Tim February 27th, 2007

Lately there have been a lot of online apps that are challenging the desktop publishing market. We recently featured Letterpop which allowed the creation of newsletters with relative simplicity. Today we’re going to demo vFlyer, a startup that recently came out of beta and launched a host of new features including widget support.

vFlyer’s market is aimed squarely at the online marketplace advertising the ability to transform dull text-based Craigslist and Ebay ads into vibrant HTML flyers and track the results of your campaign. The service will also post your listing in a number of online marketplaces and offers the ability to download and print PDF flyers for an offline campaign. Let’s see what they’ve got cooking up under the hood.

1. vFlyer has a large focus on real estate and auto listings but a variety of options are available for the casual user as well. Our first step is to sign up for the service.

2. At the sign-up page we get a view of the different plans offered. vFlyer uses Google Adsense throughout the building process for the basic plan. Paid plans are ad-free and offer a larger quota, and have some extra customizing features for branding your gallery. We’ll be checking out the Basic plan today.

3. The registration form is fairly basic. We are continuing to see more companies offer the ability to create a subdomain to access the account and vFlyer is no exception. This is a nice feature that promises users a way of remembering where their flyers are located for easy access.

4. After registration we confirm our email address through a verification code. No problem.

5. Once we’ve verified our email address we are transported back to the main page with basic instructions on how to create our first flyer. The process is only 4 steps, or so they promise. We’ll see about that.

6. To give you an idea of sample flyers available here is an example from the featured gallery of users. It’s definitely a step above what you normally see in Craigslist so the service is already looking promising.

7. Navigating to the Flyer tab we choose the type of flyer to create from the drop-down menu. The interface feels a little clunky here and it’s not clear at first which menu I’m supposed to be using. From the drop-down I decide to do a Computer Services flyer since I don’t have a car or house (for sale that is, ahem).

8. The flyer editor is our next step in the process. Here we can edit all the details of our flyer, add in attributes, and upload photos. We also have the option of automatically publishing our flyer to a variety of services. I’d like to see all these options split up into a few screens. Perhaps I’m in the minority but in this case it’s a bit overwhelming to view every aspect of the flyer at once. The wording is also a bit unclear (what “Attribute” should I be listing, qualifications? degrees? equipment?) but otherwise most of the fields are straighforward and I’m one step closer to selling my computer services.

9. Adding an image is a simple process and I’m given the option up uploading a main image as well as a photo gallery with up to 24 images (there is no size quota but images will be downsized accordingly by the interface). Although for a computer services flyer a photo gallery is not necessary, I think it could come in very handy for housing and auto advertisements and the 24 photo limit is generous for a basic plan.

10. I’m done uploading my cheesy stock photo and I’m ready to preview the masterpiece that I’ve created. The look is professional and required maybe 15 minutes of time inputting all the information and choosing a template.

11. After publishing my flyer I’m given an external link for use in email and online advertisements, but the options don’t end there. vFlyer allows me to copy the html code optimized for specific auction and retail listings like eBay and use it. I can also download a PDF, send out an email, and track the activity. This is probably the best feature of vFlyer, the service doesn’t stop once the flyer is built and they’ve added a lot of functionality through the integration of other businesses.

12. To get the word out about my flyer I can send an email with the option of having the flyer inside the email, attaching it as a pdf, or linking to it in the body of the message.

13. From the tracking page I can see who has viewed my flyer and how many times (with the exception of Craigslist “by request” apparently). If pageviews and referrer information is important to your campaign (and it should be) you will find this page completely useful.

14. A new feature that was recently rolled out at vFlyer is the option to create website “Widgets” that can be inserted through html. Widgets are becoming very popular because they are a small and unintrusive but pack in a lot of information. Customizing options are limited in the Basic plan but the default look is not bad at all.

15. vFlyer has also partnered with RapLeaf to allow users to import their ratings directly into the flyers they create.

vFlyer has created an excellent product in terms of functionality and quality of results. The flyer I was able to make took little time and came out looking professional. The service would benefit from a few more options to customize the template (I’m not even sure the template was customizable in the paid plans) and the interface suffers from poor wording and design that could confuse users on how information will be displayed on the flyer. Perhaps an active preview of the newsletter, or a sample image of some of the more cryptic form fields would help.

All in all vFlyer delivers with top notch content, a variety of publishing options, and widget integration. If you’re selling something or need to place an online ad for services, I think y ou could do a lot worse than giving vFlyer a try.

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• craigslist , ebay , letterpop , rapleaf , review , vflyer
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