DECEMBER 2017CIOAPPLICATIONS.COM 19Dirigo Design & DevelopmentKonvey: Enterprise Level Automation for Marketing EfficiencySOFTWARE SOLUTION PROVIDERS 2017 TOP 10MARKETING AUTOMATION Lorem Ipsum dolorActions enable business users to act upon the outcomes of their analyses. By savingand reusing actions, and users can go beyond traditional analysis, which typicallyends with presentation of data, and initiata solutions to discovered problems anddeferencies, there by extending the business intelligence.Marketing automation is an integral part of business--helping to tackle repetitive tasks for sales and marketing teams. Many marketing automation systems, though, are difficult to use and come with enterprise-level price tags. Maine-based Dirigo Design & Development aims to fix this with the release of Konvey, an email automation platform targeted at SMBs and mid-market companies whose marketing strategies call for advanced segmentation, scheduling, or personalization.Konvey is a data-centric platform with the ability to store an unlimited number of custom profile fields as well as business-specific relational data such as purchase history. All data in the system can be used for real-time segmentation, and segmentation can be used in various contexts: on mailings and schedules, in reports, and when selecting contacts (recipients) for editing or export.In addition to advanced segmentation, Konvey offers out-of-the-box functionality that includes recurring mailing schedules (daily, weekly, monthly), fully customizable landing pages, FTP access, high-speed data import with custom column mappings, tamper-proof hyperlinks, and a REST API. Dirigo can also provide optional services such as dedicated IP addresses, custom domain names, custom APIs, deliverability consulting, creative design, marketing consulting, and development. "Clients often come to us with a defined set of needs that cannot be serviced well by other email automation platforms. That's our niche. We're still small enough to actually answer the phone and guide our clients on how to take full advantage of our sophisticated platform," says CEO, David Addison.Unlike most marketing automation platforms, which rely on proprietary merge codes for email personalization, Konvey leverages server-side Javascript, which can be saved into function libraries and combined with custom HTML attributes to produce highly personalized content. "It's a game-changer", says Peter McCabe, architect of the platform. "Konvey's Javascript engine provides full access to your profile and relational data, and it can control the structure of your HTML. There really aren't any personalization scenarios Konvey can't handle."As an example of that flexibility, McCabe points to ski resort clients who use FTP to upload real-time snow condition data from automated weather sensors to Konvey's servers. A single opt-in snow report mailing can have both daily and weekly schedules: segmentation attached to the schedule determines the frequency for each recipient, and segmentation attached to the mailing determines whether each recipient receives English or French content. Server-side Javascript converts the real-time snow report data from inches to centimeters and from Fahrenheit to Celsius (or vice versa).Showcasing the latest programming techniques and server technologies, Konvey combines a multi-threaded back-end platform (built with Microsoft .NET Core and SQL Server 2016) with an extremely quick user interface (AngularJS, Bootstrap, and TypeScript). It is housed in a proprietary physical architecture that incorporates redundant firewalls and network switches, SQL failover clustering, load-balanced application servers, and clustered file shares. The system was designed for 24/7 up-time, with no maintenance windows.The Konvey team spent about two and a half years building the platform before releasing the first version. Since then, they've been constantly adding new functionality, such as integrations with content management systems. The firm is making a play for high-end users with sophisticated needs, but as the UI is extremely user-friendly, the system functions just as well with smaller list sizes and simpler marketing strategies. There's center ground between SMB and top-tier ESPs ­ it is possible for smaller outfits to get the high-end features they desire at a price point that works
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