For the past three months, I’ve been looking for a new TV. I read articles about the latest technologies, searched for reviews, watched product videos, visited retailer websites, received product brochures both via email and the good old mailbox, and even used my phone to compare prices while standing in the store. I won’t tell you which brand we picked in the end, but I will say two things: 1) that 3D is pretty cool with the right movie, and 2) it was a multi-channel research project. Display, video, mobile, email, direct mail – all played a role in my decision.

While the content experience was decidedly multi-channel, the marketing experience was anything but. Did I get display ads that were retargeted based on visiting retailer’s sites? Of course. Did I get ads for televisions when watching product reviews? Absolutely. Were these two programs coordinated? Not at all. And how about that print brochure – was it tied to any other marketing channels? Not even close!

For marketers, this represents a major inefficiency; but it’s also an incredible opportunity. Imagine if you could understand the consumer across every media channel and coordinate your messaging, frequency, and sequencing to tell them the story of your brand in a way you know will resonate with them. I’m the same regardless of what media channel I’m using – but because today’s marketing solutions treat every channel as a silo, my marketing experience was completely uncoordinated. Had they seen it, it would have been more efficient for the brands and a much better experience for me!

Now here’s the exciting part: everything I just described is rapidly becoming a reality.

It wasn’t long ago that marketers were first able to optimize campaign performance for digital display advertising. They were able to use predictive modeling capabilities and ad exchanges to buy, deliver, track, and optimize display ad campaigns. The goal at that point was simply to create incremental audience reach and meet performance goals.

Now, marketers are beginning to apply a more “holistic” strategy, as reflected by the flow of marketing dollars from offline to online. They are leaving the traditional siloed marketing approaches behind to create a more integrated presence across multiple media channels: social media, mobile, video, TV, mail, email, search, and display. The integration of audience data from multiple sources makes it possible to correlate customer attributes and interests to replace the wasteful shotgun approach to marketing with more targeted, effective, and memorable multiple-channel campaigns.

Advertisers and marketers certainly don’t lack data; what they lack is the ability to integrate the data they have to extract valuable and actionable insights. The emergence of data management platforms (DMPs) provides a means to manage the flow of data between consumers and brands and between brands and agencies, enabling marketers to improve campaign performance across all media channels. The multi-channel optimization offered by DMPs lets advertisers and brands deliver a consistent message no matter which channel is used.

No one can deny that marketing is undergoing a major shift. New channels have created new opportunities to reach a broader spectrum of audiences more effectively. Traditional channels won’t be going away any time soon – which leaves marketers with the challenge of selecting which will be the most effective channels for a particular campaign and determining the optimal budget allocations on a channel-by-channel basis. This is a Herculean task. Thankfully, DMP technology is available to help. With the proper data management system, multi-channel marketing campaigns can deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time, and through the most effective channel for real-time marketing success.

I’ll be in the market for a new car in the near future – hopefully marketers will have their act together and I’ll have a fantastic multi-channel experience.

Originally posted on www.clickz.com by Bill Demas

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If it seems like your mailbox is brimming with direct mail advertising these days, you are not imagining things. After three years of declines, spending on everything from simple postcards to glossy brochures is rising.
“I’ve seen more large stacks of direct mail at my doorstep,” said Rachel Hambick, a 31-year-old resident of Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. “There are a lot of them,” mostly from grocery stores and restaurants.

Direct-mail advertising sales rose 3.1 percent last year, a significant turnaround from the previous three-year drop of 20 percent, according to New-York-based marketing consulting firm Winterberry Group LLC. The firm is forecasting a 5.8 percent increase in direct mail spending for 2011.

Bob Lieber, CEO of marketing strategy and services firm Original Thought LLC, said the increase is due to the overall improvement in business conditions.

“As companies see the economy turning around, they tend to increase their spending on marketing, because so many of them have cut back their spending during the recession,” Lieber said.

Glenn Cummins, national marketing manager of Ed Bristol Advertising & Printing Inc., observed that business is definitely busier than it was last year. “More direct mail printing business is coming in because the economy is rebounding,” he pointed out.

The deep recession in the financial services industry contributed to the cuts in direct mail, but marketers and retailers also shied away from it in favor of digital media, especially email, according to Winterberry Group.

But Hebert Rivero, owner of Minuteman Press, argued that the pendulum seems to now be swinging away from digital marketing and back to snail mail.

“People are not opening their emails the way they used to, because there’s too many, so they just delete marketing emails pretty readily,” he said.

Hambick agreed. “The emails I’m signed up for, they seem to email me several times a week, which is almost too much. You become desensitized to it.”

Rivero believes that is one reason why his business is up. He noted that in addition to stronger demand for direct mail, retailers’ pursuit of higher quality paper also contributed to the bounce-back in direct mail spending.

“Our retailer clients have done a lot of homework to give their mailers a certain look so that people would be more likely to open [them] and look at their marketing products,” he said.

Rivero observed that spending on commercial postcard printing has experienced the biggest gain, followed by newsletters.

“We’re entering a period where inflation is going to start to set in and people are going to try to raise their prices as demand increases,” Lieber explained. “It will drive marketers to try to be more efficient, so they will try to make inexpensive formats successful, for example, the postcard mailing.”

After primarily distributing coupons and fliers to local residents’ mailboxes, Hassib Blan, owner of the Olive Mountain restaurant in Evanston, is investing in direct mail.

“The economy is getting better, so we’re also putting more money into advertising,” Blan said. “We want to get more people coming to try our food.”

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Orginaly posted by: Dorothy Zhang on medill.northwestern.edu

Very few things in life are ever perfect the first time around, and this is even more so the case when it comes to marketing – there are always little tweaks that can be made to generate more exposure and close sales. As Bigger Pockets recently suggested, small business owners should always be looking to improve on their direct mail marketing initiatives.

The best way to this is through split testing, which in the case of direct mail means splitting a list into two and then sending different components to each list. For example, if an entrepreneur wanted to experiment with different calls to action, he or she could send one postcard to the first group and another to the second group. Whichever gets more responses should be the one the company uses.

“In the end, it really doesn’t matter how you track your results, but never again, should you send out a letter without tracking the response. If you start to do this today, in just a few months you should be able to determine the best letter in your ‘arsenal’ and increase the number of deals you do very quickly,” the website explains.

There is no limit to what a company tests – different ad copy, images and print materials are all good places to start. Once the company finds a strategy that makes a return on investment, then they should switch to that format.

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Originally posted by Mark Haslan on overnightprints.com

Can Your Data Pass a White Glove Test

Clean, accurate and pristine data is the core of any business to business marketing campaign. It doesn’t matter how articulate, clever and persuasive your marketing campaign is if, when your prospect opens their mail, they are staring at the wrong name. If Bill Taylor’s name has somehow become Sybill Tal drop the blame directly in the lap of your database because the information provided was inaccurate.

You can spend hours writing a clever message; work through 3, 5, 10 versions of art to spark curiosity, but if your data is dirty then you are wasting your time.  If Jason Smith somehow gets Jane Simpsons name on his mail he will greet your mailer with irritation not intrigue.

Frankly, too many businesses don’t pay enough attention to the data they are using to mail. In house lists with warm leads, existing clients and lapsed ones are updated randomly, usually when the complaints are coming in left and right from mildly grumpy customers and potential prospects that are no longer prospects.

If you want to win business and keep your current customers happy you need to clean your data. Before you begin any marketing campaigns – online and off-line. It’s not that hard but it can be time-consuming, especially if you are embarking on an intensive database maintenance as opposed to a basic process. While it can require time and personnel to clean data pays for itself in new sales.

  • Good data means accurate personalization, and a great first impression for your company.
  • Bad data will alienate your customers. You won’t sell a thing if Jack Smith gets Jill Simmons mailer.
  • You can segment your mailing list to send specialized messages to certain sections of your data list based on buying habbits, income, loyalty, or any other reason.

When your marketing decisions are based on up-to-date data you have a much stronger advertising campaing and you will get a better response on your mailing. If you are using outdate inaccurate data put your message in a bottle and see what happens.

 

If there is one traditional marketing tactic that gets close to as much flack as advertising, it has to be direct mail. You’ve probably heard it all before. “Direct mail is like throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks.” “Direct mail is a close cousin of cold calling.” “Direct mail is so…indirect.”

Like King Kong, I think direct mail as a marketing tactic is just misunderstood. There are just as many ways now as there were 50 years ago to use direct mail effectively and in an engaging style. Probably more. Like with everything, we just need to think in some different ways. Here are some ideas about how to make direct mail a more effective, more engaging marketing tool for your business.

1. Apply email logic: You probably have heard by now that before blasting out an email, you want to make sure you get people to opt-in to your communications. Otherwise you can be labeled as spam. With direct mail, there is a similar reaction – it’s called, “This piece is going right into my trash can.” Before sending out a mass direct mailing, qualify your audience. There are lots of ways to do this, including:

  • Renting names from a list house where geography, type of industry, and other factors can be filtered.
  • Rent a list from a trade publication that is audited – that way you know the list is qualified.
  • Rent a list from a trade show/event. This list of people is clearly engaged in the industry.
  • Send an email to your database saying, “Hey, can I send you…xyz.” Use email to opt in your audience.

2. Keep that consistent message: Is this starting to sound like a broken record yet? If so, good. This is so important. If you are tweeting to people and then you decide to send that same audience a direct mail piece, how can you let them know that you’re the same company? That you value their relationships just as you indicate online?

3. Make it useful: Just like with email, people are getting bombarded every day by come-ons, little gadgets, catalogs – all kinds of stuff. You know. You get all of that stuff, too. What sticks out in your pile of paper? The thing that can help you solve a problem. I always think of that scene from Chicken Run. “I’m tired of making miniscule profits!” And then, there on the desk, appears a flier that asks, “Tired of making miniscule profits?”

4. Let your audience interact: The people you are sending mail to are hopefully overlapping with the people who are liking your Facebook page and following your tweets. They’ve established that they have insights about your company, your products, and/or your services. Why muzzle them with your direct mail piece? Ask them to respond by posting a video to your Facebook page, or include a survey that could be returned as entry into a contest. Include a link or QR code that takes the recipient to a relevant video. Converse.

5. Think outside the box: This is so important, just as it is with your website, with your advertising, and with all of your marketing. Postcards can serve a purpose, but there is so much more that can be done now with direct mail campaigns. From DVD mailers to things I’ve never seen and can barely imagine, this marketing channel is ready and waiting for a slam dunk, thoughtful, engaging campaign. Are you ready to send one out there?

Traditional media is not dead. Far from it. It can offer a depth to online marketing that you may be missing at your own peril. And traditional media does not negate the need for Social Media, video, and mobile interaction. In order to grow your business, you need to be able to do it all. And you need to be able to do it all in a way that engages with your customers and prospects.

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Originaly posted on business2community.com

Are you clueless about direct mail marketing and postcard printing? If you are, then you have come to the right place. In this crash course for postcard printing and direct mailing campaigns.

Are you clueless about direct mail marketing and postcard printing? If you are, then you have come to the right place. In this crash course for postcard printing and direct mailing campaigns, I will give you the three crucial steps that you need to know to do a campaign correctly. So without further ado, let us start with the first step in postcard printing and that is the composing of the message.

1. Developing a good message concept – Postcard marketing will succeed or fail depending on its message concept. So your first step is to decide on the “angle” or approach of your message so that it effectively delivers the marketing message. For postcards, there are a few simple message concepts or approaches you can go for. Below are some that you can use.

– The reference approach – This approach basically has the postcard content sounding like a reference or textbook. It basically gives factual and detailed information that your market may want to know about. This draws in people who are curious or hungry for knowledge.

– The need and want approach – This approach basically appeals to the needs and wants of people. You basically show your readers what they want to see so that they can crave for it or start wanting them again. This approach requires impressive images so that the postcard marketing can be impressive.

– The fear approach – This approach plays on certain fears of people. For example, if you are using color postcards to market a weight loss item, then you can use content that makes people aware of the dangers of getting fat. This kind of fear technique for marketing can really work, since there are a lot of things people may want to avoid.

– The bandwagon approach – Finally, we have the bandwagon approach. This basically involves telling people that the rest of the world is already buying and using your products or services. Since everybody else seems to be doing it, then people will think they can do it as well through your postcard marketing.

2. Proper postcard printing – With your message and design ready, the next step is postcard printing. In this regard, your task is pretty simple. You just need to hire a good and affordable postcard printing company to produce your postcards. Just choose the appropriate paper materials and printing options for your postcard and they should turn out well.

3. Proper distribution techniques – Finally, with your postcards printed, the final step is to distribute your postcards for direct mailing. In this regard, I recommend that you use a private mailing service to distribute your marketing postcards. These services are usually more reliable as well as quick in their distribution.

Have them send your color postcards repeatedly at least 3 times to reinforce your marketing message. Pace these distribution times by around two to four week intervals so that people won’t think your are just sending junk mail. These should be your standard distribution practices until you are confident enough to be more creative.

Great! That is your crash course for direct mail marketing using postcard printing. Hopefully, this should help you get started with your direct mail marketing campaign. Good Luck!

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Originally posted on marketpressrelease.com

One of the primary arguments against direct mail is the cost to get the campaign going. There are printing costs, postage costs etc, but looking at your direct mail budget as an expense is slightly flawed. View a direct mail budget as an investment not an expense since you should get your budget back in new sales. Measure the success of a direct mail campaign by measuring your return on investment (ROI). Does it really matter if you spend $10,000 on this month’s mailer if it brings you $25,000 in new business? It does if you don’t have $10,000 to spend.

There are a number of ways you can get that initial investment down so you can increase your ROI and make direct mail more affordable.

What can you do with your data list to prevent wasting money?

1. Don’t mail to people who don’t need your product – The single most effective way to keep costs down in a direct mail campaign is to reduce the number of people on your data list. Don’t mail to a general list. Every contact you mail to who don’t/can’t/won’t use what you are offering is a waste of money so you need to target your mailings. When you talk to a list broker make sure you are targeting demographics that are likely to care about your advertising. Don’t market a Mac Power Book to Bill Gates or pool cleaning services to someone who doesn’t have a pool.

2. 81¼A Goose Chase Circle Nowhere USA – It doesn’t matter if you buy, rent, or collect a list from customers you waste money with every direct mail piece sent to people who are no longer there. Delivery Point Validation (DPV) should be part of every data list process before your first stamp gets licked. Not that I suggest licking stamps. We have machines for that these days.

3. Jack moved last year –Before you apply your postage you need cross reference your list against the National Change of Address (NCOA). There is no reason to send Jack Hill’s mail to Jill Crown. You are just going to give Jill a headache and waste some money that could have been used to get Jack to buy the in-home water purification system.

Printing costs are second only to Postage costs so what can be done to keep those under control?

1. 11×17 Yeah, that will get their attention! – Paper is the number one cost of printing. The more pieces you get out of one sheet of paper the cheaper your mailer. It sounds simple but make sure you and your graphic designer know how your project is getting printed. Will it printed on a sheet fed printer or a roll printer? What the starting size of the paper? What is the usable print area? This simple series of questions should be asked before ink meets paper to keep cost down and efficiency up.

2. Gold leaf is pretty… – Paper quality directly affects the way your potential customer will persevere your product and company so you don’t want to use newsprint, but there is no reason to use the most expensive stock on the market. Ask about your paper options. Most printers have an in-house paper stock that they buy in great quantities so they get a very low price on it. Plus it’s probably very well suited for direct mail, and the finishing processes that add a professional touch.

3. What do you mean 4 color process , my mailer only has green on it? – Full color printing, aka 4-color process printing uses four colors of ink (Cyan Magenta Yellow Black) to recreate the spectrum of color we see. It’s needed if you want to print photos or more than 3 different colors on you mailer, but could you get your message across only using one, or two colors? Design your mailer using 1 or 2 spot colors an you could save money depending on how the piece is printed.

The big expense of a direct mail campaign is postage, but all postage is not the same.

1. First class or standard – The most obvious option you have is the class at which you want your mail to travel. First Class mail is the more expensive of the two, and it usually gets delivered in 1-2 days. It’s more likely to get opened since postal employees are instructed to make every effort to deliver fist class mail even if there is a missing component in the address. Standard Mail is less expensive, and delivery times vary between 2 -9 days. This is fine for anything that is not time sensitive but don’t use it if you want your mailer to get to an address on a certain day. Another concern is that the USPS doesn’t guarantee the delivery of standard mail. If the mail is undeliverable it’s likely that it will just get thrown away without notification.

2. It’s shaped like a teddy bear -The size and shape of your mailer affects the cost. There is nothing more frustrating that realizing you could have saved $0.13 per mailer if you would have reduced the size of piece by 1/8th of an inch. I know $0.13 doesn’t sound like much, but if you are mailing 2,500 pieces a week that adds up very very fast. Asking if you could get lower postage rates by making a small change to the size or shape of a mailer is always a good idea.

3. All postage is NOT the same, wait I said that already – A good mail house knows techniques that will reduce the cost you have to pay for postage. The USPS will discount postage costs if part of the work of delivering the mail is done before it gets into their hands. Ask about Co-palletization and Commingling to get volume discounts. Ask if you can get automated pricing. Ask about ways to save money. Postage costs are too complicated to explain in a blog post, but if you have questions leave me a comment and I will answer.

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by Heather Westgate, Chief Executive, TDA

It’s widely acknowledged that many direct marketers are earmarking greater portions of their budgets for online activity. The relatively low cost of digital media, combined with a capacity for more detailed measurement, makes it an attractive option in many ways.

However, anyone who thinks that their business can survive on search marketing and banner ads alone will probably be disappointed.

Digital marketing brings many opportunities for enhanced engagement, but you need to get people to visit one of your spaces – whether it’s your website, Twitter profile or another online hub – before interaction can begin.

Much of the time, offline channels remain the most effective acquisition tools and they play a valuable role signposting existing and potential customers online.

Direct mail, with its ability to engage one-on-one with customers, can play a particularly powerful part here. In some cases, it can actually be more appropriate and lead to greater cut-through.

It’s true that you might not always be able to prove exactly which press ad or which piece of direct mail prompted an online visit. Despite your carefully crafted easy-to-remember campaign URL, a potential customer may still have ultimately arrived via Google.

But you can’t attribute all the success – or the entire budget for that matter – to that last click. Successful marketing involves many touch points and chains of connectivity.

Axing your offline budget and diverting it all to digital would be like trying to run a car without an engine.

When developing a marketing communications strategy, it should never be about adopting an ‘either/or’ approach. It’s about customer insight, intelligent targeting and applying the best combination of channels, and the role of imagery and visual creative has a fundamental part to play here.

Some, for example, may prefer to read a physical rather than digital copy of a magazine – not only is it more portable, its ability to bring content to life with imagery and colour leads to a more stimulating and engaging experience for the reader.

Equally, a well-thought out direct mail campaign can drive online traffic and convert customers. The direct mail pack is, after all, tangible and can therefore create longer-lasting impressions on the recipient.

Direct mail’s ability to bring content to life with imagery and colour leads to a more stimulating and engaging experience.

Direct mail’s biggest strength is probably its ability to personalise a message. It’s also often more likely to spark an online visit than other forms of advertising such as press ads, as people who receive mail at home have instant access to their personal computers.

According to recent reports, neuroscience experiments support the theory that direct mail creates significantly longer-lasting impressions on certain areas of the brain compared with digital marketing, and could therefore have a bigger impact on a brand’s bottom line.

This has been backed up by research commissioned by Royal Mail, which showed that a physical piece of direct mail is significantly more multi-sensory than an online version, due to the increased number of senses which are triggered by simply holding something, rather than seeing it on a screen.

It’s important to remember too, that whilst the ultimate goal might be to sell, the more traditional offline tools can enable you to achieve steps such as building a brand, acquiring leads, or deepening an existing relationship.

A great example is an integrated campaign which we created recently for Cancer Research UK, so it could thank its regular donors for their support and show them the difference their help had made.

The mailing was designed to deepen relationships with supporters and inspire them to continue giving. It focused on personal stories about people local to each donor’s area who have battled with cancer, and on donors’ own motivations for giving.

Recipients were invited to visit the Cancer Research UK website to share their own stories. More than 2,000 recipients responded with their own stories, showing that the key aim of engagement had been achieved.

Many think that visual creative-based campaign marketing is living on borrowed time, but this denigrates the concept of integration.

When combined effectively with a digital strategy, the use of imagery and visual creative in direct mail can lead to a more compelling customer experience and more effective customer acquisition.

It should still be considered as a key component in any campaign strategy, but be reinforced with a significant presence across other channels, in order to shape the customer journey with maximum effect.

The secret to creating effective customer journeys – and therefore better ROI – is finding the right balance between push and pull marketing.

There isn’t a one size fits all solution, the ideal ratio ebbs and flows in line with the audience, the proposition and the business need.

Direct marketers need to embrace this approach with increased confidence and panache. Rather than thinking in terms of online and offline ‘matching luggage’, ROI should be the starting point, and how effective integration can help deliver it.

This in turn should spark a return to some of the core values and techniques of direct marketing – targeting, proposition development and strategic timing.

Over the next year or so, I expect to see a rise in sophisticated ‘test and learn’ activity exploring new and exciting ways to manage customer journeys across platforms.

The best direct marketers are those who are not tied to one approach and who communicate with today’s consumers, not at them.

Heather Westgate is Chief Executive of leading direct marketing agency, TDA.

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QR Codes are being talked about in the world of Direct Mail, Direct Marketing, retail sales, insurance sales, real estate, or any other industry where a new way to connect to a consumer is a good idea.

www.tri-win.com

Look! A QR Code. Follow it to go to our home page.

I have seen more posts regarding what they are and how “x” company can integrate this wonderful new technology to leverage your ROI and increase your response rate in your targeted sector of demographic focus… bleh. The short explanation is this: QR Codes are an everyday part of life for Smartphone users who pay attention to new tech.  Soon they will simply be an everyday part of life, so it is in every marketer’s best interest to learn about them, and use them. It is not in every marketer’s best interest to spend three days reading article after article to learn about them so I am going to speed up the learning process.  This post compiles information from a bunch of different sources and present it here in way that you can read the bits you are interested in and ignore the bits that you already know. Plus, I will even site sources that I use so you can get more information on a specific topic. Guess what kids, learning how to write a research paper in college was worth something in the real world.

“What is” with a little “how to”…

Let’s start from the beginning. A QR Code is a bar code . Similar to the UPC Code you will find on any product in your local grocery store with a couple of important differences, data storage and readability. A UPC code is read in one dimension, laterally, and can hold about 30 American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) characters.  A QR code is read in 2 dimensions, laterally and horizontally holding much more information, up to 7,089 characters including ASCII, binary, kanji, and kana. It’s the added dimension that lets a QR Code hold so much more information and do some of the very cool things that it can do. I’ll talk about the “can do” a little later now let’s talk about the how to.

Scan it. Seriously to activate a QR Code all you need to do is point a smart phone with the correct reader application installed at the paper, billboard, television screen, or computer monitor where the code is displayed and scan it. Not all QR Code readers work the same, nor will they handle data the same way. The QR Code industry is in need of some standardization but until that happens your best option is to search for “QR Code Reader” in your favorite application market and pick a reader that looks good to you. Most new smart phones come with a QR Reader installed.  I use a smart phone with an Android operating system and the preinstalled reader was called Goggles. I don’t believe iphone has a reader preinstalled but you can get a reader application free. I installed I-nigma on an iphone 4 and Neoreader on an iphone 3 over the last few weeks.  The above mentioned readers are not the only readers just the ones that I have used personally, and are not endorsed by this blog or the QR reader association of America… blah blah blah…

Once you have the reader installed, launch the application, use the smart phone’s camera to display the QR code on the screen and either snap a picture or, depending on the application, the QR Code may be recognized automatically. Goggles needs you to snap a picture I-nigma will react when you get the code positioned inside the frame displayed on the screen.  After your smart phone reads the code then it will react based on the information contained in the code, and do what it can do.

Now about that “Can Do”…

Right now there are two major uses for QR codes. The most common use is directing the phone’s browser to a web page of some kind, just like the one at the beginning of this post.  Encode a URL as a QR Code then scan it with your smart phone. Your phone will open its browser and point you to the website. This is nice for a couple of reasons. First it saves the consumer the hassle for typing in a URL by hand. I know it’s a small thing but simple is usually better in all things. Second it lets them visit the website immediately while your marketing actions are fresh in their mind.

The second big use right now, and one of my favorites, is the QR Code business card.

demo QR vCard

Fake business card

This is usually done by creating a V-Card, or meCard, then translating that code to a QR Code format. You can embed your name, address, phone, email, website and more in a QR so that a user can scan the code and get all the information entered into your contacts automatically. You don’t need to worry about losing a business card again. Just losing your phone, and frankly you are going to have bigger problems to worry about if that happens. Notice how their are a lot more squares in this code than the on above. The more information you put in the code the bigger it gets so don’t try to encode your entire company directory at one time.

There are other things that QR Codes can do. Lots of other things:
• Browse to a Website (as noted above)
• Bookmark a website
• Make a phone call
• Send a text message (SMS)
• Send an e-mail
• Create a vCard (also noted above)
• Create a meCard (I noted this above as well, pay attention!)
• Create a vCalander Event
• Google Maps
• Bing Maps
• Geographical Coordinates
• Android Market Search
•Youtube URL for Iphone
• Encode the Latest Tweet of a User
• Tweet on Twitter
• Twitter Profile Image Overlay
• Create a Blackberry Messenger user
• WiFi network for Android
• Free formatted text
• Taking payments (this was not noted above, I will explain this later)

How about a little more “how to”…

Even with all the things that QR Codes can do they are surprisingly easy to create. There are a number of websites that will help you create a QR Code ( look a list of QR Code Generators!) Keep in mind one generator is not a good as another. My personal recommendation for QR Code generator of the afternoon is http://keremerkan.net/qr-code-and-2d-code-generator/ . I used Kerem Erkan’s generator to create all the QR Codes listed in this post. It has a very simple interface and lets you control file output and the color of the code. Surprise! QR codes don’t have to be black and white.

QR Art…

Warning: I am a designer by trade so I may get a little over excited about this bit. You do not have to slap an ugly QR Code on well designed media. QR Codes are just now going main stream so they tend to be the focus of the media they are included in. Big black and white squares positioned right in your face.  For now this makes sense since the marketers using them tend to need to educate their audience on what they are and how to use them. As they become more common they will become something people will look for, like a web address, allowing designers to integrate functional QR art seamlessly with their design. Just because they are traditionally black and white does not mean they should be. QR codes:

• Can be any color
• Can be any modular material
• Must have at least 55% contrast between the foreground and the background
• Should have a margin or “quiet space” of 4 units
• Need to have clear detection patterns in the corner
• Can have up to 30% of the code obscured if you use the highest error correction
• Can be read with any orientation
• Can put it in perspective
• Can be anamorphic (widescreen)
• Can have the cell shape distorted
• Can have the interior made of circle or other shapes
• can have the design reversed.

free Text QR Code

Nothing of interest in this QR Code

 

 

If I have your head spinning with all the QR possibilities I suggest looking at Erica Glaser’s post about QR Design. I found 80% of all my information about QR design on her blog. Or if you still want more look here for some very creative uses of QR Codes

Why…

Why would anyone want to use a QR Code? Because there are benefits to using QR codes. For the user, aka, the consumer, or the reason you are getting your paycheck, QR Codes are simple.  Seriously, its point and click, how much easier can it get? If you are concerned about the learning curve I have shown nearly a dozen people how to use QR Codes in the last three weeks. As soon as I show them how to install a QR Code Reader on their smart phone the three minutes of lessons are over and they start scanning ever QR Code they see. I know this is true because they bring me all the printed material they find with QR Codes on it. OR they walk up to me with their phone and tell me to scan the image of the QR code that they have displayed on their screen.

Yup this QR Code is made of sand

A QR Code adds an element to print media that will get people to interact in a way never before possible. In the past print media drove people to the web by putting a URL on the paper. If the marketer was lucky the consumer remembered to look up the website when they got home. With a QR Code your magazine ad, newspaper article, t-shirt, button, coffee mug, billboard, etc, becomes interactive at the time your viewer is looking at the advertisement.
You can change the content of a QR Code after it’s printed. No, you can’t change the ink on the paper but you can change the web site the QR Code it pointing to. Since QR Codes that resolve to a URL point customers to mobile-friendly websites you can change the website all you want without changing the print. Update quantities, add customer reviews, list your new line of toe-socks, and everyone who scans the QR Code will see your updated information in essence extending the lifespan of print media pieces.

So let us marketers talk about maketing…

For all of us marketing types, one big benefit of using a QR Code is the trackable nature of the technology. QR Codes with the right support behind them can give you an incredible amount of data: where the code was scanned, what time, what kind of phone was used. Even if you don’t have a budget for fancy metrics you can still get great details about who is scanning the code with Google Analytics and a little creativity. Let’s say you are branding coasters with your company’s newest line of beer, and distributing the coasters to 8 different bars. If you build 8 different landing pages that look identical, and embed landing page one’s URL onto the coasters that get distributed to bar one, and no other coasters get send to that bar, you know that every time someone visits landing page one they were at bar one. Maybe you are sending a direct mail piece and you want to test three different versions of art? Use three different landing pages, and three different QR Codes. Use one code per version of art. You will get some good data, and every consumer will get the same online experience.

This is a tool…

QR Codes are tools and they are not marketing in and of themselves. Well they are new enough now that they market to the techie crowd just by being used, but that will not last. There a some things that can be done to get people to use the QR Codes

Educate the consumer. For now a little bit of education will go a long way. Many people with smart phones still don’t know what a QR Code is. That will change. For now a brief how to” is a good thing.

Tour of Tri-Win Digital Print and Mail Services

Scan this QR Code to get a tour of our building.

Let the consumer know what to expect when they scan a QR Code. If the QR Code links to a video simply say “scan this QR Code to view our video.” Seriously, this QR code does link to a video tour of our facility.

Most importantly give them something new! Don’t just link to a digital image of the ad give them new content. You could create a 2 part ad and link to the other half of the video, or offer them a chance to sign up for an email list. Hey, you could just offer them 10% off their next purchase because they scanned your QR Code. As long as there is more information after they scan the code that is the important part.

Is this just another tech fad…

Yes, it is another tech fad but it is more than that too. There are some large corporations who are adopting the QR Code as part of a daily shopping experience.

Macy’s is using QR codes. They launched a new service called “Macy’s Backstage Pass” that will provide consumers with essential tips,  and information on their latest trends via 30-second films formatted to work on users’ mobile phones. In addition to committing to use the technology Macy’s is also educating consumers with a 30-second TV spot running nationally that shows shoppers how to use the QR Codes and what they will get when they scan them.

Best Buy is using QR Codes. Back in September they added QR Codes to product information tags making them the first national retailer in the US to deploy this technology. Scan the code next to the TV you are thinking of buying and you get access to the product detail page.

Post’s Honey Bunches of Oats is using QR Codes adding them to more than 12 million boxes as the primary distribution vehicle for, “Honey & Joy,” a web based sitcom.

Starbucks is using QR Codes. Letting consumers pay for their coffee is the latest us of QR Code technology. The goal here is to get Starbucks customers to stop using physical Starbucks cards and start using Virtual Starbucks cards. To use the service the customer displays the QR Code on their mobile phone and a reader located at the point of sale scans the code and subtracts the cost of the drink from the funds preloaded on the Starbucks card mobile account.

Home Depot is using QR Codes. Partnering with a mobile barcode platform developer call Scanbuy Home Depot will use QR codes to provide “how to” videos, information about the supplier, appropriate usage guidelines, safety instructions, or anything else Home Depot deems smart phone appropriate. Plus you will also b able to purchase the product using the mobile phone after scanning the QR Code in-store or at home.

But wait QR Codes are not just for retail applications.

New York is using QR Codes. By 2013 all New York City building permits will have a QR Code on them so smart phone users can get details about  the ongoing project or file a complaint regarding safety or noise concerns.

Tokyo is using QR Codes. There was an experiment in Tokyo where QR codes were overlaid on top of a city map.  When the QR Code was scanned the user was given directions to the part of town associated with the QR Code.

The Post Office is Using QR Codes. “Deliver Magazine”, a publication produced by the post office, did a feature article on QR Codes in October, 2010.  Since then they have started using QR Codes in marketing to offer people the ability to get free flat rate shipping kit

What does all of this mean…

I see them popping up all over the place, and I bet you will too now that you know what they are.  They have already taken hold in Japan, they have been in use there for years. While it has only been in the last year or so that QR Codes have started to get the public’s attention they have it now. Plus with it projected that 50% of Americans will have a smart phone by Christmas 2010 the use of QR Codes will only increase. For now integrating QR Codes into your marketing will give you a competitive edge, in a year not integrating them in your marketing will mean you are behind.

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Are you planing on integrating QR Codes into your marketing strategy, or have you already printed them on every thing you own? Let me know, and if you think this post was useful to you link to it, or pass it along to your friends.  Thanks!

With a little bit of help from Direct Mail Beginning to End –Production and a lot of coordination you, your printer, and your designer have created a direct mail piece that is creative direct and won’t make you choose between printing it or making your car payment. Now it’s time to tackle the other major cost of creating your direct mail campaign, postage. Depending on the mailer either your printing or your postage could be your primary cost, and every creative decision you made will affect your postage now.

The size of the piece, the weight, if it folds, how many tabs need to hold the folds in place, if there is an envelope, and how the address is oriented relating to the shape of the mailer are all factors that will affect how much it costs to mail your campaign.  There is no way to begin to scratch the surface of everything you need to know about navigating postal regulations in a blog post, and I am not going to try. The Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) published by the post office is over 1,000 pages. It covers everything you need to know from how the size of your mailer dictates the postal class it will mail in, to the permitted saturation of colors used for printing the background of your address block. While the post office has been kind enough to post it online (note the shiny blue link text) there are so many rules with the mail the only way to be sure you are getting the best rate, short of reading it from cover to cover three times, is to work with a direct mail house. Get an expert (Remember last week I told you I would use that phrase again!)

Lots of printers these days are doubling as mail houses trying to offer a convenient one stop location for direct mail needs. There is nothing wrong with an all in one print house and mail house. It’s convenient, and can save time and money by eliminating the need to ship your printed stock to another location, but be sure they truly understand the mail regulations. I know of one case where a restaurant chain was mailing 2,500 5 3/4” x 11 5/8 mailers a week through a printer who was moonlighting as a mail house. The printer was simply trying to offer a convenience to the restaurant and make a little extra money on the side so it sounds like a good deal, but all postage is NOT the same. After about six months the restaurant chain was approached by sales rep for a mail house who told them that if they changed the size of the mailer to 5 3/4 “ x 11 ½” they would save 0.13 per mailer. Making that change took less than 5 minutes to implement, had no effect on the cost of printing, and no customer noticed the difference saving the restaurant $325.00 a week. The restaurant switched mail houses, and started looking for a new printer.  I don’t know if the designer picked the size of the mailer, or if the printer suggested the size. I do know that no one looked at the specifics of presorted first class letters and presorted first class flats until the direct mail expert talked to the restaurant.

The best intentions can backfire when someone gets involved who doesn’t know what they are doing.  A mail house should know direct mail, and a print shop should know printing. Places that do both printing and mailing should know both printing and mailing.  The designer, the printer, and the mail house should be able to communicate with each to solve problems in the creation process and reduce cost. As the business you might need to be the intermediary unless you find a direct mail company that offers design, print, and mailing as a package, and (I’m going to say it again…) has an expert in each field.

This is the last post in the Direct Mail Beginning to End Series, but it is far from my last post. If you have questions, and you probably do since this series was designed to be an overview of the direct mail process, post them in the comments and I will answer them or I might just write a whole new post based on your questions!

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