The Marketing Information Messaging System

Marketing

Telecommunications

Retail

iOS

.NET

MS SQL

Description

To provide distributors with the relevant information on goods, retailers have to lunch various e-mail campaigns manually. Frequently, such letters are automatically placed to the junk folder and never reach the target audience. The Marketing Information Messaging System automates spreading of distribution information to suppliers and allows creating individual profiles for each point of sales. Using this system, managers can specify type of a product, price, time during which the terms are valid, etc. It is possible to attach video files, presentations, or any other documents that sales representatives may require when visiting a prospective customer.

The customer

The customer creates software that allows for automating marketing campaigns to increase efficiency of sales staff in various businesses.

The need

So, the company needed a system that would be, on the one hand, rather flexible to adjust to any changes in product lines or prices and, on the other hand, easy to use. The team was to develop a user interface that would be very similar to an e-mail client, since marketing staff is used to work with e-mail tools.

The challenges

The system had to be designed to sustain more than 100,000 users simultaneously, keeping the same performance. Since sales representatives use both iPhones and iPads, which have different screen size, the application had to be displayed differently on these devices. In addition, the team was to implement different layouts for an iPhone and iPad to keep the user interface clear and readable, when a cell phone is used. The customer needed a universal application that can equally fit different people engaged in promotion activities. The same code had to be used to create applications for different groups of users, such as sales representatives, suppliers, sales managers, etc.

The solution

To prepare the system for the rapid growth, the team factored in the scalable database architecture and suggested to move the backend server to the Amazon cloud. We created different targets in the iOS project and used them to build four different solutions that have slightly different sets of features. This approach enabled the customer to use the same source code to deliver different applications for suppliers, sales representatives, and other groups of users. In general, when a message has been read on an iPhone device, it is marked as new, if checked from another device, an iPad for instance. To eliminate this issue and improve user experience, the team implemented a complex solution that included login session control and keeping information relevant, regardless of the device used. A user can be logged in the app using several devices at a time and the information will be displayed the same on all of them.

The outcome

With the Marketing Information Messaging System, sales managers spend less time preparing for an appointment and making reports. All the information they may require is sent to them automatically, including ready presentations or any other documents related to a deal. When the appointment is over, the manager can fill in special fields in the app, stating whether the goods have been sold or not. In case the deal failed, the manager can specify the reason for that. As a result, all this information on each deal is collected on the server and, at the end of the reporting period, the report is built automatically.

Technology stack