JangoMail Automates FTP Email Custom Features

by Laurie Sullivan, Apr 28, 2009, 6:30 AM

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Email marketing provider JangoMail has added a file transfer protocol (FTP) function to its email service that lets customers upload files to the server, and the application does the rest. It retrieves, processes, and maps the email lists, and lets the user attach custom files in Adobe PDF format or Microsoft Word documents.

The ability to attach a custom PDF file to a specific message lets marketers create custom campaigns for each recipient. Safeguards have been put in place to assure that the proper file connects with the correct email message. For example, if the email marketer makes a mistake and doesn't key it in properly, the attachment doesn't get sent, according to JangoMail President Ajay Goel. "There's little risk of the wrong attachment being sent," he said.

Goel said marketers compose the email message in the system and must specify names and fields in the custom attachment. The campaigns will not send with misspelled names or incorrect fields. They must correspond with a data field in the email address list.

Setting up traditional email campaign typically means logging into a third-party service, uploading a file, and mapping columns to the file. JangoMail reduces the three- to-five-step process into one or two. After uploading the file, the application does the rest, including creating the lists and the fields.

Consumers tell us that the economic downturn will influence their spending on SMS text plans and cell phone and landline usage but not Internet access fees, which will drive low-cost forms of online communication, including email. Consumers who communicate on social networks instead of email are more likely to reduce their online spending than those who communicate via email.

Data from Forrester Research's JupiterResearch Economic Downturn Online Consumer Survey Q4 2008 indicates that email is resilient in this recession. Findings suggest that the marketing channel inspired 41% of consumers to make at least one online purchase. Consumer attitudes demonstrate they are now more likely to respond to ads with coupons and sign up for email promotions than they were when the economy was strong.

Marketers can now spend more time on the campaign's creative and strategy, and less time on implementing the program. JangoMail provides a drag-and-drop application that imports the data and automatically integrates the campaign.

Benefits come in time savings, Goel said. "It saves about 95% of the time compared with the traditional approach," he said. "Web developers who might be integrating their own software with an email marketing platform also benefit."

Email programs offer an API or Web Service, an XML-based way to communicate and send data between two electronic systems. While Dayton, Ohio-based JangoMail offers Web Service integration, using an XML-based API is code-intensive. The programmer must learn how to write computer language scripts and code for the email marketing platform to integrate the two systems.

Web-based JangoMail also provides an easier way for programmers to integrate the data from another application without having to write code for the API or Web Services integration, Goel said. It enables companies to develop, distribute and measure targeted, permission-based email marketing campaigns.

To access the FTP site, customers enter their login credentials in any standard FTP client such as FileZilla, CuteFTP or even the built-in capabilities of Internet Explorer. Previously, customers were required to use the standard Image Manager tool within JangoMail to individually upload images and files.

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