Strong Mail Presentation Big Ten It Conf July 2009

DYNAMIC CONTENT DELIVERYUSING STRONGMAILUSING STRONGMAIL

July 2009

Presented byChristopher M. HarperChristopher M. Harper

Manager of Information TechnologyUniversity Relations, Michigan State University

[email protected] (517) 355-9980

DYNAMIC CONTENT DELIVERY WITH STRONGMAILJULY 2009

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What is What is StrongMailStrongMail??gg• Vendor/solution selected after an RFP process conducted

by University Relationsby University Relations

• Both on-site (installed)( )and hosted (off-site, managed) optionswere considered during RFP

• During RFP decided bestROI would be with an on campus solution


p

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What is What is StrongMailStrongMail? (cont’d)? (cont’d)gg ( )( )• StrongMail as a dynamic messaging platform

• Capable of sending 1 million messages per hour*Capable of sending 1 million messages per hour• Dynamic message composition; no more static e-mails!• Automatic bounce management, but not just hard and g , j

soft…

Block Hard bounce

Soft bounce Technical Unknown

* This is why it is critical to have a Message Transfer Agent (or MTA) that gives you the ability to adhere to the sending rules the ISP’s have in place at an gi en moment in time See http //www strongmail com/reso rces/blogs/it email infrastr ct re/ for more details


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place at any given moment in time. See http://www.strongmail.com/resources/blogs/it_email_infrastructure/ for more details.

Okay, but where’s the need?Okay, but where’s the need?yy• University Relations (UR) at MSU in charge of sending

daily weekly MSU news stories to various audiences daily, weekly MSU news stories to various audiences, amounting to over 400,000 messages per month

• UR has been doing this for 5+ yearsg ymath: 400,000 x 12 x 5 = approx. 24 million messages to date!

• Old technology became antiquated, O d ec o ogy beca e a qua ed, cumbersome for IT staff to manage (required IT to be involved to send messages, required

l l t f li k ith d i manual replacement of links with dynamic equivalents to track link click through rates)


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Okay, but where’s the need? (cont’d)Okay, but where’s the need? (cont’d)y ( )y ( )• UR also (in a fee-for-service model) designs, builds,

sends e-mails for various departments on campus, to their alumni, sends e mails for various departments on campus, to their alumni, donors, students, etc.

• Needed a self-service interface putting the “marketer” back in control (too many people outsourcing to Constant Contact, etc.)

• More robust message composition platform capable of o e obus essage co pos o p a o capab e o doing more dynamically

• XML, XSLT, subscriber content preferences anyone?• Ability to connect to databases external to the platform

(something any other E-mail Service Provider (ESP) external to MSU won’t be able to do)


won t be able to do)

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Task: Make MSU Weekly News dynamicTask: Make MSU Weekly News dynamicy yy y• Migrate MSU Weekly News to a dynamic e-mail

publication allowing subscribers to customize their content publication, allowing subscribers to customize their content preferences

• Already had web applications written to capture subscriber preferences (in essence)

• Needed to determine how the message template would interact with these preferenceswith these preferences

• Via what technology?• Transition to a new IP address on the MTA, establish

new sending relationship with the internet, ISP’s


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Task: Make MSU Weekly… (completed)Task: Make MSU Weekly… (completed)y ( p )y ( p )• SM deployed and sending our

MSU Weekly News e-mail every Fridayy y y

• Subscribers can customize their e-mail by including content from 13 categoriesof news available on www.news.msu.eduof news available on www.news.msu.edu

• Staff and faculty automaticallyopted in to receive “Staff and faculty” content (allowed for the printed staff and faculty(allowed for the printed staff and facultypublication MSU News Bulletin to becomecompletely “electronic”)completely electronic )


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Task: Make SM available to campusTask: Make SM available to campuspp• Identify good campus candidates and make StrongMail

available to them in a self-service modelavailable to them in a self service model• Migrate various managed campaigns from old MTA to

StrongMail• Determine any external databases that StrongMail could

be connected to• Sysbase ASE Oracle MSSQL Teradata DB2 PostgreSQL • Sysbase ASE, Oracle, MSSQL, Teradata, DB2, PostgreSQL,

mySQL

UR EBSP UADV


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Task: Make SM available… (onTask: Make SM available… (on--going)going)(( g g)g g)• Currently 2 departments are on-board in a self-service

capacitycapacity• Enterprise Business Systems Projects (EBSP)• University Advancement (UADV)


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Task: Make SM available… (onTask: Make SM available… (on--going)going)(( g g)g g)• Several other departments sending e-mail via UR and ultimately via StrongMail


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Task: Make SM available… (onTask: Make SM available… (on--going)going)(( g g)g g)


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A dynamic MSU Weekly News eA dynamic MSU Weekly News e--mailmaily yy y• Database of stories that drives www.news.msu.edu

subsequently drives e-mail processsubsequently drives e-mail process


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A dynamic MSU Weekly News eA dynamic MSU Weekly News e--mailmaily yy y• Fields available at the time of inputting the story for

the web made available to e-mail template via XMLthe web made available to e-mail template via XML


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A dynamic MSU Weekly News eA dynamic MSU Weekly News e--mailmaily yy y• The XML content is transformed by an XSL template,

driven by an XSLT engine within StrongMaildriven by an XSLT engine within StrongMail


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A dynamic MSU Weekly News eA dynamic MSU Weekly News e--mailmaily yy y• A fundamentally different e-mail is generated for each

MSU Weekly News subscriber based on their content preferencesMSU Weekly News subscriber based on their content preferences


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A dynamic MSU Weekly News eA dynamic MSU Weekly News e--mailmaily yy y• So think of the possibilities…


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And now… a demo!And now… a demo!


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Education

Strong Mail Presentation Big Ten It Conf July 2009