In a recent discussion about the value of QR Codes here on Digital Nirvana, a comment from one of the participants really struck me. He said, “I can only remember one campaign when I’ve ever gotten something rewarding from scanning [a QR Code].”

This is the primary complaint against QR Codes I read about in blog comments and discussion groups.  “I keep scanning these codes, but I never get anything of value. Why bother?” There are many iterations of this complaint, but ultimately, they all come down to the same thing.

This particular individual works in this industry and scans most of the codes he comes across. So let’s think about this for a minute.

QR Codes are just a response mechanism like any other response mechanism. If you scan every one that you see, what do you expect to happen? What would happen if you called every 800 number you saw? You would be inundated with irrelevant offers, uninteresting pitches, and badly handled telephone scripts. Maybe one in every — what — 100 would have some value to you personally?

Is that the fault of 800 numbers? No, it’s bad or irrelevant marketing. Why should we expect anything less from scanning QR Codes?

Every day, we’re surrounded by bad marketing. Calling every 800 number you see and complaining that you come away with nothing but a poor experience is like sticking your hand on a hot stove over and over and continuing to complain that it hurts.

People scan QR Codes because they want something. They want what your marketing pitch promises they will get: a coupon, a a mobile app, customer reviews. If there is no text, then they just scan it to see what it will do. It seems to me that the problem is either irrelevant offers or poor implementation on the landing page side — none of which have anything to do with QR Codes themselves.

Just last night, I was going into the library and saw an interesting postcard on the community information rack. It was a bunch of guys in really funky gear with stringed instruments, a cool band name (one I’d heard before), and some text I didn’t read. But there was a QR Code on the front, so in about 15 seconds, I took out my phone, launched the reader, and scanned the code. Then I put my phone back in my pocket.

I still haven’t looked at the website to which the code points, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’ve been interested in seeing this band perform. I don’t carry pads and paper. If I do, I lose everything I write down. But because there was a code on the postcard, I now have the band’s website in my browsing history — something that wouldn’t have happened without the code. I simply would have walked by.

QR Codes serve a purpose, but we cannot have unrealistic expectations of what they will or will not do.  When we start thinking about QR Codes like 800 numbers, with their value determined much the same way, that’s when the discussion starts to make some sense.

The Web has helped level the playing field for small and medium businesses to market and compete, especially as these companies continue to shift their spend and efforts to digital marketing. While targeted, automated e-mail marketing may have been out-of-reach for SMBs five years ago, it is one of the most-used marketing tactics by companies with fewer than 500 employees today. Mobile might have not made sense for most SMBs a few years ago, but it is now a growing part of the SMB marketing mix. Further, while a social media presence was experimental just two three years ago, it is now a necessary part of small and medium businesses’ marketing strategy, just as it is for enterprise marketers. Also like enterprise marketers, SMBs face challenges managing these different channels in an effective way, as well as keeping up with the lightning-fast face of evolution in digital marketing.

While these challenges persist, technology and service providers are devising solutions specifically targeted at SMBs to help them get a hold of their marketing efforts. With virtually limitless storage, widespread broadband availability, and robust capabilities delivered via a browser, similar tools that big brands use to manage and optimize their marketing efforts are available for SMBs at a fraction of the cost, enabling these companies to more effectively meet their marketing goals. InfoTrends recognized this trend when it first studied small and medium businesses’ marketing approaches in 2009. At the end of 2011, we conducted a follow-up study entitled Capturing the SMB Marketing Automation Opportunity to understand how SMBs’ marketing spend, strategy, and tactics are evolving by surveying over 2,000 small and medium businesses across 13 vertical industries.

One of the most striking developments over the past two years is the growth in the use of social media for marketing. Overall use has increased dramatically: in 2009, over half of respondents did not have any social media presence, but in 2011, just 3% reported not having a social media presence. Facebook was the most popular social network for marketing according to SMBs from our 2009 study, with 32% of use. In 2011, Facebook is table-stakes for SMBs: 90% of respondents reported having a Facebook presence in our most recent study. The use of LinkedIn and Twitter also grew substantially, from 19% and 17% in 2009 to 46% and 43% in 2011, respectively. As use has grown, so has budget allocation for social media initiatives; social media comprised almost 9% of SMBs’ marketing spend in 2011.

While social media is proliferating among small and medium businesses, they continue to face the same challenges they did two years ago: constrained resources related to cost, time, and skills. In fact, these issues were more pronounced in our 2011 study than they were in 2009, especially as it relates to understanding new marketing channels and having the skills to address them. SMBs report having a preference for managing all marketing channels through a centralized technology solution or centralized service provider. Whatever the choice, agility is key; as new channels or networks emerge, solutions or providers need to quickly adapt by providing capabilities and education to help their users be successful.

The SMB user is an important audience for a number of prominent companies today:

• Intuit has a long legacy of delivering products and services to small and medium businesses through its QuickBooks accounting software, website services, and payment services. Last month, it acquired vertically-focused SMB technology provider Demandforce for over $400 million. Demandforce gives Intuit robust technology that helps small and medium businesses manage their social media presence and automate marketing across multiple channels, addressing some of the key challenges SMBs face.
• Recently, Yahoo! launched its Marketing Dashboard toolset for small local businesses with features that help companies monitor and manage their online reputation and analyze traffic from websites and campaigns. Yahoo! has built a fairly successful offering for SMBs with its website hosting and eCommerce offerings, and its Marketing Dashboard makes its existing package a much more attractive offering for SMBs looking for a one-stop-shop.
• With Adobe’s recent release of Creative Suite 6 and the Creative Cloud, the company also launched subscription-based pricing plans starting at $50 per month to access the entire collection of applications instead of paying a large upgrade fee every 6 to 12 months. While it is yet to be proven in the market, this low-cost pricing model could open up Adobe’s tools to a much broader audience, including many SMBs. While almost 40% of SMBs in our 2011 study reported owning Photoshop, only 21% owned Illustrator and 17% owned InDesign. It will be interesting to see if this new plan spurs adoption among SMBs.

The SMB marketing mix is diversifying, exacerbating the challenges that already face  resource-strained businesses. In response, technology and service providers are empowering small and medium businesses with solutions that can help them become more efficient and effective with their marketing and communication efforts. As marketing dollars continue to flow to digital channels from organizations of all sizes, SMBs can harness the same tools their larger counterparts can, allowing them to engage with audiences they would have never been able to reach just a few years ago.

I just read a case study that reminds us that soft leads matter, too. In this instance, the case study involved an email campaign, but how often have you heard vendors talk about the value of personalized URLs for capturing “warm” leads? The lessons apply to print, too.

The client was Dollar Thrifty (the chain of Dollar and Thrifty car rental locations) had too much inventory in Florida, so it devised a plan to boost rentals in that geographic area. To do that, it analyzed who had rented from those locations in the past, in which months, and identified people who had shopped rates on the company websites for specific dates but didn’t end up making a reservation.

(Click here to access the case study.)

With this information in hand, Dollar Thrifty created an email campaign offering specials to warm leads with targeted offers. The results were higher open and click-through rates, and ultimately an inventory problem solved.

The ability to capture warm leads is one of the benefits of personalized URLs, but as Dollar Thrifty found, there are other ways, as well. However you do it, the point is to capture them, because they just might come in handy when you need them. And while this case study involved email, there is no reason it can’t work with print.

Just another reason to engage your customers about marketing.

I’ve been reading tons of industry news lately about the foundational impact of mobile on consumer and business behavior.

First, EFI announced today that its PrintMe Mobile has been named winner of the 2012 Mobile Merit Award in the mobile services, enterprise products/services category. PrintMe Mobile enables direct Wi-Fi printing from iPads, iPhones and Android devices from within the application directly to any existing network printer regardless of brand. Enterprise printing from mobile devices? Didn’t that happen years ago?

Then I read how Facebook is struggling to explain to investors its inability to monetize its mobile application. This oversight has been called all sorts of things, including a “critical problem” and “the elephant in the pitch room.” I agree. With the lifestyle impact of mobile, that truly is mystery.

Then there is the study from Ipsos MediaCT (“Catching the Tablet Wave”) showing that penetration via mobile tablets is on the steady rise, especially among some very coveted consumer demographics. According to the study, overall tablet PC ownership increased from 10% in September 2011 to 16% in March 2012, and among individuals in households earning $100,000+ per year, it increased from 21% to 28%.

Tablet ownership matters so much because it is impacting every aspect of life from couponing to TV watching. ABC just announced that is using Yahoo’s IntoNow app to allow viewers to interact with its TV programming on their tablet devices — again. Viewers can use the app to talk about the show on social networks, get videos, enter sweepstakes, and participate in other interactive activities. This time, its ABC’s freshman drama “Revenge,” but the app has been used in a Republican presidential debate and by Pepsi during a Major League baseball game. Seems perfectly normal to me.

At I’m reading this influx of news stories, I’m simultaneously reading comments in one of the digital printing discussion forums in which participants are arguing that QR Codes will fail as a mobile response mechanism because they are ugly. Now there’s a jolting contrast for you!

It reminds me of when my husband, who is the facilities director for a private high school, gets on rants about managing this million-dollar capital investment project here, putting out fires on that half-million restroom renovation project there, dealing with the HR issues involved in the major restructuring of his staff over there, and while all the pieces are swirling and everyone is ducking and weaving, he turns around because there is a teacher tugging on his shirt tail complaining, “My erasers aren’t clean! My erasers aren’t clean!”

Mobile (or lack of attention thereof) is impacting everything from enterprise printing to TV-watching behavior to the ability to launch one of the most famous IPOs in business history. Yet some people in the printing industry think QR Codes will fail because they’re ugly? Yes, and there are enough of them to spawn discussions that span over days.

People used to argue that digital printing wouldn’t take off either because it wasn’t as high quality as offset. But eventually, functionality won out, and even before digital achieved the near or full offset parity that it has achieved today, it had already become a disruptive technology.

So, too, with mobile 2d barcodes like QR Codes. I think the number of proprietary codes will first explode and then greatly diminish, but I think claims that their appearance and “intrusion” upon the graphic design are short sighted. Perhaps by printers or marketers who misunderstand or don’t fully understand how to use them.

Functionality will trump here, and if it doesn’t, then perhaps your marketing clients are not using 2d mobile barcodes the right way.

This morning at drupa, Heidelberg announced its third Heidelberg ECO Printing Award, the only international environmental award for sustainable printing in the sheetfed offset sector. The award focuses on the usual —  sustainable use of resources and energy, climate protection, and environmentally aware management practices — all of which are really, really important. Awesome.

However, as I read about the award (entries can be submitted from May 8 to November 30, 2012 and the award be presented in June 2013), I once again felt a level of frustration with the focus on traditional offset. While it’s certainly true that offset deals with environmental issues in terms of process that digital does not (press chemicals and powders, higher levels of emissions), digital provides environmental benefits that traditional offset does not. Why don’t people talk about that more?

This is a drum I’ve been banging for years, and I’m going to continue to bang it. We think about “green” printing in terms of process — substrates, chemicals, alternative energy, and so on.  But how about things like volume reduction through targeting, cleaner databases, and page reduction through personalization? These have real, tangible environmental benefits, too.

When you target using a portion of your database, when you reduce the number of pages in a mailing to only those relevant to the recipient, when you clean and streamline your database to be more effective in your 1:1 efforts,  you are reducing your environmental impact through lower consumables use, lower energy use, and reduction in the use of fossil fuels in the process of transport and mailing at the same time.

As I’ve written in  Greening Print Marketing, these are real environmental benefits. They are immediate environmental benefits. We don’t measure their impact in how much less the environment is suffering down the road. We see it immediately in fewer consumables ordered, less gas purchased, less volume going into a landfill. And while we can certainly do higher volume targeting with sheetfed, these benefits are largely digital.

When will the environmental awards start to reward targeting and personalization as part of the larger move toward sustainability? Hey, Heidelberg! It’s not to late to tweak your criteria!

On Tuesday, I posted about a very funny (but appropriate) response I recently saw to a question about the use SnapTags over QR Codes. (In case you missed it, you can see the post here.) But funny and thought-provoking comments aside, the issue itself still stands—which is better and why?

With the rise in number of proprietary 2d mobile barcodes being applied to everything from direct mail to posters, it’s a relevant question. Go with the open source code or the proprietary code that comes with more bells and whistles? Most of the issues related to SnapTag apply to other proprietary barcodes, as well, so let’s pick on SnapTags.

• SnapTag and other proprietary tags are just that — proprietary.  They require you to buy into someone else’s system and pay them to do it.
• Proprietary tags come with more upfront functionality than QR Codes, but while the code itself may be proprietary, the functionality isn’t. You can get all the same functionality with QR Codes (such as the ability to track in detail or encode personalized URLs) with a little programming that someone on your staff can probably figure out for free.
• That is, if you even need all that functionality in the first place. Most of the tracking you need may be gotten by using a URL shortener (which you probably want to do anyway) that tracks for you. Not everyone needs to track unique hits or embed personalized information.
• Proprietary tags still have the challenge of being recognized by the public as being a code readable on the user’s smartphone, except they have the additional barrier of requiring a proprietary reader. Viewers have a better chance of having a QR Code reader (any kind of QR Code reader) than they do the proprietary one. So you have an extra hurdle of requiring that extra step before they can view anything. (Hmmm . . . did your incentive cost just go up?)
• Plus, you still have to provide  scanning and download instructions just like a QR Code. There are far less people who recognize proprietary codes like SnapTag than QR Codes.
• Proprietary codes require URL redirection. This means that the URL you are generating is not your URL, but a SnapTag or other proprietary URL. This means that should the company turn off its servers, the code goes nowhere.  (Here’s one expert’s take on this — worth your while to take a look.)
• Plus, as a user, proprietary codes just creep me out. Maybe it’s because I write about these things too much, but proprietary codes just scream, “I’m tracking you!!!” while QR Codes may or may not be set up for that level of detail. I feel more anonymous with QR Codes, and when I’m responding to any kind of marketing schtick, I like it that way. Maybe that’s just me.

Granted, if you want an all-in-one-package that is just handed to you with little effort and your campaign is going to be completely over in a very short span of time and it’s worth it to your client to get in, get out, and get what they need quickly, proprietary codes offer a lot of ease of use and functionality. But taking the long-term view? As for me, I’m sticking with QR Codes.

I was just reading a discussion on LinkedIn about SnapTags versus QR Codes and which format was better and why. As many of us do, one of the participants took the first available opportunity to throw in a little bit of self-promotion. There was a brief comment — just enough to lay claim to actually participating in the discussion — followed by, “I have a few ideas to take your QR campaigns to the next level.”

The response by the next thread participant was classic.

I totally agree with whatever is being said here about QR Codes so I don’t have to answer your question!

I also have amazing ideas for your campaigns even though I don’t know what they are yet!!

Better yet, I’ll let you into the QR Code secrets that NO ONE ELSE KNOWS and are GUARANTEED to make you money!!!*

Contact me at marketing.spam@yetanotherurlwithQRinit.com.

* Promise of results does not guarantee results. Full price of £1,999.99 payable up front.

I just busted out laughing, and I’m sure everyone else did, too. But it does raise a good question.

Are we doing the same thing without realizing it? Offering QR Codes as an all-purpose solution to clients’ desire to get into mobile marketing? Or are we really looking at the client’s marketing goals as a whole, then offering QR Codes as appropriate . . . and leaving them on the table if they aren’t (and being humble enough to acknowledge the difference)?

Increasingly, marketers are gathering more data. But do they know what to do with it once they have it?

According to a research study by the Aberdeen Group last year (and now being offered a free download by Adobe), best in class marketing organizations are gathering loads of data through techniques like website visitor tracking; tracking, measurement, and reporting on all marketing campaign results; and testing effectiveness of campaign content; but too few are taking the critical, additional steps to understand exactly what these data mean or how to use them.

For example, do CMOs know what these data tell them about the identity, behavior, and potential spend of their prospects and customers? Are they using this data to build unique customer profiles and personas to match specific campaign goals? Do they know who is spending the most money, when, and why?

Not enough of them.

Likewise, too few have campaign dashboards that allow them to coordinate what they know and what they are learning on the ground across their various channels. As the report notes:

As the volume of customer-related data (transactional, behavioral, and unstructured) continues to grow, marketing organizations are in danger of becoming increasingly data-rich but insight-poor.

In other words, it’s great to have data, but if you’re not using it properly, it’s like having a full toolkit but only taking the hammer out of the box.

As service providers, this leads to an interesting question. Are you focused on encouraging customers to gather data? Or are you encouraging them to dig deep to figure out how to use that data once they have it? Finally, are you prepared — really prepared — to help them do that?

This research includes profiles of best-in-class strategies for managing data (including process, technology, knowledge management, organization, and benchmarking performance), along with illustrative case studies. Best of all, it’s free. Check it out.

The whole point of inbound marketing is lead generation. You are taking website visitors and hoping that they lead to eventual sales. But you can’t take gigantic steps to get there. You need to take one step at a time in order to lay the proper groundwork.

Here are a few points when it comes to inbound marketing and lead generation:

• You need to create terrific offers. You have to offer something that your visitors want. It’s like dating. What do you have to offer your date? Do you have a tip sheet? A white paper? Some worksheets?
• The value of your offer should be more than the cost to the internet visitor. Now you’re thinking, “Wait. He just said to give free offers. So how is it costing the website visitor anything?” The point here is that your offer should be something of value. And the website visitor should not be thinking about the “cost” of providing a name and email address.
• It’s easy to get in the rut of providing information. But you cannot forget your calls to action. You can’t assume your website visitor will click on a certain link or indiscriminately cough up that email address. You have to make a call to action. Tell your visitors what to do. And tell them what they will get when they do it. Never let them guess and never let them wonder.
• Make it simple. Do not make your visitors jump through hoops of fire to get information from you. That’s a huge turn off. If you ask for their name and email address, then leave it at that. If you mention a short survey, keep it short. Don’t sneak in a twenty question and answer session.
• Don’t give them a quick out. While you’re creating that form for your visitors to become leads, don’t build in back buttons or clear and cancel buttons. Your form should be above the “fold” so that the visitor does not need to scroll down to enter anything. And there shouldn’t be buttons that cancel out the lead form – either on accident or on purpose.

Not all leads are created equal. Remember, long term generation is the goal. You are not in this for a quick and easy turnaround. Inbound marketing typically results in a slower, but more organic way of filling the sales funnel. You are providing information and being the resource that your leads need in order to convert into customers.

Over the past month, I’ve provided a bit of an overview on what inbound marketing is and why it’s important to your business.

Today, I’d like to chat about some of the specific tools and techniques that you can use to succeed with your inbound marketing efforts.

Your Blog

When you set inbound marketing into motion, you will soon find it is a strategy that thrives on consistency.  The most powerful tool in your arsenal is the Blog on your company’s website. You control how much information you disseminate, what information you provide and how often you distribute that information. Ideally, your blog will consist of multiple short (but not too short) articles on relevant topics that set you up as an authority in your field.

The goal is two-fold:

• You get readers who learn to seek you out for your expertise.
• You get others to link to your material…thereby bringing more readers who will learn to seek you out for your expertise.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an integral part of inbound marketing. You don’t have to become an expert in SEO yourself, but you do need to know what the right keywords are and how to use them effectively. The goal is to increase your search rank. You want to be on that first page of Google and bing results when internet users search for your keywords.

The great thing about SEO is that it is something that can be tweaked and worked on to help your visibility. Over time, you will be able to determine what your effective keywords are – what words are bringing visitors to your site. And you will be able to track links leading to your site.

You can also track links from within your site. Perhaps your current blog post has a hyperlink to an older post on related material. Instead of using a direct link, you can use a tool that will allow you to shorten the link and also see the traffic reports on that url. For example, we use ilnk.me and get a special shortened url. Later we can obtain the information on how often the link was clicked, the highest traffic times and so on. Remember, information is power and you want that information to know what is working and what is not.

Social Networking Platforms

A bit overwhelmed by all the social media platforms out there? Start with two. Perhaps it’s Twitter and Facebook. Maybe it’s LinkedIn and YouTube. But start with two and build from there.

Don’t assume more is better.

You should only have as many social media profiles as you can manage to maintain. And while your main goal with social media may be to promote your brand and distribute content, don’t forget that these platforms are interactive. They invite a conversation with the internet visitor. That’s something you never want to lose sight of.

The Online Marketing Audit

Yes, you’ve got a business to run. But even if you use tools to automate as much content as possible, you should schedule regular “check ups” on each platform to make sure there isn’t a question or comment lingering.

Also, the technology behind online marketing can change quite frequently and at a faster pace than traditional media.

Thus, having an online marketing audit conducted regularly may help alert you to new features that you should be taking advantage of to promote your business.

Integrating Inbound Marketing into Your Sales Process

The reality is – visitors are not customers. It’s up to you to turn them into your customers.

As you integrate the SEO aspect with the content and the social media visibility, you will find that you will get those visitors.

In order to turn them into customers, you need to cultivate them into leads. Content can also play a big role in that! Your company should have a stash of content in hand that can support the Sales team at each step in the buying cycle.

Whether you are trying to convert a visitor into an inquiry, an inquiry into a lead, or a lead into a sale, you will need specific content to help move people through each step.

By doing that, you will be working to ensure that your inbound marketing efforts prove to be a success!

Is the concept of combining a transaction-based document with a promotional document realistic?  In theory AND in reality! When I first entered this industry in 1985 as a programmer and attended Xerox’s training programs, Xerox was lauding transpromo THEN, as the wave of the future. Here we are 27 years later and transpromo is still being promoted.  What does it take to make transpromo work? The answer is simple – DATA and INTEGRATION!

Let’s tackle the first aspect, DATA.  For the longest time, the print industry has struggled to track, capture and manage consumers or investors tendencies.  In the 80’s, databases were in their infancies and to build one, manage the intricacies, intra or inter-record relationships and extract the data practically took a mainframe computer or at least a mini-computer. Not to mention understanding the complexities of and INTEGRATING all that data into the print stream.

There’s the second aspect – INTEGRATION.  Frankly, integrating, not to mention building and extracting the data, was beyond the scope of printing an invoice or statement.  Third party outsourcers or even the largest processors were having trouble developing and launching the transpromotional document.  Instead, variable messaging was launched as a step in a forward direction.  Simply stated, variable messaging involved keying on data elements within the print stream and changing the message content to the targeted audience – the end recipient.  It didn’t go far enough and transpromo lingered.

Fast track to the present.  The PC or personal computer has been in existence for over 20 years, software integrators have become more sophisticated making databases prevalent in every aspect of our life and third party processors are beginning to understand the power of data.  Data is at everyone’s fingertips and solution providers are working with their clients in building analytic models of their consumers, their buying trends and overall demographics. But transpromo still lingers, why?  In the biller space, the solution could be as simple as getting the marketing department to work with the accounts receivable department.  The complex answer is most likely, determining what message to integrate into the transactional document.  While data is prevalent in everyday life, billers are still struggling with what message fits best within their image and specifically which message targets the end user.

Transpromo is a real achievable target and integrators are working behind the scenes to implement sound solutions.  But in looking at the third party landscape, I think it’s important (at least from an old programmer’s point of view) to identify those firms that understand both sides of the equation – the marketer and the biller.  Integrating a sound solution will most likely drive revenue, increase your consumer’s product awareness and promote social awareness, but a failed solution will end up being just a fancy way of launching variable messaging.  Is it worth it? I think so.  In today’s competitive landscape, I think it’s important for firms to build consumers or customers for life and with transpromo and variable message you have a chance to effectively achieve that goal.

This post was generously provided by SourceLink and written by Tim Furr. If you are looking for another marketing services provider blog… check out SourceLink! 

I’ve written several posts about the QR Code trademark issue — that while the industry is using QR Codes to refer to all 2d mobile barcodes, in reality, this term is trademarked and refers only to the open-source codes created by DensoWave. The issue is much like the one for PURLs, which is also a trademarked term. We can call these URLs personalized URLs, but PURL is a term trademarked by Nimblefish.

The fact that QR Code is trademarked is annoying because it raises the issue, what do we call these codes? Right now, the clearest way to do this — at least to me — is “QR and other 2d mobile barcodes” because people associate these codes with the term “QR Code,” but yet the category is more inclusive than just this one type.

I’ve successfully relatively ignored the issue for some time, but this morning, I updated my brandable “best practices” white paper for QR and other 2d mobile barcodes (http://bit.ly/HUe1q2) and had to go through the entire thing and adjust the wording from start to finish. You know the end result? I removed half the references to QR Codes and made them simply “mobile barcodes” or “these codes.”

Ironic, isn’t it?  DensoWave wants to enforce its trademark to protect its name, but in order to preserve accuracy the way DensoWave desires, I had to actually remove many of the references and water down the reference I did leave in there by adding the additional language.

But . . . isn’t that what DensoWave wants?

In my last article, I discussed the growing importance of understanding inbound marketing.  Yes, it is a popular topic in the worlds of business and communications today… but for good reason: an effective inbound marketing strategy can truly help your organization grow!

Today, I’d like to discuss a bit about how to move forward with building and executing an inbound marketing strategy.

At the Core is Your Website

You already know that the internet is a terrific playing field. It’s the great leveler in that any business can have a web presence and in many cases the internet reader would never know whether a business is a mom and pop shop or a million dollar company in a penthouse suite downtown.  Any business can and should have a good-looking, easy to navigate website that appeals to its target market. This website becomes the base for your inbound marketing strategy.

Reaching Your Audience

Of course, you need to decide how you will provide information to your target market. Blogging or regular article posts should be a given. If you don’t have a blogging platform built into your website, you should have that added. Then you can schedule your posts. Will they be weekly? Daily? You want consistency and timeliness. So you should establish a schedule that you know you can keep.

Creating Content

Then you need to create a list of blog topics. What kind of information do you want to provide? Think about what is relevant to your target market. What will they want to read? What will establish you as the expert?

Not a writer? Not to worry. You have several options. Look to someone within your company or perhaps a trusted colleague. You can also look into ghostwriters to write the content for you. You want someone to write for your company with a voice that fits. Not everyone is a wordsmith. And that’s okay. An outsider can write in your voice and your posts will still be relevant and authentic.

It’s tempting to buy a bunch of articles that are touted to be laden with key words and optimized for the search engines. But these articles can be found all over the net. And you’ll lose your authenticity if the internet reader figures out that your information is not yours.

The Multi-Channel Marketing Approach

Start thinking about how you can provide information that utilizes other mediums. How about some audio files that are chock full of tips? Or what about getting a guest spot on an internet radio show? An audio question and answer session can be provided as a downloadable link on your website or posted on your social media profiles. (Learn more about inbound marketing tools and techniques such as social media platforms here.)

Humanize Your Brand

Don’t forget that amidst all this information dissemination, you need to portray your business personality. It’s okay to have a post that isn’t all business. Want to post a shout out to a customer? Do it. Want to whip up a quick video clip showing a couple minutes of your employees hard at work? These sorts of things make you only that much more real to your target market. And it can give you a definite edge. So as you implement your inbound marketing plans, don’t forget to show your target market a bit of personality here and there.

I recently had the opportunity to listen in on a discussion about printing QR and other 2d codes on mugs and cups. It was fascinating to hear about the technological challenges (and solutions) and to be a fly on the wall regarding some of the opportunities that presents.

Let the fly share a little of what she heard.

The question was posed: “Does the curvature of the mug present a problem for imaging?” As with everything, the answer is, “It depends.”

• Smaller codes work better since there is less distortion at the edges. One rule of thumb is to ensure that the code doesn’t take up more than one-third of the visual space (on a coffee mug maybe 1″ square). If you make a 3″ square on a 3.5″ diameter mug, you will have trouble.
• If you want to print the code larger, you can use software that elongates the codes at the edges. This allows the imaging device to see the code as “normal.”
• Use a URL shortener to make the code simpler and easier to recognize by the scanner.
• Higher end cameras have technology that automatically compensates for curvature, but don’t count on all (or even most) viewers having them.

Make sure you do a lot of testing. Don’t just test different readers and different phones. Test different sizes of codes, as well. You might find that changing the size of the code just a little bit reduces the distortion enough to make it readable by a much wider range of phones. To do this, you can use an inexpensive solution like razzle.com, or you could just print the 2d codes and tape them to a cup.

Keep in mind that, if you are producing coffee cups (as opposed to paper cups), you may run into trouble with the glaze. High gloss can interfere with the scanning, so if glare is created off the shinny surface of the cup, it may not scan correctly. Environment will play into it here, so do your testing under different environmental conditions, too.

Pepsi and Coke are both putting QR codes on their cups. Give you any ideas?

See Coca-Cola’s polar bear cups.

See Pepsi’s promotional cups.

I have also just updated “QR and Other 2D Barcodes: The Data Speaks” (again), so for those looking for data on the adoption and use of QR and other 2D codes, you can get more information on the report here. Or if you are looking for  a more in-depth report on applications, best practices, and case studies, you can find it here.

The other day, as I was renting the latest blockbuster hit from the bright red video kiosk beside my pharmacy, my wife called from her vehicle to me about how she wished there was a candy machine beside the video rental device. I related to her that this is the basis of transpromotional marketing! She was unimpressed. This instance got me thinking, “why don’t more businesses take advantage of the captive audience at their hands?”

For example, with data and research, a snack and soda machine attached to this video rental station could use my selection to provide pertinent recommendations based on my film choice. If I rented “The Fast and the Furious,” the machine may suggest an energy drink and some pork rinds; for “The Artist” it might recommend truffles and Perrier; “Toy Story 3″ would come packaged with a case of juice boxes and some Skittles. You get the idea.

The point I am getting to is with the consumer data that companies already have at their fingertips, very sophisticated cross-promotional opportunities exist. Utility companies can analyze usage and print energy saving tips or a coupon for fluorescent light bulbs directly on the side-panel of a monthly statement. A bank might be able to advertise upcoming offerings for overdraft protection based on customers that have bounced a check, or a referral program routed through social media (and gather more data in the meantime). Every industry that sends printed statements or business mailings has the opportunity to maximize every inch of their mailing with modern print technology and a provider than can handle the data.

Perhaps we are not too far away from days where my copy of “Animal House” comes complete with a six-pack and a bag of marshmallows (if you’ve seen the movie, you get the reference), but until then, businesses take note! The technology is available, the data is there, the audience is already identified, so take advantage of it!

This post was provided by Matt Haskell who writes for the SourceLink blog. Check it out!