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What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a form of marketing. It consists of sending commercial emails to current, prospective, and past customers to establish, promote and nurture a business relationship.

While social media has added many avenues to promote business, email remains essential. 

In 2020, there were 4 billion global email users, and that number continues to grow. With its high ROI, email is vital in most marketing strategies. Did you know customers are more likely to receive and see your emails than your social media posts? 

There are many benefits to email marketing. Sending emails is an easy way to reach a large audience. It is low cost and easy to use. Emails send quickly versus other methods, like direct mail. 

There are two different types of emails that you can send. A broadcast email is one email sent to a mass of recipients all at once. You can send a broadcast email to your entire list or a portion of your list.

A transactional email is an email sent to one recipient and does not contain promotions. Even though you do not send transactional emails to market your services, they are important to the email relationship with your recipients.

No matter the type of email you send, you are building a relationship with your recipients. 

Overview

In this getting started guide, we will cover the following:

1. Develop a marketing strategy
2. Choose an email service provider
3. Set up your account with JangoMail
4. Build lists and collect email addresses
5. Set up your emails for success
6. Create your message content
7. Send and track your results
8. Step up your email marketing game

1.   Develop a marketing strategy

In email marketing, you need both a marketing strategy and at least one marketing goal.  

Your marketing goal will establish what you aim to accomplish by sending marketing emails. Marketing goals help you figure out who to send emails to, what type of emails to send, and the content of your emails. Your marketing goals help establish and define your purpose. 

Some marketing goal examples:

• Grow e-commerce business 
• Increase the number of customers for your business by X
• Attract X number of new subscribers in the next six months
• Expand social media presence and engagement 

Once you have chosen a marketing goal, think about the following: does it align with your company's overall marketing goals?

Now that you have a marketing goal in mind, you need a marketing strategy. Your marketing strategy is a plan of how and what to do to reach your marketing goals. 

 Why is it important to have an email marketing strategy? Without having a clear goal in mind, you cannot adequately measure success.

Your overall marketing strategy should consist of these primary elements:  

 Defined target audience 

Who will you be sending emails to? Your target audience determines whether you will send to your entire list or a portion of your list.

One or two marketing goals

What is your marketing goal? It is okay to have more than one goal apply to your overall email marketing strategy. Do you want to gain more subscribers? Are you trying to increase brand awareness? Are you looking to grow your social media?

Great marketing content 

What type of campaign content will you be sending? Do you have existing company resources to use? Do you need to create new content? Which types of emails will help you accomplish your email marketing goals? Newsletters, updates, invitations, marketing offers, etc.? 

Set a schedule

How often will you send email campaigns? What day and times will you send emails? Does this frequency help accomplish your marketing goal and availability of your marketing content? Does this schedule align with other marketing executions within your company? 

2. Choose an email service provider

So now you have a marketing strategy. What's next? 

You need a way to send your emails.

A popular solution is to use an email service provider with software that includes various features to help you accomplish your marketing goals. Email service providers provide software that gives you the ability to upload and host your lists of email addresses, track unsubscribes and bounces, create and send HTML email templates, view stats on your email sends, and much more.

Features to look for in an email service provider:

• Store your lists and email addresses
• Provides HTML templates and the ability to create and send messages
• Insight on recipient opens and URL clicks 
• Detailed reporting and statistics on your email campaigns
• Tracks and maintains unsubscribes and suppression list
• Features that allow for dynamic content and time-saving automation

JangoMail is an email service provider (ESP) that offers online software. JangoMail gives you the ability to upload and host email addresses, create and save HTML email templates or upload your own code, send mass emails, and view stats on opens, clicks, and more. We also offer transactional sending via our SMTP relay or API. You can use our transactional sending to integrate with your existing software or systems. Use JangoMail to send both broadcast or transactional emails. For transactional-only sending, use JangoSMTP.

3. Set up your account with JangoMail

New to JangoMail and need an account? Contact one of our sales reps to help you get started.

Our team will consult with you to learn about your business and email marketing needs. Start with a free trial account and take a look around our email marketing software. View features, send tests and give our software a try with a 30-day free trial.

Here are some other things to do once you have a JangoMail account:

• Read here for tips on how to make your JangoMail account more secure
• Watch an overview of JangoMail
• Just need SMTP Relay? Instructions on how to set up the JangoMail/JangoSMTP Relay
• If you have other people that will be using your account, you can set up additional logins

Support for your JangoMail/JangoSMTP account

The JangoMail Support Team is available to assist you Monday-Friday, 8 am-5 pm EST via support ticket, email, chat, and phone. We also offer emergency support after hours for paid accounts. 

Submit a support ticket by clicking Support in the upper right corner while logged into your account and click the link or email support@us.jangomail.com. 

To chat, click the chat bubble in the bottom right corner on our website. 

Find JangoMail and JangoSMTP help articles and documentation by clicking Tutorials in your account Dashboard or go to Support.JangoMail.com. 

Pro Tip: When contacting the Support Team, include as many details as possible about your issue or request so our Support Team can better assist you. Include your account username to help us locate your account. 

4. Build lists and collect email addresses

To send emails, you need email addresses. If you have a base of customers - you likely have an automatic audience that already includes email addresses. Be sure to check that you have permission to send emails to them. 

If your business has been collecting email addresses but doing nothing with them - you are off to a great start but need to proceed using caution. Email addresses that have opted in should be sent to, as their permission eventually expires. Sending in a timely manner is important to the email relationship. Opt-in recipients can forget they signed up, forget they provided their email, or lose interest in your business. It is best practice to send a welcome email soon after an email address opts in. After signup, periodically and consistently send emails to keep their interest. Emails should provide engaging content to build and promote the customer relationship.

If you have never sent to your list or do not know the age, JangoMail provides List Hygiene Service. Our list hygiene service provides email validation that helps clean up bad and invalid email addresses so you can get started with as clean a list as possible. It is not a good idea to use our service, or any ESP, to clean your list by emailing an old list without first using list hygiene. 

If you do not have email addresses for current customers or need to start from the beginning, there are several ways you can start collecting email addresses. One of the most popular ways to collect email addresses is to offer an incentive in exchange for an email address. Be sure to let signups know what type of emails they can expect to receive in response to the promotion. Do not forget to follow up shortly after sign up with the welcome email to get their opt-in confirmation. This is also a reminder they signed up for your emails.

Ways to collect and grow lists

• Use signup forms on your website
• Signup buttons and links on social media
• Fishbowls at your business and events

Permission

You should have permission from your recipients before you send an email. In some cases, it may be required by law (CAN-SPAM Act, CASL, and GDRP). While JangoMail does not require double opt-in confirmation to upload and send to your email addresses - it is a best practice and recommended. Our email software does offer the option to set up double opt-in confirmation for your lists if you wish.

Remember that you should respect your recipient’s inbox – they are just a click away from unsubscribing or complaining.

Segmentation

Should you use one big master list or multiple lists? JangoMail allows you to host virtually unlimited lists - up to 10,000. Set a plan: how you will manage your lists, your method of upload, and keep them up-to-date. If you are ready to segment your list further based on fields in your list, check out JangoMail’s Personalization.

How to Upload your Email Addresses to JangoMail

There are several ways to import email addresses to JangoMail; add one member at a time, upload a file, and even upload a list without logging into your account! The easiest way is to upload a file via Quick Upload. 

JangoMail lets you send ad-hoc emails or to one list or multiple lists. You can also connect to a web database, integrate with Salesforce CRM, use our API to set up your custom integration, or use the API to create and add to lists.

Scrub for Bounces and Unsubscribes

Use JangoMail’s built-in tool to Scrub your list after you send your first email. The Scrub tool can remove duplicate email addresses, hard bounces, unsubscribes, and more. 

Pro Tip: Once you start sending emails, send emails regularly with relevant content!

5. Set up your emails for success

Part of sending an email is your From Address. The From Address should be a valid email address from a domain your business owns or has access to with the ability to manage the domain's DNS records. DNS records are essential because they are the technical records behind a domain. Below we go over several DNS records that are an industry best practice for email sending.

JangoMail users should set up the following four standard DNS records: SPF record, DKIM record, CNAME record, and DMARC record.

These DNS records should be set up by the technical person that manages your business's domain - this may be an IT team or person.

• An SPF record that authorizes JangoMail to send emails on your behalf
• A DKIM record that authenticates your emails by signing them, and prevents tampering of your emails during the sending process
• A CNAME record that creates a tracking domain for open and click tracking purposes, and further brands your company’s email sending
• Once you have SPF and DKIM properly established for all sending, a DMARC record adds the ultimate layer of security 

We have information and guides to help you set these records up. The JangoMail Support Team is also available to review and give you specific instructions for your domain.

Pro Tip: Contact JangoMail's Support Team for a delivery setup review and customized DNS setup instructions!

6. Create your message content

Email design can be time consuming! Creating from scratch takes a lot of expertise and know-how. It is common to run into issues because of design flaws and email rendering. You do not have to know all the tips and tricks to make emails look perfect. We cover some ideas below to help you out.

Create a master template that you can use over and over again.

You should have at least one master template that you can rely on when you need to send an email. Design your master template to include branding with company logos, font, and branding colors. It should fit in with the rest of your company's marketing materials.

With JangoMail, there are multiple ways to create an HTML template:

• Upload and use your HTML code
• Use a pre-formatted JangoMail template
• Create a template from scratch with our WYSIWYG or Drag & Drop editors

Do not forget to customize the CAN-SPAM compliant footer provided and required by JangoMail.

Once you have a master template, save it to your JangoMail account. With a master template, each time you need to email a campaign you can easily replace text and images, send a test and hit send. Your master template should be perfected and tested in various email clients, platforms, and browsers to pass for readability and rendering. Use one of our pre-existing templates or employ an HTML expert to design a few master templates for typical communications with your company logo and footer, and branded to you. Find instructions on how to save your master template here.

Best practices for your HTML template

Your template should be easy to read and visually readable. Use a mobile template designed for mobile phones or a responsive template that adapts to the size of the screen it is viewed. Keep in mind that most emails are opened on mobile phones.

Your template should consist of a good balance of images and text. Sending an email that consists of just one large image is a red flag for spam filters. Having too little text is also a red flag.

Clear CTA

 A call-to-action (CTA) refers to the message you are conveying to your audience to take as an action because of your communication. Have a clear call-to-action with easy-to-follow steps. Make sure your call to action is above the fold. What does above the fold mean? Your recipient does not have to scroll down to get to the CTA of the message. 

Clear and catchy subject lines

Subject lines are very important and your recipients' first impression. Along with the subject line, remember to include preheader text which is the text that appears next to your subject line in the email inbox. Preheader text comes from the first line of text in your email or created in coding. This is another chance to inform your recipient about the contents of the message and entice them to open.

Pro Tip: Check out the following articles from JangoMail for more tips and tricks!

• Tips to Save Time
• Improve your Message Spam Score
• Tips to Avoid Spam

7. Send and track your results

You have done all this work to set up an email marketing strategy to accomplish your goals, you have a list, and you have a great template to use for your message. What’s next? Send the email!

Before you hit Send, be sure to test, test, test! While it's always important to test your messages before you send, it is especially helpful to work out issues when you get started so it is smoother sailing down the road.

With JangoMail, choose to send your message immediately or schedule it to send at a later date and time.

For an overview of how to create and send messages using JangoMail, read more here.

Reviewing reports while you send and after you send gives you an idea of how well your email campaign is doing. Viewing reports is easy to do - JangoMail's reports update in real-time. Review to confirm your message is sending or has been sent, quickly see the number of recipients, opens, clicks, bounces, and more. JangoMail even provides the actual communication that happens when we send an email - the SMTP log.

For an overview of JangoMail reports, take a look here.

Decide how you want to measure email marketing success. You can track the following stats with JangoMail:

• Number of recipients that opened your message (note: recipients MUST enable or download images to count as an open!)
• Number of clicks on links and URLs in your message
• Number of bounces (aim for as low as possible - a high number may mean your list is not up-to-date)
• Number of unsubscribes (while unsubscribes happen, a high number can be a signal that you need to review your marketing strategy)
• Number of complaints (aim for as low as possible - complaints mean that the recipient marked your message as spam)

Pro Tip: Use our email pre-send checklist to help you check all the boxes before you hit Send!

8. Step up your email marketing game

Once you have established your email marketing strategy and nailed down your routine, there are additional steps you can take to increase your marketing value and save time. Below we give you a few ideas to help you step up your email game. 

Email Automation 

JangoMail has three different types of automated messages to help you automate your email marketing and save time. 

Recurring Messages can be used to send emails like reward statements or birthday emails. 

JangoMail Autoresponders are emails that are sometimes referred to as drip campaigns. Autoresponders automatically go out based on new email addresses being added to a list. You can set up one message as an autoresponder or have an entire sequence of messages. 

Triggers can be set up to automatically send a message based on an action taken for a message you have sent. A trigger can be sent as soon as a recipient opens or clicks a specific link. 

Better List Building 

Are you automating collecting email addresses? If you are still manually uploading lists and email addresses, we have a few options that may save you time.

Add signups to your JangoMail list automatically with a JangoMail opt-in form. The JangoMail opt-in form gives you the HTML code to insert on your website. Use our basic form design or if you are techy you can use your styling code. Email signups automatically get added to the JangoMail list. This form can be combined with Autoresponders to send a welcome email or series of emails to new signups.

Configure a connection to your web database with JangoMail's Web Database Connection feature. Connect to your database instantly when you are ready to send - no more uploading lists! This feature also allows you to sync data, allowing you to keep up with opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, and more. JangoMail can connect to any web database.

Have developers on your team? JangoMail offers API - to do almost everything you can do inside our user interface. If you do not know what API is - read more here. If you mention API to a developer, you will be speaking their language. API opens up opportunities to automate your email marketing, including uploading lists, sending emails, and pulling reports.

Use the JangoMail Preference Center to offer your recipients the option to choose which lists they belong to - so you can separate your sending and send timely and relevant emails that your subscribers want to read.

Personalization

Take your emails to the next level by using Personalization. Personalized emails get greater engagement, which equals more opens and clicks. JangoMail calls it Personalization, but you may be more familiar with more common terms like mail merge or dynamic content.

Personalization can be used in many ways. One way to personalize is to dynamically change content, such as the first name after your email greeting. With JangoMail, you can use our Personalization to change message content and even your subject line - using any field of data you have in your list! 

Another personalization method is to use segmentation to separate your lists into smaller audiences. Using these smaller segments of your list, you can target your audience more specifically based on the criteria in your list. Perhaps this segment of your list is based on a geographical area or product interest.

To segment your list in the JangoMail user interface, you can upload different lists based on segmentation you have done outside of JangoMail or use JangoMail tools to segment a master list. Our email marketing software has a feature we call Filter and Send that allows you to segment your list based on data fields in your list. Use our Filter and Send's Advanced Query Editor to write advanced queries based on your list data and more.

Summary

This guide has gone over the building blocks you need to get started with email marketing. If you have any questions about getting started with JangoMail or JangoSMTP, contact our team today!

Additional Topics to Explore 

• JangoMail Quick Start Guide
• Best Practices: From Address
• Master and Subaccount Setup
• A/B Testing with Messages
• JangoMail Updates and Blog Posts
• Maximize your Email Results