Baby Kingdom --a Hong Kong-based online parenting forum as well as a Web development and marketing firm founded in 2002--uses many open-source technologies.
But when it comes to EDM (electronic data marketing), the firm said the open-source EDM software and My SQL posed major problems as its business grew.
"Lack of support is an issue," said founder and operations director Rainer Sip. "We went to [open-source] communities for help but weren't guaranteed solutions to our problems."
"There usually aren't official patches for open-source tools," explained Sip. "We don't want to use unofficial ones for security reasons. We used an older version of MySQL to make sure things work properly--but then we lagged behind in technology."
The issue became more serious when Baby Kingdom received more EDM orders from customers. "It took us four days to complete an EDM campaign with 40,000-200,000 recipients," said Sip, "and about 20% of people didn't receive our EDM messages--this was unacceptable."
According to Sip, Baby Kingdom gets about 4,000 new registered users in Hong Kong monthly, with a Hong Kong database now at around 450,000 users. Aiming to turn user-growth into EDM success, Baby Kingdom took three months last year to implement Microsoft SQL Server along with home-grown Radica Intimate EDM software, which went live in early 2012.
Baby Kingdom looked at Oracle's database offering, "but it was too expensive and has too many functions the firm doesn't need," he said. "Microsoft SQL is more affordable."
The firm also prefers on-premise EDM software like Radica Intimate (RI). "All we have to pay is the license fee," Sip said. "We don't want to jack up our cost by using a pay-per-email service." According to him, SQL Server plus RI cost the company less than HK$500,000.
Besides costs, the firm is concerned about data control. "We want to keep our user data in-house for better protection," Sip said. "We can't afford to leak customer data."
Baby Kingdom is also serious about good EDM practice. "We only send less than two EDM messages to an email account per week, and in a month less than four EDM messages to the same account," Sip noted. "We don't want to become spammers."
With the use of RI and SQL Server, the firm is now able to complete an EDM campaign within four to six hours, said Sip. "We can now take ad hoc EDM requests and complete a maximum of four EDM campaigns instead of one each week," he said.
"Faster EDM completion also means we can free up our limited IT resources--four IT staffers in the Hong Kong office--for other tasks," Sip added.
He said that EDM business contributes 5% of Baby Kingdom's total revenues--compared to just 1% before--while ROI of the new products deployed is four months.
The RI software also helps the firm automate various EDM-related tasks, such as maintenance of an opt-out list.
"This is important," said Sip. "People [on an opt-out list] can complain to OFCA even when you inadvertently send them messages. You will have to provide a detailed explanation and repeated offenders must pay a maximum of HK$500,000 as a penalty. This will also damage a brand's image."
In addition, granular segmentation enabled by RI and Radica's professional services allow the firm to raise its EDM delivery rate to 95%, he noted.
Sip also expects EDM to bring indirect revenue growth and opportunities. "When customers are happy with our EDM services, they're more likely to explore our other offerings," he said. "In addition to revenue from customers' EDM campaigns, people opening the messages might click on products we offer and make purchases."