Marketing to GO!
Problem:
The Travel Marketing department needed a fast, direct method for getting information and marketing content to travel agents within all the AAA office branches.
Background:
AAA maintained an intranet site that allowed for the submission & posting of information and files, but the process was hindered by a request process and stringent file size restraint. This meant last-minute, time-sensitive marketing and sales material could not be submitted and that most documents needed to be broken into multiple pages or simply couldn't be used.
The Travel Marketing Department tried contracting an outside printing company to host a library of digital templates (PDF) that field agents could customize with their own information then print at a set cost. This service cost upwards of $2500/month not including printing. Agent use never reached a level that justified the cost of the service and time spent managing the templates.
Solution:
We decided the solution was to host a standalone website that the department maintained. This allowed quick posting of information and materials with no file size restrictions. As a simple website the training needs decreased and it was run cheaply on shared hosting.
This was noticed by other AAA business units looking for the same capability. I was tasked with deciding how best to implement a website that would handle multiple business unit content and information. I knew I would need to turn to a content management system (CMS), something I had no experience with at the time. I chose the open source platform Drupal and in under three months learned enough of the system and interface to launch a user account based website. The site grew to over 2000 registered users with over 18,000 page visits per month.
Modernize Workgroup
Problem:
As Travel Marketing expanded the creative staff lacked an easy way to shared and manage files. A backup of work was not actively maintained on a daily basis.
Background:
The individual work of the creative staff within Travel Marketing resided on each individuals computer. Image assets resided on CD media. File sharing ran on an older 10/100 network. The two most important goals to accomplished were centralized file-serving and automated backups of all work.
Secondary goals were the upgrade or purchase of new computers with the most current operating system in order to start a standard hardware/software upgrade cycle.
Solution:
Purchased three computers including a server and upgraded three computers to the newest OS. The server, purchased with additional hard drive space, was capable of storing all active jobs. A new gigabit network switch made it feasible to work off of the server as opposed to copying files between workstations. With all the creative work housed in one place nightly backups to external hard drive was made easy.
In the years since this plan was implemented newer workstations have steadily replaced older ones. A newer server with expanded drive space has been added. The expanded space has allowed all assets to be made available rather than on CD/DVD. The continual upgrade of the OS has allowed the use of incremental backups on both workstations and server.