CaliberWebGroup.com

Email Campaign Management

The following are examples of email campaigns that we've managed for our clients:

• Landis Lifestyle Salon
• Ryan Casper Band

An HTML message can look just like a Web page. It can include logos, images and links that visually appeal to clients and offer them easy access to the shopping cart and other Web sites. A message that looks like an email delivers brand impressions and can be visually appealing. A well-executed web-based message can produce effective results measured by cost and response.

Our consulting includes identifying the right services and preparing the infrastructure to go live. We help our clients achieve the following requirements:

• Single or Double opt-in. Email sign-up placed on your web site so that emails go directly into the email list.
• Messages by regulation must include an unsubscribe link. The email campaign subsystem should automatically flag unsubscribes.
• Sending messages via an email account such as a Hotmail account lack credibility, lack automated reporting and lack unsubscribe management. Also, Internet Services Providers often "blacklist" as spam those that send mass emails through a standard email account. Once "Blacklisted" your messages will not reach your recipients. We find the right campaign service that keeps your email lists "whitelisted" to ensure your clients receive your messages. We find the right service that dovetales with your current IT personnel and infrastructure so you can take a hands-off, hands-on or in-between approach. The service will offer you the professional features that will ensure optimal response and management capabilities.
• Training: Often services go unused because they're new and unfamiliar. We train and support all staff involved in email campaign creation and management so they can get the job done.
• Message Templates: We set up templates to control the look and feel of the message. The campaign service automatically inserts names, dates and other customized information for each recipient.

Frequently Asked Questions:

• Is there any way to ensure messages will not go into a client's junk folder - ensuring that it goes into the Inbox? The answer is no. User settings ultimately determine where a message goes upon receipt in email clients such as Outlook, Gmail and Hotmail. Marketers don't have control over user settings. What marketers do have some control of is whether or not the message gets received at all. The message will get received if the email is being sent from a sender service that has been "whitelisted" with all the major Internet Service Providers (ISP's) to pass through their filters.
• Can anything be done about blocked images? Answer: yes - but indirectly. Best practice is to prepare for blocked images by using text in the body of the email, ALT text and image captions. These measures cover cases when clients intentionally block images. Next measure is to include an invitation in the message for clients to make you a "known sender", adding you to their address book. Once you're a "known sender", you greatly increase your chances for images to be enabled in the email client and for your message to pass through spam filters.
• What is single opt-in and double opt-in? Single opt-in is where an email goes directly into the email subscriber list from a form or manual entry. Double opt-in flags an email as subscribed only after an opt-in confirmation email is sent and responded to by the prospective subscriber. Double opt-in ensures that the email belongs to the subscriber, improving the quality of the email list.

As your consultant, we can get you operational with your entire email campaign subsystem or any part that is missing, needs enhancement, training or advice.

Effective Form Validation

You have or need a form on a web page to collect information. One critical need is to validate the information for two main reasons. 1. You need to protect your infrastructure from malicious content. 2. You want to collect clean information to avoid "Garbage in, garbage out" issues.

Here is an extremely crucial but often overlooked detail: In the hostile Web environment of today, validating on the "client side" is optional, but validating on the "server side is mandatory." If your technical background in form validation is limited, the distinction might not be obvious. contact us for more information.

There are many internet sites using classic ASP, PHP or other script-based server-side languages to process information such as form information on the Web server. These legacy technologies are widely adopted because they allow rapid development and are effective. However, they do not come with formal form validation frameworks. This means that if you are using classic ASP, it's likely that you're not handling form validation in an effective manner. We can help change that.

Caliber Web Group has created an effective classic ASP VBScript server-side form validation framework that works in concert with the powerful, open-source client-side validation framework script.aculo.us, a powerful JavaScript library adopted by CNN, Apple and many more top companies.

The same visual effects created by the script.aculo.us form validation features are also created server-side after the form post. If there are validation issues, the page is reloaded highlighting the issues. If the form validates, the server-side processes continue the form processing.

We wanted to create a framework that was object-oriented for great code simplicity organization and use the same powerful regular expressions approach used by the .NET framework form validation controls. We accomplished both of these objectives.

Our framework utilizes a single Input Form class. All the validation types found in .NET such as numeric, date range, custom regular expressions are supported. You can either show individual validation messages within the form or show a list at the top or bottom of the form. The visual aspects are all customizable.

The Input Form class exposes a boolean IsValid property that is used to determine whether or not to proceed with form processing or post back the validation messages.

Customer Data Managed Properly

The goal was to create an intranet web application for internal personnel to adjust certain pieces of customer information as needed, using ASP.NET and C#. An important feature would be keeping proper chain of custody. Anyone viewing or editing the information would be tracked and logged. A change log would show the history of changes.

User credentials are checked up-front using the .NET framework features.

Another important feature would be record locking in a "prospective" fashion - only one personnel in edit mode at a time so that multiple personnel could use the tool simultaneously and never interrupt another person's work. Often when record locking is handled, multiple users are still allowed in edit mode, but one save is allowed at a time. This can still lead to data loss as one user saves before another. All concurrency issues are avoided using a "prospective locking" approach.

We achieved a prospective locking feature by adding a record to a data cache whenever someone enters edit mode. Before entering edit mode, the system checks to see if the records are already reserved.

The .NET framework form validation controls were used to ensure proper input of data.

Internet Orders Manager

Orders came in from the internet shopping cart. The next task is to provide personnel an effective way to manage the order fulfillment workload. We created an intranet application that includes workload management features such as assigning orders to a personnel's workload to keep a group of personnel working together efficiently.

The status of each order is tracked as it goes through each step of fulfillment.

Our solution is based on ASP.NET, C# and SQL Server. The .NET validation features ensure data is entered properly. Only one person is allowed in edit mode at a time to avoid concurrency issues.

Custom Order Confirmation Email Messages

Customers expect a confirmation email when their order has been submitted. This is a great opportunity to communicate with the customer.

The goal was to create an intranet application for internal personnel to customize various pieces of the email such as the product marketing section of the email - and be able to schedule changes to occur so that an entire year and beyond could be set up beforehand. Done and Done.

We achieved a simple, elegant solution based on classic ASP and VBScript to allow control of various pieces of a web-based email message - a message that looks like a web page.