private Label

Keep JangoMail behind-the-scenes, so your business can steal the show. JangoMail features private label capabilities, which allow you to create a 100% domain-branded private label solution that re-brands JangoMail as your own personal email advertising application.

List sharing
If your master account contains sub-accounts, JangoMail lets you share out email lists across any of those sub-accounts. Those sub-accounts can then share email lists between other sub-accounts. Information is only proprietary as dictated by your master account, allowing sub-accounts free access to a variety of email lists.

Unsubscribe/Bounce sharing
For your accounts that have sub-accounts, unsubscribe and bounce lists can be shared from your master account to any sub-account you choose. Sub-accounts can also share out unsubscribe and bounce lists between other sub-accounts.
Information is only proprietary as dictated by your master account, allowing sub-accounts free access per your direction.

Locked templates
Some email campaigns are meant to be shared out by recipients. However, our Locked Template feature allows you to maintain the integrity of some information with that particular email – whether it’s brand-related or an exclusive offer.

FTP
Your JangoMail account also comes with an FTP account (FTP to client.jangomail.com) to upload images and other files (PDF, XLS, DOC, etc.) into your account Assets, a library for your referenced files. For added peace-of-mind, all files are copied to both our primary and backup server locations during the upload process.

How cool is that? Tell us what you think about this or any other JangoMail feature. And if you don't see something you'd like or need, hit us up any time for ways to make it happen. Until next time, have a great week!




Friday, August 16, 2013

Stop Sending So Many Emails ... Ya Think?

There are so many email marketing questions/topics/discussions out there, sometimes it's hard to isolate just one to tackle each week. So, we started asking around. Here's what we found:

(The results were random and admittedly pretty amusing.)

("Did Elvis Fake His Own Death?" was a top result. Really folks?)

(Hey there, Elton John.)

So then we got to thinking about a question we hear a lot. In fact, our clients ask us all the time. 

"How many email blasts are too many?" 

In other words, at which point do you stop informing and become annoying? Our answer is pretty standard: There is no one answer. The immediate timing of a transactional email certainly differs from a newsletter or sales-oriented blast. The answer we offer is that if you're testing and monitoring open/click rates, that should give you a pretty good indication of what's working and will continue to produce desired results. Above all, listen to your recipients and gauge reactions.

One search did produce some results we wanted to share. Quora can be a refreshing alternative to Google. It's not that this was the most original answer to the question. It's that the answer was succinct, honest - and pretty much what we've been saying all along. Here's a clip from the full entry by Lester Hein, a Marketing Consultant and verbal consumer:

"...I get an email pretty much every other day from Amazon. They send me relevant emails that actually interest me, and I don't mind, in fact, I like them. I also get an email once per week from a software company for a $5 app I bought six months ago. These bug the hell out of me, because the emails have nothing for me to be interested in or get excited about. They are irrelevant."

(To sum up ...)
"Whatever your value is, make sure your message is relevant, appropriate and timely. After all, if you give me what I want when I want it, how could that be annoying?"


(Annoying.)

Have a topic you'd like us to explore? What to see more of one topic and less of another? Let us know. Email marketing is what we do, and we'd love to hear from you any time. Until next time, have a great week!


Friday, August 02, 2013

Best Day/Time To Send Emails? Umm...

Would it sound facetious to say "good luck with that one"? In other words, get ready to sweat through some extensive testing. And whether you're work lies within the realm of B2C or B2B, the song remains the same.

A brief background
The golden rule of email campaigns has been to send during the workweek, and around midday (noonish) for B2C and start of day (9ish) for B2B. Thursdays were traditionally the peak of opens and clicks, and remain so (for the most part). However, as marketers begin to more diligently analyze email campaign results to optimize ROI, some interesting insights are occurring. Some campaigns are taking off on Sunday mornings. Some click-behaviors are soaring on Monday afternoons. And forget happy hour blackouts - there are actually folks clicking 4-7pm on Fridays. Huh?


Time for testing
Hard and fast rules are flying out the window. But a common denominator remains - what works for one company certainly does not mean it will work for others, even within the same vertical targets. Every business, customer, industry, event and sub-group within those can yield different results. It's simply imperative to test your open rates and monitor click behavior by sending emails on different days, analyzing peaks and trends ... and then retesting send times on "winning" days to further improve efficiency. This sounds tedious, we know. But when you consider the results, it's just common sense to Frankenstein your strategy to craft Adonis.


What's right for your recipients? 
But enough about you. What about your customers? Are you hearing what they're saying ... considering their most intimate desires? Consider their "typical" day. Put yourself in their shoes and take a thoughtful stroll. Depending upon the unique needs of each recipient, you'll find those walks can take on their own unique strides. Is your audience more likely to check email on their smartphone during the commute into work or at end of day when they finally have time to breathe? That's just one possible scenario of many. So, take a stab. The more you postulate, test and test again, the more you'll show your recipients you really care. And caring includes knowing them best by approaching them when they're potentially the most receptive.

What's working for your business? JangoMail would love to hear from you. We're also here to help any time you need us and offer customized features to help the success of all your email marketing. Until next time, have a great week!