Jeff Baer

Congratulations!!
Today I responded to shoemoneyx.com, who has a viral sign-up that integrates aweber. The "referrer" never has to login with a password to receive their reward.

step 1 they sign-up with a name & email.
Step 2 they are redirected to a page with unique url to refer friends
step 3: refer friends using email client
step 4: receive emails announcing you have referred a visitor when visitor clicks url
step 5: after fifth referral , receive an email with a thank you gift.

I NEVER had to login with a password. This seems a bit easier on the user and the graphics matched the website perfectly.

Can I do this with your system?

saschakimmel

Not currently. Because the GKLM was so well received initially I've implemented the same signup system in the VLM:
1) no name, only email + password
2) VLM just like GKLM only supports double-optin subscribers, not single-optin and they have to confirm the signup and login to get the link.
3) yes
4) yes, but only if the user has confirmed his double-optin to your mailing list
5) yes

You can completely redesign the website to adapt it to your design as VLM is theme-based.

Jeff Baer

sascha, thanks for quick reply. I will test VLM this weekend. How far away is wordpress plugin?

Blaine Moore

I meant problem in that I can't request a new confirmation, not so much being able to create a new user name w/the same email address.

I sent you an email that will hopefully get through to you w/more details; my post count isn't quite high enough here since I'm more of a lurker than a poster and I can't send private messages yet.

Thanks again.

ToryMc

I just went and signed up for shoemoneyx.com after reading this and WOW, that's a pretty slick set-up! I wouldn't think it would be hard to change VLM over to something like that though that would be entirely up to Sascha. I noticed shoemoneyx.com doesn't require the user to "accept the terms and conditions" either. Very lightweight and effective script, imo.

RobJones

"Easier" does not automatically mean better.
And who says that what you are suggesting is "easier" -- you?
How have you come to that conclusion?

It is well known (and tested) that for every field you add in your opt-in form, the opt-in rate will drop considerably (usually by 10-15%).
And: Many *current* tests have shown that adding the name in the subject or in body text of marketing emails does not increase open rates and conversion (and can sometimes even *decrease* conversion).

Well, is then the password field better than first name field?
Yes, in this case it is much better.
Why?
Because it makes the whole thing much more believable in this case. That's why.
More believable = more trust = more opt-ins & referrals = better bottom-line results.

So, just because some shoemoney guy does it differently it does NOT automatically mean his system is better.
And yes, I know very well who shoemoney is.

The Copy Nazi

With respect (and I tend to agree with you on both the less fields they have to fill in and the "password" issue) you're doing the same thing. You're saying "It is well known (and tested)". Who says it's "well-known and tested"? You? See what I mean?

RobJones

Yes, I am saying that.
And also a couple of well-known and respected marketers like Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher who tested this stuff to death.
Oh, and why do you think did Frank Kern, the guy who released the Good Karma Machine, left out the name field?
"He must have left it out because he just 'guessed' it would be better or because he was to lazy to tell that to his programmers."
Right?

Or did he leave the name field out because he wanted that all people using his Good Karma Machine would get less opt-ins?
Oh, no, that would hardly be logical because he is using the same form with the same fields, right?

So, even if you don't know anything about "well-known and tested" things,
you can get pretty far just by using basic logic...

saschakimmel

Free membership sites have a higher perceived value than free non-membership sites.
That's why I think a password really makes sense (especially because the user can re-login to check the stats).

Tony M.

This is great.
What about security ? Have you tested against SQL injections, cross site scripting and the like ?

Tony

saschakimmel

Hi Tony,

I have *developed* the system so that it doesn't have SQL injections and XSS problems. I think the only way to create secure software is to think about security on every letter you're typing, not just checking it afterwards.

Regards,
Sascha

jminkler

Huh? The emails are still sent from the email provider ...

You could do this as a phar package

jminkler

Run Google's skipfish against it.

saschakimmel

I'm not talking about the emails, I'm talking about offering this as a hosted solution for a monthly fee. If you've then got an internet marketer with a huge list that starts to send out thousands of emails your *web* servers are literally flooded with requests by people clicking on the links in the emails.

That means when offering a hosted solution you need to have a very robust system of multiple servers that can handle thousands of requests per second just in case you've one customer with a huge list even when most of your "hosted customers" send just a couple of users to your site per second. So you need to have a server farm that's capable of handling thousands of requests on standby idling around most of the time just in case this may happen.

And if the HTTP requests come in you just can't stop them so I think it's a rather complicated server farm you'd need if I were to offer VLM hosting.
That's why I'm not planning to offer a "hosted VLM solution".

Yes, I could, but most people don't know what a phar package is and it would be harder for them to install than just unpacking a ZIP file.

saschakimmel

If Google would release either a Windows version of it or a compilable source code (fails on compile, doesn't even contain a .configure file) for Skipfish maybe I would do that, but currently Skipfish is unsuable for me.
Were you ever able to compile Skipfish?

Steve Miles

Sascha,

Do you have a timeframe of when you're going to implement the password retrieval? I don’t know how to retrieve them for people and they get really irritated that they have to re-register with another e-mail address and start over again just because they forget their password.

saschakimmel

Version 1.05 including the password retrieval has just been released:
ViralListMachine