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!

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!

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!

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!

How's Your Brand Managing?

You know your brand. But do you have a handle on what customers think of your brand? If the answer's "kind of," "not sure," or "isn't somebody else in charge of that?," then you could be accumulating a mountain of online feedback that's only invisible to you.

Even if it's one negative Yelp review or social site rant, the smallest bit of negative feedback can show up front and center in a benign Google search. Ignorance is not bliss, folks.

Most businesses, especially smaller or newbies, go down one of two roads - either slowly addressing negative reviews when it smacks them in the face or addressing obvious feedback with band aid solutions. Some take it a step even further backwards by ignoring it entirely, hoping it will just go away. Stay that course, and it's guaranteed you'll be serving tumbleweeds instead of paying customers. In the same vein, ignoring positive feedback or activity can be like sitting on a winning lottery ticket.

The solution is to actively monitor online feedback and reviews, and then engage in conversations (when necessary) to keep your brand in the positive limelight.

Back to basics in brick & mortar
Before we dive into online brand control, consider your in-store, offline experiences. How do you handle an in-person complaint or less than flattering real-time feedback? If you're worth your customer service salt, you address it head-on at the same time it occurs.

You listen to your customer. You apologize or acknowledge what they're sharing. You suggest ways to improve their experience. And in the end, you reaffirm to that customer that you were the right choice for their needs after all.

This is most likely no new news to you. So, it should also make sense that leaving a customer 'hanging' in the online world is just poor business practice and will never reflect well on your overall brand and business.

Get it together online
This is by no means an all-inclusive to-do list. But, it's sure a good place to start. Let's break it down first by methods to stay on top - and then ways to initiate damage control, if necessary.

• Monitor your company profiles

Maintain the integrity of all profile content on your social sites. Make sure it's up-to-date and accurately reflects the evolving image of your brand. Finally, for the love that is all Facebook-holy, make sure it's grammatically correct.

• "Monitor" your people's profiles

Remember the Taco Bell employee who licked taco shells on the job and another employee posted the pics to FB? Yeah, that really happened. It never hurts to send your team a gentle reminder that when they're in the social realm, they're representing the face of your company. In the taco case, it turns out employees were breaking corporate policies by posting company-related pics in the first place. Be aware.

LinkedIn is worth a long browse, as well. There, employees are connecting to other professionals under the umbrella of your company. If the Director of PR is sharing articles that reflect their opinions of the national news, you may want to have them share on their own time - and within their private, non-company related social arenas.

• Get connected and start (carefully) posting

If you haven't already, get busy connecting your public personality to relevant companies, people and interest groups sharing the social space. Whenever it's relevant, jump in and comment on their posts as a representative of your company's collective thinking. The most important thing is to take your time and choose your comments wisely. Eliminating "lol" and "lmao" from your posts is also a good idea.

• Monitor your customers' profiles

Well, not really, because that's a little creepy. However, if you see certain customers posting accolades on your wall or review pages, it couldn't hurt to reach out to them. Offer a trade - sharing their flattery with their friends or on your website in exchange for a free service or discount. It's all part of enhancing their already great experience, and you'd be surprised how they'll talk you up even more.

• Automate your monitoring

People will talk, especially behind your back. Truth is, unless you have a dedicated social media manager monitoring the web for you (forums, blog sites, press release tie-ins), you could be missing a lot of action behind-the-scenes. The good news is there are a lot of free solutions you can utilize like Google Alerts, Social Mention and Technorati, to name a few.

• Use good reviews and posts to your advantage

Corral them for the greater good. Services like Trustpilot and Bazaarvoice do a great job of helping you gather good testimonials, share them with others and seek even more valuable content for marketing campaigns.

• Joust the negativity

Face negativity head-on and in a timely manner, or you're fueling the fire for more negativity. It takes very little time for issues to escalate and attract the attention of other customers. And what's one of the best, personal delivery methods for issue resolution? You guessed it - good 'ol email marketing.

What's this have to do with email?
Email is a key tool in communicating with your customers in a targeted, personal way. So, why wouldn't you use it? Here's how:

• Derail a conversation: Sometimes you just have to take a conversation offline. Derailing a customer into the non-public email realm will remove negativity from the spotlight and allow you to work with their feedback in a more intimate manner. Take it a step further and gather their contact info for a personal phone call.

• Send an appreciation gift: Offer discounts or vouchers for future visit or services. They can work magic in terms of acknowledging something on your end wasn't up to snuff, and you'll strive to do better next time.

• Earn a regular recipient: Once you rectify the issues, (ever so gently) ask the customer for their contact info so you can give them more personalized service in the form of advance notice of future sales, value added info related to your product/services, and more.

• Secure a testimonial: If you did all you could to right the wrong, ask the customer to share their experiences with other customers. A mass-blast "we work hard until we get it right" campaign relaying the story of the issues and resolution will show other customers that you'll put in the time to earn long-term business. Just hold off on sharing any "found a bug in my soup" stories - stick with low-level issues.

Have a story to share? Want to weigh in on the conversation? Hit us up. JangoMail loves to hear from you. Until next time, thanks for reading!

Are You Heading Straight to Spam?

After all the work you put into your email campaigns, the least your emails could do is reach your recipients. Problem is, when you least expect it, they can miss the mark and hit the spam or junk folders.

The unusual suspects
So, what happened? Before you heavy foot it over to the IT department, consider the content of your emails as the potential culprit. Here's a short list of surprising keywords and phrases that could land you directly in spam land.

• Pennies a day
• Weekend getaway
• While supplies last
• Call now
• Apply online
• Cannot be combined with any other offer
• Billing address
• Call now
• Increase traffic
• Why pay more?

Shocked there's no sign of "free?" Don't be. 
Consider this a trick list - only noting triggers you might not expect. "Free" is still one of the most common ways to profile your email. But, keep this in mind: It's okay to use all these phrases. What weighs against you on the spam scale is the frequency in which you utilize any of these trigger words. Also, using any of them concurrently within the same email isn't a smart idea.


 
Who's pointing fingers and why
There's a lot of noise out there in the email world. And any decent email service provider is trying to protect its valued users, so they continue to utilize them. The problem is, sometimes respectable email communications get caught in the filtering mix for the greater good of keeping inboxes clean. The bottom line is you don't want to associate with the riff-raff and more importantly, have your timely communications get lost on the way to intended recipients.



Moderation is the medicine
Think of spam-folder-avoidance this way: If your email reads more like an infomercial, consider it a trigger candidate for the junk folder. Use trigger words in moderation, and you should be just fine. However, if you are experiencing consistent inbox deliverability issues, revisit your subject lines and main body content to see if you're inadvertently shifting email service provider spam filters into high gear.


Two leg ups
JangoMail's Delivery Optimization Tool analyzes your emails and determines changes you can make to optimize delivery even before you hit "send." We also recommend using SpamAssassin as an additional pre-screening tool. Visit their site for a more detailed trigger list as well (under the Tests tab).

JangoMail also scores your mass email campaign message using SpamAssassin - you can see the score in Broadcast Messages Report Dashboard. Send a message to yourself before sending to your list. Scores under 5 are generally considered to be free of spam.

The rules are always changing too! A good message today can be bad tomorrow; it just depends on how certain words and phrases are used (or over-used). We'll help you stay ahead of the curve on this.

If you have any questions about spam filters and triggers, just ask. Until next time, have a great rest of the week!

The Do's & Don'ts of CSS

What do you think YOU'RE doing?
Are you a developer looking to custom code your email templates using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) - while maximizing the integrity of your layout or desired design?  "Good luck," says the old school (i.e. here comes the hurt).




Fortunately, JangoMail has some solutions. So, we prepared a simple list of "do it" and "don't even think about it" guidelines to ensure your designs look as good and function as well within your emails (and mail services like Gmail and Outlook) as they would on your typically more stylized web pages.

Do it

• Use tables for layouts, because they're more consistently supported
• Put your CSS code inline with your content (i.e. <span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif; font-size: 9px; color:#000000;">your content...</span>. Already created a template? Use this tool to move all of your CSS inline. 
• Set and fix your template width by assigning width, cell padding and cell spacing for all tables and table cells
• Add whitespace around an image by using hspace and vspace tag attributes, as not all email services support margin and padding inline styles
• Always include a link so recipients can view your email within a web browser, and "_blank" in links to prompt the opening of a new browser window or tab when viewed within browser-based email services
• Include a visible link to your website and an eye-catching 'forward to a friend" button

Don't even think about it

• Count on external or embedded style sheets, as many email services cut everything above the body tag and disable external style sheets
• Use positioning and floats
• Incorporate JavaScript into your email - it can trigger spam filters
• Assign attributes to the <body> tag, as most email services won't acknowledge them
• Use background images (background color is okay)
• Include CSS shorthand or CSS properties for positioning (nested tables work better)

That wasn't so bad. It might not be the most inclusive list, but we didn't want to lecture you so late in the week. If you ever have any questions about custom coding, hit us up. Our JangoMail team is here to help any time.

Until next time, have a great rest of the week!

How A Little Cheese Can Lead To Email Marketing Cake

July Fourth is over. Or ... is it?
Because many companies gave their employees 4 day weekends, you have to expect people are making the most of it. Fortunately in this visible media day and age, you may start to see pictures like these roll into your social news feeds and inbox.

So, what's this have to do with email marketing? 

Simple. It  may be time to light up your email lists with some harmless yet strategic fun. Depending upon your line of business or the purpose of your organization, try sharing another side of yourself. Showing customers or contacts that you have a sense of humor, or pride in your community is more apt to strike a cord with your audience than the stale "Happy 4th!!" .jpg you sent earlier in the week.

Show customers the "real" you. Feature team members and let the world see you in a more relaxed, approachable situation. Prompt customers or followers to say - "hey, I've seen him/her around town" or "he/she looks like a real person". It's all part of making a (first or establishing a new) connection. Photo proof of your humanity and humor is a nice segue into establishing or solidifying a relationship. Not to mention, your group or business' logo will be featured in every communication - enhancing the good vibes associated with your brand.

Get your email recipients to share

Bet you're not the only one with a picture of a baby with a beer on their head. Your customers or followers probably have some rowdy shots to share. Why not make it a contest? When we all go back to work after a long holiday, it can be the longest work week ever. Make light of it by calling out for the funniest, most patriotic or best fireworks pictures of the holiday. It will help your email recipients relive a little of the magic, courtesy of your underlying marketing tactic. 

Hey - we want to see your pictures, too. So, don't forget to include our JangoMail team if you get together a post-July 4 blast. In the meantime, have a great rest of the week, folks. If we don't hear from you first, we'll talk to you soon!

Why Haven't You Joined The Video Bandwagon Yet?

Against everything your mother told you, we'll say it. You should do what everyone else is doing - because it could get you further. We're talking about the video "cliff"; and we're encouraging you to swan dive-DO IT.

Here's what's up

A recent study found that total video views among internet users in the US were up 23% year-over-year in Q4 2012. This isn't just an isolated finding, and to validate it, you only need to take a quick look around your own office. People love to share videos of all kinds. Tearjerkers, funny, colorful, imaginative, gross, you name it. The memorable, sensory exposure of video is a great way to grab attention, positive or negative, and prompt viewers to share it.

What this has to do with email marketing

If you can't see it by now, we have some work to do. Maybe these stats will get the point across:
A 2013 survey of marketing executives conducted by The Relevancy Group found that respondents who had used videos in their email campaigns saw real returns on their investments. Fifty-five percent reported higher click-through rates, 44% saw an increase in the amount of time subscribers spent with an email, and 41% reported an increase in the sharing or forwarding of emails.








If you're not doing it, you're not alone
The same survey cited above found that only one-quarter of marketers had actually used video in email marketing campaigns. Forty-three percent said they didn't use videos simply because they lacked the content, making it the most prominent obstacle to the practice. Take a good look at the bar graph to the right. Most of these obstacles seem fairly easy to overcome if you consider the potential results.



Get your footage together and GO!
It's typically assumed that video clips within email marketing is a perfect match for retailers. But, use your imagination, and this medium applies to just about everything. From spanning, enticing product shots that infect viewers with the shopping bug ... to the smiling faces of your baseball league's division champs, urging non-players to sign up for next season ... to clips of tropical destinations in January offered by your Chicago-based travel agency. It ALL works - and easily grabs attention beyond the written word. The biggest obstacle to video inclusion is lack of footage, and honestly, who doesn't have some kind of video capture device these days. And what you don't have, you can easily grab from business partners who are typically more than willing to share footage.

Inputting video into your emails - is it safe?
There are some limitations with many email clients, with security settings that do not permit "live" content (including video and even JavaScript) to be active within the email body itself. Certainly, we want to be able to get the best of both worlds here, so it's now a common practice to highlight a frame shot from your video and tag it with a hyperlink to an off-email host site. So, connect to your YouTube, Vimeo, or other channel, and email away!

As always, if you have any questions about this blog or any JangoMail feature, give us a shout. Until next week, we hope you're having a great start to summer!

Boost Brand Identity. Trick #1: Establish Your "From" Address

We like you. In fact, we consider our clients part of the JangoMail family. But we also know when it's time to set you free. Sigh.

Time for you to fly?

So, as much as we'd love to see you maintain your default "@jangomail.com" address, it might be time to branch out. Establishing your own "From Address" is a great way to highlight your company's or organization's unique brand. And let's face it - it grabs attention, establishes a sense of familiarity with your email recipients and creates a presentation that establishes you as whole and perhaps even bigger than you actually are. In short, it sets the stage for brand identity that can set you apart from the pack. We hate to see you go - but love to witness the maturation of any brand.

3 options to choose from

1. Default: your JangoMail username plus "@jangomail.com"
2. Branded Sub-Domain (recommended): create a brand from your "From" email address with a sub-domain of your company's domain name. If you company's domain name is joebaker.com, you might setup a sub-domain called eat.joebaker.com
3. Editable: have your email address field set to an editable field, so you type any valid email address you choose, including an existing personal or corporate email address

Not sure which option is for you? Check this out.

Don't stray too far from home
Create your own branded "From Address" but retain ties to the power of JangoMail. Your account can be configured to send from your newly branded sub-domain, but you'll still retain the unsubscribe and bounce handling features of JangoMail. So, you'll enjoy all the functionality of your JangoMail account status, but take all the credit. How cool is that? Just don't forget to call us every once in a while ... we worry.

If you have any questions about this blog or any other JangoMail features, give us a shout. We'd love to hear from you! Until next time, have a great weekend, everyone.

Check Check ... Check Your Email Rendering Or Beware The Results!

Let's consider the dilemma of delivery optimization through quasi real life situation that is, hopefully, somewhat amusing. Hey, it's mid-week, and we could all probably use a joke.

"Zoolander": Supermodel

So, a comedian in the 80s used to tell a story about his friend who married a supermodel. He thought "cool!". In terms of his perception of survival of the fittest, his kids were going to at least look gorgeous. But to his utter shock and disbelief, the fruits of his (or more precisely her) labor were what the comedian referred to as 'crocodile kids". Despite outward appearances, apparently the model wife had had some work done. And the resulting offspring looked more like "model wife 1.0" than "model wife 6.0".

How this relates to email marketing ...
Sure, karma can be cruel. But for those of us email marketers with better intentions, why do the results of our own deliverables sometimes look just as unattractive?

Everything may look good coming together, but in the end, the results can be an ugly nightmare. We're talking specifically about the X design chromosomes and the Y content chromosomes within your campaigns looking great in one email client, and like a hot mess in others. It happens - a lot. The good news is that JangoMail has a comprehensive delivery check feature that lets you preview how your emails will render across multiple email clients.

Preview before you send - it's easy!
JangoMail has integrated with a third-party partner to give you one of the most innovative email preview rendering tools available today. So, you'll see exactly how your emails will look in more than 25 different email clients (AOL Mail, Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Windows Mail, Yahoo! Mail and more). Before you even think of hitting SEND, you'll have time to address any issues and remain top of the pro charts.

This special, sneak peek delivery preview is available as a standard feature with your monthly JangoMail subscription, so you can use it as many times as you like.

As always, if you have any questions about our Delivery Rendering Tool or any other JangoMail feature, just ask us. Until next time, have a great rest of the week!

Enjoy Your Summer Vaca - Courtesy Of Your Autoresponders

Just when you thought you'd have to respond to all your new email list requests, here come the JangoMail autoresponders to the rescue. Yep - you can actually have your customers and sip that Mai Tai, too. If you're not using this handy feature yet, you could really be missing out on some well-deserved R&R this summer.

This is a great trick for whenever a new subscriber is added to your group after completing a website signup form.

Here's how it works:

1. Simply access the feature in the details section of your list. Follow the simple set-up instructions to craft a message that could include any or all of the following content:

• Thank new subscribers for requesting admission to your company or organization's list
• Remind them which list(s) they've subscribed to 
• Ask them to confirm their contact information (email address) to begin receiving your communications
• Share with them some of your other email groups they may like to enroll in
• Share a link to the last communication from this list to get them up-to-speed
• Offer a link to unsubscribe or change their list preferences
  
  

2. Name your autoresponder (i.e. Sales Notifications; Biking Enthusiast Newsletter)

3. Set the time relative to the recipient's "join time" to send your autoresponder. Note that you can create multiple autoresponders at different times (i.e. one hour after; one week later) to request confirmation of their new subscription and then followup with another message if necessary (i.e. "Don't forget to confirm your subscription with us!")

4. Sit back in your Tommy Bahama and take a snooze. You're on your way to seamless, stress-free automation.

If you have any questions about JangoMail autoresponders, just ask us. In the meantime, we hope you're making some stellar plans for the upcoming summer. Remember, even the most dedicated email marketing gurus and enthusiasts need a break every once and a while. So, live it up when you can.

Until next time, have a great rest of the week!

No Joke: Email Marketing Grows Business Like Nothing Else

We recently came across a pretty interesting piece in Target Marketing, called "Nuts & Bolts Comedian: Email Pulls in Crowds, Social is Ephemeral", featuring comedian Steve Hofstetter. Aside from the rah-rah nature of the title (how could we not be drawn to that??), the fact that it reflected the actual email marketing experiences of a professional comedian was totally intriguing.

Comedian Steve Hofstetter

Why share?
First, we thought it would be beneficial for our clients who may be in similar businesses. Steve's motivations make perfect sense. The kicker is, his nearly flawless execution and rationale behind the outreach is really impressive. Next, this guy was obviously successful, so we wanted to hear his first-hand account for ourselves, too. Turns out, Steve Hofstetter knows what the heck he's talking about.






You've got to read this article.
It's only a couple of quick pages, so dig in, and we'll meet you back here.

Tick tock ....






Interesting. Now consider this, our "final" thoughts on the topic.
So, we don't necessarily completely agree with all perspectives of the article. To say social media is "ephemeral" isn't true. In fact, email marketing that ties into the power of social media can increase your campaign's word-of-mouth and boost your potential subscriber list. But, it's true that you have to know how to use it effectively - and whether your audience is actually following your brand. On its own, social can be hard to track - and the ability to offer lengthier conversion content is out of format and can turn off socially-savvy engagees. HOWEVER, again, if it leads into the more trackable, marketing-rich structure of email outreach, the sky is truly the limit.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway to consider: Stay true to your audience. Be good to them in terms of the information they've opt-ed to receive and feel free to reward them for their ongoing patronage (in clicks or transactions). In the end, the more reciprocal your relationship, the more you each will benefit.

If you see anything on the web related to email marketing that you think we should share, give us a shout. And as always, if you have any questions about our JangoMail features or how we can help you, just ask.

Until then, have a great rest of the week!

Psst: Want to see Steve in action? YouTube has some clips you can check out.

Having Fun & Getting Funds With Filters

This week, a case study in the spirit of the holiday weekend ...

Joe's Outdoor Store is a strong, local retailer in Nashua, New Hampshire. They've been around for almost 5 years and have a solid following of outdoor enthusiasts, weekend warriors and even tourists who happen upon their prime spot off the main interstate.

But, business can always be better!

So, last week Joe's Outdoor Store sent out a major email marketing campaign to announce a Memorial Day Sale. Not just any sale, but one of the biggest sales of the year for Joe's. The thing is, not everyone was invited. To kick off the summer camping season, they sent out a special sales announcement for sleeping bags. Not just any sleeping bags. These are high-performance models designed to withstand high altitudes and adjust interior temperatures based upon exterior conditions. Yeah, they're pretty serious. And only serious campers would really be interested - and willing to entertain the big price tag.

Joe's Outdoor Store took their business' master email list off JangoMail and suppressed the email addresses of anyone who didn't opt into their list as a "Serious Camper" (their words from their group list compiled from the customized email signup form they created). Then, they blasted the beautiful thing. Joe's JangoMail reports said the email campaign was fairly successful in terms of opens and clicks. Now, they just have to wait for the weekend to see the foot traffic it generated. Well done, Joe.

But, other not quite-so-serious folks like to camp in the summertime, too. And Joe's does have other varieties of sleeping bags and camping gear they may want to hear about. Extra foot traffic is always a good thing, so they decide to send another email campaign to attract those potential customers.

Hmm... so what's the easiest way to use the email Joe's already created for "Serious Campers", make a few tweaks, and then blast it to the remaining, general audience? With JangoMail, it's simple. In fact, we already answered this dilemna in the lengthy speech above.

All Joe's Outdoor Store needs to do is load the "Serious Campers" email and make edits for their "General Campers or General Audience". Replace pictures, make the content less exclusive and more along the lines of "if you've never camped, try it with our sale gear". Then, it's time to create their specific email list using our Filter features. They simply need to click and suppress the addresses of all recipients who received the first campaign. It's that easy!

Now, let's broaden this case study a bit. Imagine how easy it is to send customized email messages for unique customer or client groups, while letting other groups receive information that only interests them. The long and short of it is that your customers will be happier knowing that YOU know what THEY want, and your messaging won't take the short road to the spam folder.

If you have any questions about Filters, List Suppression or any other JangoMail feature, hit us up. We'd love to hear from you! Until then, have a terrific Memorial Day weekend, everyone.