The Request

If you’ve been looking for a nice way to utilize Twitter with your AspDotNetStorefront eCommerce site then we may have something for you.

Recently, one of our clients requested a feature that allowed him to provide a configurable coupon to the people who followed him on Twitter.  The trick with doing something like this on Twitter is to make it opt-in and not just spam out coupons to Twitter followers randomly.

The Solution

We decided to build a small add-on for AspDotNetStorefront that creates a page within your site called TwitterPromo.aspx.  The functionality of this page works something like follows (as seen on www.espemporium.com):

A) You place a link somewhere on your page to promote this new feature.  For this client, we created a featured area in their footer with messaging that said “Limited time special offer for Twitter users only!” (screenshot below)

B) Clicking on the offer would open up the custom TwitterPromo.aspx page.  This offer can be presented in either a small popup window, a div overlay, or an entirely new page within your site. 

The idea behind the promotion, is that anybody who is following your store twitter account has the opportunity to receive an exclusive coupon code limited to followers only.  When a visitor puts their twitter name in the form, the page will perform the following tasks:

1. Check twitter to ensure this user is indeed following your store twitter account.

2. If user is not following you, they will receive a friendly error message.

3. If user is following you, a new coupon code will be created with their twitter name.  In this case, we created a coupon called Twitter_UserName.

4. The new coupon code is automatically direct messaged to that person on twitter.

Here’s an example:

The end result, something like this shows up in the persons twitter direct message timeline:

If you have been looking for an AspDotNetStorefront add on for doing some Twitter based loyalty marketing, then feel free to drop me a line and I’ll give you some more information on the solution.