Holiday Wishes from JangoMail

JangoMail has been celebrating the holiday season. Secret Santa, ugly Christmas sweaters, and the much awaited Christmas party!

This year we thought we'd give you a peek at how we celebrate during this very merry, but very busy, time of the year. 

JangoMail held the first annual Jangies (loosely inspired by the Dundies). Two of our fearless leaders handed out trophies in a variety of (very unique) categories. 

What else does Christmas entail at JangoMail HQ? RockBand, Nick Offerman videos, Chinese food and kiddos in the office. From the JangoMail family, to you and yours, Happy Holidays and a wonderful new year. 

We'd love to hear about your holiday traditions! Let us know what your family or your office family  enjoys each year in the comment section below!

Email Marketing DOs 

Email marketing tips from JangoMail

Here are a few things that you should DO to ensure better delivery and interaction rates when using JangoMail (or any email service provider).

Wondering what the content of your emails should be? Test a variety of campaigns to see where your customers engage. Which campaigns are being opened? What links are being clicked? Use these results to create best practices for your business. Below are some content tips to help you get started.

Do remember it’s not always about you: One big mistake we often see is businesses crafting the messages they would want to see, without taking into account the content their subscribers interact with the most. Try to tailor your message with the data you have about your clientele. Use the sales data, web analytics and reporting tools in JangoMail to determine what works best with your subscribers. This may mean that the content of your emails doesn’t align with your personal preferences, but it will be the content your subscribers want.

Do competitor research:  Check out your competitor’s website, subscribe to their emails and follow them on social media. There is always something to learn from what others in your industry are doing. Never copy someone else’s campaign, but feel free to learn from what your competitors are doing.

Do use proper grammar: This should go without saying, but even the best of us make mistakes from time to time. Make sure to review your content with a fine-tooth comb. Cross all the T’s and dot those I’s. Use proper punctuation and make sure it all makes sense and your sentences are framed well. You can break grammar rules, but make sure it’s clear that the mistake was intentional rather than an oversight.

Do format your text: Make your text visually appealing. This is especially important in text only emails. Use bold, italic and colored text to draw attention to key ideas and the call to action. Make sure your font choices are consistent throughout your message.  

Do break up text with headlines and images:  Break up larger blocks of text with headlines or images. The best email messages are short and to the point. Readers will be overwhelmed by large text blocks and are unlikely to read the whole message. Keep your email visually interesting with other elements placed between blocks of copy. Another option is to have subscribers click through to your website to read or download the rest of your message.

For more tips check out Ryan's video below.

Email Don'ts

Email Marketing Don'ts from JangoMail

When you are putting together your content for your email campaign there are things that you should and should not do.

One of the more important things to remember is that there are certain “trap” words that can ruin your message by having it directed to the junk folder.

There are around a couple hundred words that can cause problems when trying to achieve good delivery rates.  We're not saying NEVER use these words, however, they should be used very sparingly. If you're having a problem staying out of the spam or junk folder, these words could be putting you there.

Another thing to avoid is making your subject line too long or too many characters. Try to keep your subject lines short and sweet. Having around thirty characters should be your target for a better subject line.

When you finally get to the body of your message, don't forget to add some personality. Make the body of your message a good text to image ratio. Put your "call to action" towards the top of your message. So, the what, the why, and the how….Make sure your recipients know what they are receiving, why they have received it, and how they can benefit from it. 

Finally, don’t forget to TEST, TEST, and TEST. How terrible would it be if you did NOT test your message and all of your links were broken or the personalization you had setup did not work properly. Careless mistakes are a big don’t. Nobody wants to look foolish when it comes to their business, so test those messages and make sure it is perfect before sending it to your list. 

Master Account and Subaccount Setup Explained

What is Agency Setup?

Agency Account really means Master Account and Client Subaccount really just means Subaccount, so we’ve decided to make it easier for everyone! Starting today we will begin calling Agency Accounts Master Accounts and Client Subaccounts, Subaccounts.

We created Agency and Client Accounts for the advertising and marketing firms that were some of JangoMail’s first clients. But, this type of account setup benefits so many other types of organizations! From universities who use this feature to separate each of its departments to companies who create Subaccounts for each salesperson. JangoMail’s Master and Subaccount feature is a powerful and flexible way to manage multiple accounts under one umbrella.

Creating a master account could save you $$$

Creating one Master Account with a number of Subaccounts is cheaper than creating a number of separate JangoMail accounts. At JangoMail, cost is calculated by the number of emails sent. The price per email decreases as the quantity of emails sent increases. With the Master Account setup, all Subaccounts are included in the total send volume. This way the Master Account gets the lowest cost per email, due to the combined sending volume. The billing structure is still flexible. We can send one bill for the combined Subaccounts to the Master Account or we can bill each Subaccount separately.

With 3 JangoMail accounts this university would pay $969 / month

With a Master Account and 3 Subaccounts the University would pay $868 / month

Lose Fewer Email Addresses Due to Unsubscribes

Unsubscribing email addresses from your list when asked isn’t just good business practice, to comply with CAN-SPAM, it’s the law. But, if an email addresses unsubscribes from a university’s athletics emails should it automatically be unsubscribed from emails about alumni events? At JangoMail Subaccounts do not share unsubscribe information. This way email addresses are not unsubscribed from an account for no reason. The unsubscribe information can be shared back to the Master Account if desired.

Easily Share Templates

Master Accounts can create and share email templates with Subaccounts. This allows an HTML expert to create templates that non-experts in each Subaccount can easily edit. A practical scenario for this is a university. The marketing department could create universal templates with the proper logos, headers and footers and send to each department (Subaccount) to complete using JangoMail’s WYSIWYG tool.

Would your JangoMail account benefit from Subaccounts?

Many of our potential customers think that the Master Account with Subaccounts setup isn’t for them, because they are not an agency. However, it is useful for numerous other types of clients that have multiple groups all sending within one organization. If you have one JangoMail account for multiple different types of sending, or for different departments within your organization, this setup might be the right choice for you.

If you’d like to learn more about how JangoMail’s Master Account and Subaccount setup could work for your organization, please contact our support team or call 1-888-GO-JANGO.

If you are not a JangoMail customer but would like to learn more about our Master Account and Subaccount setup, or any of JangoMail's other great features - signup for a free trial today or contact one of our email experts.

Message Tagging: an Underutilized JangoMail Tool

How to Organize Your Account

Message tagging is one of JangoMail's most useful features, but it is generally underutilized by our clients. JangoMail saves every message sent by active accounts. With all of this information visible, some JangoMail users may find it hard to find and organize their sent messages. An easy way to filter and find messages is our tagging feature.

A few ways we have seen our customers utilize message tagging:
•Identical campaigns separated according to recipient groups
•Multiple events/promotions, each with multiple campaigns
•Different message types: account updates, reminders, promotions, etc.

This is a JangoMail account sorted using the tagging feature. 

Tips to Get Started with Message Tagging

Always keep these ideas in mind when tagging your account's messages:

•Do you have multiple events or departments sending through your single account?

•You can always add additional tags at any time, but if you have many campaigns and haven't yet used tags, it's a good idea to start with a basic idea of how to organize your messages.

How to Begin Creating Tags

You can enter your new tag into the "Tags" text box. Once created, new tags will appear in your tag list. Each tag can be assigned a color, which can be changed after it’s created. 

How to Add a Tag to a Message

To add a tag to an existing message, head to the operations field in the message page and click the assign tags icon. This is located next to the preview and delete icon. Adding new tags is easy. So if you are missing one, it only takes a couple seconds to create it.

How to assign tags to a message. 

How to View A Specific Type of Tagged Message

In your sent folder you will see a list of tags. To highlight a message, just click on the tag you are looking for to tag the messages. After you have finished finding your tag, you can go to "clear applied tags" to leave the view.

How to Manage Tags

At the bottom of your list of tags there is a manage tags link. Clicking this link takes you to the manage tags interface, where you can do anything from renaming to changing the color to deleting a tag altogether.

How Message Tagging Helps You

Message tagging is similar to cleaning up your office. When you have papers all over the place, it can be hard to get anything done. A filing cabinet might be the best way to organize loose papers. Think of this tool as your online filing cabinet.

Don't See Message Tagging?

If you do not see message tagging in you user interface, don’t worry! It just needs to be turned on for your account. Contact our support team today and can turn it on within a matter of minutes.

If you are a JangoMail customer and would like more information on setting up tags in your account you can visit our tutorial or contact a member of our support team.

If you are not a JangoMail customer and you would like to learn more about sending email marketing visit our website to sign up for a free trial or contact an email marketing expert. 

What Makes JangoMail the right Choice for Higher Education?

Email is an Important Marketing Tool for Colleges and Universities

Email marketing is becoming more and more important for colleges and universities. Not only does it provide an easy way to communicate with potential students and their parents, it can also be used to keep in touch with alumni, and promote events and athletics.

Higher education institutions used to spend a larger portion of their marketing budget printing and distributing bulky marketing materials. Now, email makes promoting colleges and universities cheaper, easier, and more efficient. In fact, it has never been easier to keep in touch, or to attract new students and benefactors using email.

JangoMail has a number of higher education clients, so we asked them what set us apart from the competition.

Colleges and Universities Love Our Agency Account Features

We found that most of the colleges and universities using JangoMail love our agency account setup. JangoMail offers a lot of flexibility with the way these accounts are configured. We tailor each account to the specific needs of the organization. A typical agency account has one master account with a number of subaccounts. Billing can be done on one invoice, or each subaccount can be billed separately. The subaccount feature allows each department within the organization to operate autonomously, while the organization retains the benefits of only using one email service provider.

JangoMail is Priced for Higher Ed

JangoMail also offers very competitive pricing options that appeal to higher ed. Pricing is straightforward at JangoMail and there aren’t any hidden charges. JangoMail does not charge based on email file size, only the number of emails sent. This provides significant cost savings for colleges and universities that maintain huge email lists (like lists for each graduating class), but only mail a small portion of these lists.

Other Features for Colleges and Universities

Institutions for higher learning also enjoy features such as: unlimited list storage, advanced personalization options, HTML editors, email preview tool, email-to-website tracking, SPAM content checker, and superior customer support. These features make it easy for novices and experts alike to create and deploy professional HTML email campaigns.

To learn more about JangoMail for higher education contact us at 1-888-GO-JANGO and ask for Lauren or visit us on the web, be sure to add higher ed to the comments section.

Experience everything JangoMail has to offer.

No credit card or contract required.

Try JangoMail Free Today

We all agree that getting more clicks is a good thing, right?

Did that vague, hopefully intriguing headline get you to click on this link? If you are reading this, then it must have. This is exactly what a headline for a blog is supposed to do. It is the sole reason bloggers set out to write their web monologues. They also write to have their opinions read, but they write to get a bigger audience.

The journalist is trying to get the most people to read and react to their articles, which in turn would make the reporter that much more popular and respected. The retailer is aiming for clients to view more emails and then to buy more goods and services.

What they all have in common is a sense of marketing behind them. The blogger is trying to get the most people they can to read their blog everyday, so they may start making a living out of their personal writings.

However, this isn’t my point. There are people of countless other professions who follow very similar patterns in their work. Journalists, always searching for the next big break in the world’s news, will push basically any boundary with their headlines to get people to read, what they believe, to be Pulitzer Prize winning news stories. Business people send out emails with subject lines they hope clients will feel obligated to open.

Recent Research

Recently, research done at the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway has been exploring some new, crucial information on which subject lines will work the best.

The subject line focused on by the study was headlines with questions in them. More specific than just a question, was questions with self-referencing cues (like the headline of this blog) or a question without a self-referencing cue. Much of the studies completed show that questions with self-referencing cues worked well for selling products such as iPhones, couches and televisions. These same questions also made readership of articles go up exponentially, when used in the headline.

Perhaps this is why I used such a question to start my blog… hmmm. Some examples of these questions could be:

• "Aren't you curious about our new offers?"
• "Don't you think this is a great deal?"

These questions could lead to more clicks for your email campaign. With all of this being said, the institute claims that much more research has to be completed before any concrete statistics.

Self-Referencing Cues

The self-reference cue, summed up simply, means that the headline or subject line brings the second-person into play. With the use of the words "you" or "we," or something else along those lines, aim to make the person reading feel more integral in the whole operation at hand. This leads to them feeling that they may have to at least read some of the article or email. This tactic, also, makes people feel that they may really need a product. 

It seems to be some marketing with an integrally classic touch to it. It makes people feel a need for a product, but it also makes them feel that they are part of the company selling it to them. This may seem like extremely outdated business, but the research seems to be proving that this marketing is indeed the best move, despite what modern marketers seem to believe.

Conclusion

The question subject line is leading the way in the world of email marketing. You can try it now with the help of JangoMail. Go to jangomail.com now for a free trial into the world of email marketing. 

Sources

• All the data, charts and background for the study can be found a t: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15534510.2013.847859

A/B Testing: Fractional Changes Could Lead to Monumental Growth

High-tech companies across the nation, from Silicon Valley to Dayton, Ohio, utilize A/B testing to evaluate, analyze and contemplate the optimal marketing strategy for their company and their products.

Search engines, clothing stores and merchandise retailers can all discover the best way to reach their customers via email through this evaluation process.

The team members at Google are recognized as being the originators of this testing system 15 years ago. Since that time, companies throughout the world have worked to better the methods used in this process.

A/B Testing Originated from Google.
Courtesy of: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Google#/media/File:Logo_Google_2013_Official.svg

What is A/B Testing and how can it better your marketing strategies?

A/B, or split, testing has become the standard inspection tool for email marketing. Multiple, not specifically just two, variations of an email are sent out to different groups of recipients. This allows you to see which emails are being looked over or clicked on, and what is leading to transactions.

In simplest terms, you send Email A to Group A and Email B to Group B. Then you extrapolate from the acquired data what seems to be the superior choice for your customized plan.

What to Test?

There is no limit to the variations of ideas your company can test. The point of this evaluation process is to see the strongest components to a business plan so you can test anything from the copy on your website to sales emails and more.

Some commonly tested email units are subject lines, timing of emails and the offers in the email. An offer in an emails headline may be interchanged for a slightly edited discount in another. You may send one group an email offer in the evening, and another group one in the morning.

Even website design has been tested by companies such as Google and Amazon. A/B testing can provide an efficient way to test multiple home pages, and see which one keeps consumers coming and limits your bounce rate.

How is A/B Testing Most Helpful? Can it be detrimental? 

There is no risk to implementing split testing into your business strategy. At the same time, there is no doubt that a majority of customers will find some test emails unappealing, but that is why you run the test – to determine which less than enthralling practices your company should discontinue.

The only slight drawback is that the testing period may last a while, and the data can be hard to decipher. However, once the proper amount of testing has been run, the small inconvenience will pay off in the form of your company’s highest rated email offers being sent out.

How can JangoMail help?

JangoMail offers the best email services available today. JangoMail makes orchestrating A/B testing incredibly easy and profitable with the world’s best email deliverability, 24-hour email monitoring and spam protection technology.

A/B testing could be the tool necessary for your company’s sales to skyrocket and JangoMail wants to help you get there.

To learn more about how JangoMail can help you with A/B email testing, and to learn more about all of JangoMail's features, go to https://jangomail.com/features/. 

Eight (Condensed) Steps to Better Email Deliverability

The primary focus of JangoMail is to provide customizable and personalized email deliverability that will separate our customers from their competitors.
These eight steps will help you to better understand the services JangoMail can provide for your company’s email delivery system and how you can get started on the path to better email deliverability with your company.

1. Branding Your From Address – Anyone can create a free Gmail or Yahoo account and send an email under your company’s name. Having a branded email domain will allow recipients to clearly see who is sending a message and will more likely lead them to click and open, which means more transactions for your company.
2. Customizing Your Tracking Domain – Every new JangoMail customer acquires an assigned tracking domain that is the same as multiple other clients’. Personalizing your tracking domain name to fit your company will set you apart from the rest of our customers, maximizing your customization.
3. Setting Up Domain Keys/DKIM – The email authentication standards Domain Keys and DKIM allow senders to securely deliver messages and eliminate fraudulent emails.
4. Confirming Yahoo Feedback Loop – After completing step 3, Yahoo will send a verification email that will set up a feedback loop between your company’s postmaster, Yahoo and JangoMail. This will allow any recipient complaints to be properly heard by all three parties and conveniently dealt with.
5. Creating an SPF Record – Setting up a SenderID on your domain will allow proper diagnosis of forgery, spam, worms and viruses in your system. 

   

   
   

6. Plain Text Message – To lower scrutiny from spam filters, the best idea is to send a corresponding plain text message with every HTML email you deliver.
7. Return Path Program – Two levels of high-reputation sending are available through JangoMail. The first level is being a member of the Safe List, which allows a sender to preferential treatment from spam filters. The second level of whitelisting is being included on the Certified List, which grants the user access to send emails with the highest standard and through optimal preferential treatment.
8. Anchor hyperlinks with Text Phrases and not URLS – This practice keeps phishing filters from believing your message is fraudulent.
   
   

For the expanded version of this list, including graphics and detailed information, go to https://jangomail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/200660134-Eight-Steps-to-Set-Up-Email-Deliverability.

Why Email Personalization Is Important

Talk to Someone About Themselves...

How Personalization Increases Email Engagement

Dale Carnegie’s famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People was published in 1936 – but some of his most famous lines could have been written about email marketing in 2015.

 “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

 “Talk to someone about themselves and they'll listen for hours.”

 Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

By using Carnegie’s insights into human nature – adding a few personal details to your email messages – you can increase engagement.

For many people, the first thing that comes to mind when talking about email personalization is customer name. Which subject line do you think would get a better response?

 Your free trial expires tomorrow! 

Sarah, your free trial expires tomorrow! 

 The simple addition of customer name at the beginning of the subject line is more likely to get opened. It appears more personal, and the first name helps it to stand out in a crowded inbox.

But why stop with name?
With JangoMail, the sky’s the limit in terms of personalization. You can personalize messages with data from any field in your list using %%fieldname%%. If your business is retail and you know what items customers have looked at, let them know when it’s on sale or almost out of stock. Ask for a review of a recent purchase. Do your customer’s accumulate points for something? Let them know when they’re close to the next point level.

TripAdvisor is a company that frequently sends messages that utilize a lot of personalization.

I recently received this email from TripAdvisor. It immediately engaged me by addressing me by name and mentioning reviews I have given. Next they picked ten hotel recommendations based on my recent searches. 

In the same email from TripAdvisor they have listed a few low cost flights from the airport in my city. They also gave me information on hotel deals in cities I've recently looked at on their site. 

So, how is this information collected?
Some information can be gathered with your email opt-in form. However, it’s important to balance your desire for customer information with the customer’s willingness to fill out a long form. It’s important to remember you don’t have to get all the information for your list at one time, it can be gathered slowly as the relationship develops.
What happens if you add personalization to an email with a field that is blank for some customers? You can add alternative text that will show in those instances. For example if you don’t have a customer’s name, you could say: Hurry, your free trial expires tomorrow! Where hurry stands in place of customer name.

Finally, how do you add personalization without looking like big brother is watching?
Think about how the information was obtained. If it’s something your customer submitted, it should be safe to use. In my example from TripAdvisor, I've told them where I live, so including airport information isn't unexpected. If it’s not something that was submitted, but it’s helpful information, that’s also pretty safe. In the TripAdvisor example where they gave me hotel deals, they used information about what I did on their site. It was used in a helpful way though, so it's more likely to get a positive response.

The bottom line is that email personalization is a great way to increase engagement. It adds a level of friendliness a medium that can seem cold and helps messages stand out in increasingly crowded inboxes. Don’t be afraid to try new ways to use personalization and use testing to continue to refine your results.

Have you tried personalization? How did it work for you? We’d love to hear more about what you did. Let us know on Facebook or on Twitter @jangomail or #MyJangoMail 

Promotions on the JangoMail Team

Two JangoMail team members have recently been promoted. Both of these team members are near and dear to many of our customers; so we wanted to let everyone know the good news.

Stephanie “Angel” Ellis has been promoted to Customer Support Manager and Stephanie Yount to Senior Solutions Engineer.

Angel, as she is known to JangoMail customers, was previously in the role of Onboarding Specialist and has been with the company since May, 2013. She will be leading the support team at JangoMail. In this role she will focus on how her team can better service the needs of JangoMail customers. The support team is the customer facing team at JangoMail, and it is the first place customers go when they call 1-888-GO-JANGO or log a support ticket.

Stephanie Yount has been at JangoMail since May, 2013 and has held roles in customer support and sales. Stephanie is extremely knowledgeable about email and the JangoMail platform. In her new role Stephanie will be in charge of on boarding, full service and sales related delivery.  

Congratulations Angel and Stephanie!

Don't Forget to Ask...

Are you missing out on potential customers or subscribers simply because you aren't asking for their email address?

Asking website visitors to subscribe is one of the easiest ways to grow your email file. Once the signup form is created it can operate on its own and doesn't require much ongoing attention.

Of course, there are some things to keep in mind during initial setup. Things to consider include: information to collect, call to action, form placement, and offers.

It’s a balancing act to determine what info to request on a signup form. Consider what information will be most beneficial along with the number of fields customers are likely to complete. The main goal of an signup form is to collect email addresses, so it could be as simple as just one field. To gather additional information, consider a progressive opt-in form. Progressive opt-in forms break the sign up process into multiple pieces. Additional information is requested after initial sign up to avoid abandoned subscription forms.

Call to action buttons are a critical part of the signup form. They should capture visitor’s attention and compel them to perform an action. There is no one size fits all solution. Test several options to determine what works best. Consider, button color, wording, padding and size.

Consider asking for email addresses on every page of your website. It’s relatively simple to accommodate a one line email subscription box. It can also be used in conjunction with more detailed subscription forms in some locations. If it’s too difficult to place a signup form on every page, find the most visited pages and start there. For best results forms should be placed above the fold (above the scroll).

Incentives encourage signup form completion. The incentive could be a discount, but it doesn't have to be. Consider other offers, such as access to information, a free trial, or a giveaway.  It’s important to promptly give subscribers their reward. A good rule of thumb is to include this information in the first welcome email.

If you’re not a developer this may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn't have to be. JangoMail offers an Opt-In Form Designer that can help. With our form designer it’s easy to make a professional looking form that feeds directly to your email list.