Giving away my viral email marketing script

I finally was able to buy hosting and incidentally the server I'm on isn't upgraded to PHP 5. So I will have to change the script, and add some password protection (it is different from the crafty books site in that regard), and then I will be able to demo it.

 

Thanks for the script. I am trying to test it out but I am getting this error:

Parse error: parse error, unexpected '&', expecting T_VARIABLE or '$' in /homepages/1/d178155945/htdocs/sesaame/sesaame.php on line 189

 

That error occurs because the '&' is only supported in PHP 5 or later.

 

oh geez. I guess is was premature to assume my host was up to date on things. oops.

Well I realy appreciate the script and I am glad to see you are in the same situation so perhaps you will edit it to work with php4.

 

Is mail() a module available in PHP? I haven't heard of it before...

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Update: Nevermind, I just did a little research on Google and got the answer to my question.

 

hm, to say the truth - some testing thing, not beta, not alpha
work and work

 

first of all, i would like to thank you very much, phree_radical, for releasing the script to the public. i was just 2 days ago stumbling across dan's site and since then there is only one thing to do: repeat his story

so, i was looking out for a nice script to do exactly the work we would need for the 3-stage approach:

1.) subscribe as a gold member
1.a) support mailing an invite to friends to earn referrals
2.) get an upgrade to silver by having 3 (or more) referrals
2.a) get offered platinum for x amount of money
3.) upgrade user to platinum

i understand, thta your script takes care of all steps until 2.) and that is fine. i have set the script up, however, there seems to be a problem with the counted referrals.

here is the test site: http://207.5.16.24/example

sending out mail works fine, mail itself is fine, HOWEVER, when you reply to that mail by clicking the link in it, no referrals are counted for the original sender !?

if you have any hint it would be great. and if ou are still into developing this further, i am in as well, as we really want to give it the same try as dan did. thanks for your support!

 

I'm glad the mail is being tested finally... but I don't think it's working. I joined at your installation and sent an invite to a separate email address. Haven't received it yet :/

When I tested it locally I was able to get referrals to count by clicking the link that's supposed to be sent in the email. I just couldn't test the email...

You say it worked for you? Was the email address you used to send the invite an actual account registered on the same domain? I'm not sure how that works so it may be the difference--the script uses the member's entered email address as the sender address

 

hi phree_radical,

yes, the mail worked for me. but the domain of the sender and receiver was the same. as there is no authentication towards the mailserver, i assume, that the relay-prevention comes into play. as log as the mail stays in the realm of my provider it might be fine, but as soon as you want to sent it anywhere else you would have to authenticate i assume.

i will give it another try tonite with different mail-adresses.

cheers.

 

First of all, thanks for the script.

I have made changes to get it to work with php4 but I just want to make sure I understand what it is used for.

1. You somehow get users to visit your site and sign up, (groups, myspace, whatever)
2. They sign-up and their address are saved.
   1. They are offered to invite a friend.
   2. The friend clicks the link and they ‘parent’ email receives some points.

So at the end of the day you will have xxxx emails.
Is that right?

Where I get confused is what happens next?

One day you will send a mass email to everybody in the list offering to sell something?

I have looked at Dans’ blog but I still don’t get what happens next, what is in the email that is sent to all the users. Do you have an example of the email that is sent to the user?

Or am I missing something, how do you convert emails into sells?

FFMG

 

I'd like too see this one too.

 

I couldn't think of a better way to integrate it at the time, but you can call a php function that returns the number of referrals someone has.

Everyone who ends up on that page would be an email user you're trying to sell something to. The crafty books site offered one level of access for inviting friends, and one or two other levels for cash money. This script was designed to be dropped into a page like an AdSense unit, and then styled with CSS to fit the page. It's up to you to convert the emails into sales

I pretty much left everything generic, where the marketing messages would be. I believe it just says "You have been invited to the Sesaame Demo. Click here to verify your email address and get started"

 

I see, so:
- The user somehow lands on my page, and enters his/her email address, (because I say something cool on my page to make him want to give me his emails address).
- That creates an account for them and at the same time asks them to invite yet more friends.
- Regardless if they choose to invite or not invite anybody they are taken to a 'special offer page'.
- Giving their address gives them access to their member page where a lot of stuff is free.
- If they choose to invite friends they still get free stuff but with a little bit more.
- Before they get to the member area where all the stuff is they are taken to the 'special offer' page, on that page there is an offer to go 'platinum' by buying something that will give them yet a little bit more than 'silver' or 'gold'.

What I don't get is what the email itself is used for, because because the punter can upgrade right away or not.
Do we then use the emails once in a while to remind them about the special offer, (until they opt-out of course).
Where could I get my hands on one of those emails?
I guess I could sign-up to Dans' but I don't think he sends emails anymore.

BTW some users have PMed me asking for the changes I made for PHP4, I can host them if you want or I can send them to you.
Either way I don't want to release them without first asking you.

FFMG

 

I'm glad I didn't try to sell this thing, go ahead and re-release it by all means. You mentioned a few more things that that script doesn't do on its own. It doesn't have anything built-in except for a means for a user to join and work on referring people, and a means for another script to retrieve the member's status. I got a marketing email pitching a script for only $27 that is VERY similar to the Free Crafty Books site, and has a wonderful backend interface, and I feel down about my little attempt now...

I really like the way you laid out what the script should do, though...

 

Hi,

Here is the conversion to php4,
http://www.httppoint.com/downloads/sesaamephp4.zip, I agree with you that there are a few things missing but it is still a great code.

I am also working on my own viral scripting application.
I will probably go down a different route as you, (I want to include affiliates, MySQL and so on), but it was still great to get started.

FFMG

 

thanks a lot

 

What does this script do exactly ?

Also is there any working demo ?