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Refer A Friend Script
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Main Goal - to design a refer-a-friend script suitable for beginners
to be able to install and use on their own hosting account (this will
not be a 3rd party offering), using PHP and MySQL for simplicity and
power, whilst including a number of features designed to increase the
marketing effectiveness of such a script, and also protecting the site
owner from spammers and other forms of misuse.
This should be an easy project for an experienced programmer.
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Project Description
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**Important Features Of The Script**
* Super-simple installation and use with the most basic of technical
knowledge required.
* The script should permit can-spam compliance such as allowing
the insertion of the script owners postal address etc. if required.
* The script should require no offline script customization. Any
customization necessary (MySQL database details, path to Sendmail
etc.) should be configured online by the site owner for ease of use.
* They should be able to simply unzip the file folder, upload it and
get going.
* A "trouble-shooting" guide and "installation" guide are required
in text format. If the software is as easy to use as I'm looking for I
shall be able to write the "user" manual myself.
* A list of minimum technical requirements of the hosting account
required to run this script is required.
* Your quote should include at least one (please state exact number)
of revisions so I can be 100% certain it is right. If the above
guidelines are followed it is anticipated these will only be minor
changes.
See an example of a system-generated form:
[login to view URL], but
please consider that the best way to include 10+ friend's details
boxes be best accomplished best by using the layout of
[login to view URL] (click the button at the top of the
page to see how the boxes are laid out).
**Key Concepts**
In order to explain this script in as much detail as possible, whilst
keeping things as simple to understand as possible I have opted to
split the script into 3 distinct parts purely for descriptive parts.
The successful programmer may decide to merge and split the different
parts to enable the script to run as smoothly as possible and to keep
it as user-friendly and easy to install as is possible.
Sample screens are available for each section and are listed where
appropriate. Please be aware that these samples are not currently
functional but are merely present to help illustrate the text. Further
there is no doubt room for improvement on them when you have had a
chance to examine the requirements, and I have also already
commissioned graphics for the admin-control area but have chosen not
to make them available in this publically-accessable area though they
will be available to the successful bidder for integration into the
script.
Therefore for our purposes at present the script consists of 3 main
parts:
1) Site Owner Admin Center
In this password-protected area available only to the site owner a
range of features should be available. In addition, the site owner
should be free to change his or her username/password to log in and
and to have their details emailedto them incase they forget them when
trying to log in.
a) Email Control
* Can create, edit, save and delete the email(s) sent out to
referrers friends
* Can create, edit, save and delete the email sent out to referrer
on first use
* Can create, edit, save and delete the email sent out to referrers
upon reaching target
This section will also provide the opportunity to add can-spam details
in the form of a footer attached to every email sent by the system.
Testing
* Can split-test up to 5 different emails sending them in a fair
ratio (email 1, email 2, etc. etc.
then back to email 1 etc.)
* The unique tracking code in each email will enable the site owner
to test and tweak his or her
referral email for maximum effectiveness by seeing which email is
pulling the most visitors
See an example:
[login to view URL]
b) Email Broadcast
* Can send out a broadcast email to all site users and/or friends,
searchable by date or page referred
to
It should also be possible (possibly in this section, possibly in the
statistics section - see which makes most sense) to see lists of
people who have used the form to refer friends based on how many
actual referral visits they have generated, and send a broadcast email
to all users who have referred over x number of people.
For example one could send out a broadcast email to everyone who
referred 2 or more people in January 2006 with a congratulatory
message.
See an example:
[login to view URL]
c) Statistics
* Can see how many referrers have used the referral form
* Can see the total number of friends emailed
* Can see average number of friends referred
* Can see average number of friends who actually visit
* Can see total number of friends referred
* Can see number of referrers (and detail of) to actually hit
targets set
* Can see the percentage of visitors who become referrers
* Can see how many friends actually end up referring others (total
and % of referred friends)
* Can see most effective email in terms of number and % of friends
visiting site
* Can see how many people refer friends to the site owners' homepage
or other specific pages, and top
10 pages to refer people to
* Can recall details of emails sent using the script showing all
comments, and the page people were
referred to. Can search by date (showing all comments/pages for that
time period and/or referral page
URL (excluding the tracking code - just [login to view URL] etc.)
* Number of newsletter subscribers generated
These reports should be customizable by date (by day, week, month,
year or a custom time period), referrer etc.
See an example:
[login to view URL]
d) Complaints
The aim of the complaints center is to protect the site owner from
spam complaints, and also allows the site owner to give anyone
complaining access to information about referrers.
By entering in the unique tracking code inserted in each email sent,
the Complaints Center will be able to call up the sender's IP address,
email address, name, time and date to the site owner so this
information can be made available to help protect him or her from spam
complaints.
As with phpBB where it is possible to ban users by IP, email domain
etc. if this were possible from the Admin Center this would be
particularly useful as it would then be possible to easiy prevent any
persistent offender from continuing to "spam" using the script.
It should also be possible to ban sending emails to certain addresses,
either using full addresses (i.e. bill(at)[login to view URL]) or partial (domain)
addresses (i.e. [login to view URL]). This way, should complaints arise, the site
owners will be able to prevent anyone from sending emails to that
individual using his or her script again.
See an example:
[login to view URL]
e) Web Form Generator
This allows the site owner to modify the page of their site that
will allow others to refer their friends. The administrator should
have control over the page's appearance by being able to select a
background color, font sizes, faces and colors, navigation links,
header and footer text etc.
In this way the form will be fully customizable allowing them to
modify the appearance of the form to match the rest of their site.
The way to do this may be to use a header-form-footer sandwich-format
whereby users paste their header HTML text into the form generator and
their footer HTML, which then spits out an HTML page with the form
sandwiched in the middle.
Or you may like to offer less customization by simply offering a list
of boxes such as "type the page title you'd like for your referrer
page here", "select the page background color you'd like to use here"
etc.
It is important that this aspect should lead to a uniquely-designed
page with the form within it rather than every user having the same
form on their sites, resulting in poorer marketing results and search
engines removing these "duplicate" pages from their indexes.
This should also be a static HTML page so all links are search engine
indexable. We intend that a small text link will be included in this
static page which will help refer others to our site and build link
popularity.
This page will interface with the "behind the scenes" PHP scripts to
take the information entered by referrers and send out the relevant
emails.
The form itself should collect the referrers name and email manually,
plus the time of use, date of use and IP address (automatically) in a
log file for safety so should complaints arise from improper use all
this information can be recalled from the Complaints Center (see
later) to prove the site owners innocence.
In addition, it should collect the name and email addresses of the
referrers friends (site owner can specify how many boxes he'd like
available up to a maximum of 20) and then sends them a copy of the
email.
The site owner should be able to specify whether the content of emails
and subject line sent out should be controlled and modifiable by the
site owner from the Admin Center so further reducing the scripts use
for any spammers who try to use it, and ensuring honesty in the
emails sent out and no "inflated or inaccurate claims about your
site", or allowing site visitors to specify their own email content.
Either way a small tag line reading "Get your own refer a friend
script at: [login to view URL]" will be added at the
bottom of every email sent by site users to their friends.
If the option of only sending an email designed by the site owner is
chosen, the content of what the email *will* say when sent will be
shown to the site users so they can see what will be sent.
Or the "email content" box can be prefilled with a "suggested" email
that site users can still change if they like.
Also the names of the site user's friends whom he or she is referring
should be mergeable into the emails - i.e. an email reading "Check
this out" as designed by either party automatically becomes:
Dear John,
Check this out.
...if the user is sending an email to a friend called "John" for
higher conversion rates.
These customization fields should also be available to use in the
message subject so that the names appear in it.
For example, a site user may decide to use the subject "Here's
something I found of interest to you" and the actual email subject
sent would be "John - Here's somethng I found if interest to you" if
the friend they are referring is called "John".
These customzation fields - that the referred friend's names will
automatically appear at the beginning of the subject line and at the
beginning of the email will happen *automatically* without the user
having to enter customzation fields themselves.
Referrers will be able to specify whether to send visitors to your
homepage or the last page visited on the site (so site visitors upon
reading a particularly interesting page can click on the "refer a
friend" link and have the link in their friend's emails take them
right to the specific information that the referrer thinks will be of
interest to them.
This should be automatically captured so the referrer does not need
to copy and paste the URL of the last page visited.
Each email sent out rather than referring friends to
[login to view URL] or [login to view URL] will instead
include a unique tracking code more akin to
[login to view URL] which infact refers them to a
tracking/landing page.
This page records that this visitor has arrived as a result of an
email from referrer x using your site, and then transfers them to the
relevant page the referer selected to send them to initially.
This unique number/code for each friend of each referrer allows us to
track the effectiveness of a campaign in the Admin Center (see later)
and also provides information to the original referer in the Referer
Center (see below).
These coded URLs for ease will be automatically inserted by the script
- the site user simply needs to select whether to send their friends
to the site owner's homepage, or the last page they visited. They
should also have the opportunity to type in a URL, which the system
will automatically add a tracking code onto.
One final option is that the website user that is referring friends
should be given the option to join a newsletter of mailing list, by
showing a check box. If this is left checked and the form is submitted
the site users name and email address will be submitted to the site
owner's autoresponder.
This box will be pre-checked to ensure the maximum signup rates, and
the site owner may include a little information about the newsletter
in question.
The form will also (if the site owner specified) send an email to the
site user giving a unique login/password so they can log in and see
who they referred later on (see Referer Center later).
The site owner will be able to specify in the Admin Center whether
they would like a copy of all referral emails sent to them directly
(using hidden fields so as to not to reveal the site owners email
address etc.).
All emails should show as having come from the site user not the site
itself - i.e. the site users name and email not some-email-
address(at)site-owners-domain.com.
Whether or not this happens the content of all emails, together with
when they were sent and the page site users were referring people to
will be saved to the MySQL database for the site owner to look at
later to show particularly popular/weak parts of his or her site.
After using the form the referrer should be sent to a thankyou page.
This will be by default a default thankyou page but in the Admin
Center (see below) the site owner must be able to specify another page
if he or she would like. This would be a static webpage created using
his or her standard web design software.
A small hyperlink (font size=1) should be included at the bottom of
the form as per the example.
See an example:
[login to view URL]
f) Link Generator
To help script owners generate the links to their web form.
See an example:
[login to view URL]
2) Referer Center
This password protected area (similar to affiliate software creating a
unique area when an affiliate registers) is created when someone
refers their friends will enable them to log in to the Refer Center
with the details emailed to them after use.
This simple area will show what emails were sent when, and to whom.
It will also show who visited and when by tracking all referred
visitors using the unique system-generated code attached to every
email as discussed earlier.
Not only should this be highly entertaining for referrers but the site
owner in his or her Admin Center can specify a certain action that
will occur after each referrer has referred x number of friends.
For example, the site owner may specify that after 10 friends visit,
access to a free report, ebook or coupon is made available to that
particular referrer in their personal password-protected Referrer
Center.
A system generated email (with content customizable by the site owner)
should be sent when the site user has referred enough visitors so the
original site owner is aware he or she has a free bonus awaiting
them.
Essentially the easiest way to accomplish this is that when the site
owner defined target of friends referred is met, an additional link
appears to them in the Referrer Center that will allow the site user
to access the report, tool, coupon code etc.
The URL of the "bonus" page when it appears should be specified by
the site owner in the Admin Center.
Can specify how many friends must be referred before "bonus" page
appears
Can specify URL of bonus page
See an example:
[login to view URL]
3) The Sending Script
This is the section of the script which actually sends out the
specified emails to the specified people.
The final script will be available in zipped format for ease of
downloading, with installation instructions and other supporting
documents in text format, carriage returned at 60 characters for ease
of editing.
Whilst I have done my best to keep this description as clear as
possible, it is highly likely you will have questions after reading
through all the above. Therefore feel free to post questions on the private message board.
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Competing Products For Research
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Should it be of any use, here are a list of main competitors in the
market:
[login to view URL]
[login to view URL]
[login to view URL]
And our biggest of all:
[login to view URL]
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Timeframe
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There is some flexibility in this situation but I am ideally looking
for the project to take no more than 4 weeks from commencement, and
if you can do it in less whilst still maintaining high standards of
quality then this would be even better.
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Legal
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All work done will be 100% your original work, there will be no
copyright infringement issues. I will own full copyright authorities
of the completed script. I also have the right to give or not to give
you credit as creator of the script. The acceptance of your bid binds
you to the terms listed. You may not use this script as any form of
competition for this particular product nor may you give this script
away for free.