Currently when scanned, the QR-codes provide current information regarding the scheduled departure times at each location. Soon these departure times will be adjusted with real time information, in cases of delays.

Source: http://www.overnightprints.com/news/driving-traffic-online-using-direct-mail-marketing-1064 

There are an overwhelming number of consumers who actively search the web to learn about new products and services, which has led many small business owners to create websites that either educate consumers on their offerings or allow them to buy directly. However, driving traffic to web pages can often be difficult, with many entrepreneurs spending heavily on paid search campaigns.

Speaking to MarketingProfs, Dean Rieck recently asserted that direct mail can be used to help support web-based marketing efforts.

Citing a study from ExactTarget, he claims that 76 percent of internet shoppers who made online purchases are influenced by direct mail.

Successful integration of the two platforms is key, so Rieck offered small business owners several tips for merging their on and offline campaigns. "Old and new media aren’t necessarily oil and water – when blended properly, they can pack a potent punch," notes MarketingProfs.

First, consumers need a good reason to take the extra effort to visit a company’s website. Rieck suggests business owners "tempt" shoppers with compelling incentives, which could range from whitepapers to coupons. "It must be something they want, not just something you want them to see," Rieck told the source

Entrepreneurs should also remember that consumers receiving direct mail have to manually type in web addresses to visit their sites. With this in mind, small business owners should make their web addresses as simple as possible, and possibly even use link shortening services, such as Bit.ly, if their URLs are too complex.

As always, calls to action should be clear and direct mail recipients to business websites. For example, if companies are offering consumers a discount for taking a survey, they should be sure to specifically list the survey’s URL. "People are more likely to respond when you specifically tell them what to do," Rieck said.

If small business owners are using direct mail to promote specific campaigns, they may also want to consider launching a unique landing page for recipients. This allows them to better track how much traffic their campaigns are driving and create tailored experiences for consumers.

While direct mail can be used to boost web traffic, this strategy will only work if messages are delivered to the right consumers. Marketing Lists Direct recently advised small business owners to consult third-party mailing list vendors so they can more effectively reach their target audience

Name: Tales of Things

Quick Pitch: Adding memories and stories to objects and places via the Internet of Things and read/write QR codes.

Genius Idea: The Internet of Things is a growing trend; the term defines the idea of objects that are tagged, web-connected and endowed with the ability to relay data. This startup is all about the Internet of Things; in fact, it helps ordinary people add objects to the Internet of Things with just a few simple tools, such as a smartphone and a printer.

Tales of Things has developed read/write QR codes that helps preserve memories that people have attached to objects or places. Once an object is labeled with a scannable QR code, its movements can be tracked, as well as any subsequent stories. Each object has the ability to tweet when its memories are scanned, as well.

All the user has to do is photograph the object or place to be tagged, write a few words or upload a video about it, print out a site-generated QR code and affix the code to the item or at the place. From that point forward, the place or thing can be tracked through TalesofThings.com.

The site’s creators call it the “antique roadshow of the future.”

Note the use of QR Codes at 2:05.

Tales of Things is funded through a £1.39 million research grant from the Digital Economy Research Councils UK. The project is a collaboration between Brunel University, Edinburgh College of Art, University College London, University of Dundee and the University of Salford.

The site went live in April and isn’t really intended as a money-making enterprise; rather, it’s a novel way to explore and interact with the things and places around us.

Have you tried Tales of Things or any other tagging-and-tracking sites related to the Internet of Things? What’s your take on this trend?

The QR code, or quick response code, is simply a two-dimensional bar code that came into being in 1994 and found a large audience in Japan. Stateside, however, QR codes — while clever for tying real-world objects to online content — have always remained on the outskirts of public awareness.

Nonetheless, we’ve seen QR codes employed for creative purposes. The Detroit Red Wings interactive programs and the giant QR codes in Times Square come to mind. Each of these serves as prime examples of how QR codes could be on the verge of their breakout moment.

What the technology needs in order to finally make it to the mainstream are applications that take the nerd-factor out of the QR code scan, and drive home the potential rewards of seeing a code, scanning it, and then engaging with the served-up content.

Stickybits and SCVNGR are startups that integrate the barcode scan in intelligent and fun ways. They’re poised to propel the movement of the next generation QR code, and here’s why.

The Potential of Collective Scanning

Stickybits brings context to real-world objects with its next generation approach to the QR code. The mobile app is primarily a barcode scanner — powered by Red Laser — but it takes the technology into the realm of fun by creating a social and shared experience around any item in the physical world that possesses a barcode.

Download the iPhone or Android application, scan your favorite cereal box, add an item — maybe a related recipe, but any video, photo, audio clip or comment will do — and you’ve just started a digital thread around that item.

Where Stickybits succeeds is in making the scan feel familiar. People have already caught on to using Red Laser to scan barcodes on packages for comparison pricing. So Stickybits is nothing more than a barcode scanner for comparison multimedia conversations. Same idea, different application.

It’s this approach that could finally help to bridge the gap between barcodes on packages and the still unfamiliar QR codes popping up in the real world. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Stickybits scans standard barcodes and QR codes, which eliminates the need for users to hunt down other QR code scanner apps.

Of course, Stickybits offers tons of potential for both brands and marketers. The service essentially creates a social graph around things (products), so that alone makes it a new platform for digital exposure.

The brands and marketers that can motivate fans to take to product-related conversation chains via Stickybits, with or without a nudge in the right direction, could find a distinct advantage over competitors. This is especially true for brands that find meaningful ways to participate, even it if is just by listening or following along. In this way, Stickybits is like a new frontier for savvy early adopter brands.

Stickybits also makes more aggressive brand plays possible. Pepsi, for example, signed on as a sponsor. Stickybits users who scan Pepsi cans and other Pepsi products will see a sponsored message from Pepsi atop the bits threads. It’s somewhat akin to Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, and could prove to be both a money-making vehicle for Stickybits and an alternative way for advertisers to get exposure.

Success in this realm will certainly depend on the branded message that scanners see. Anything too pushy will discourage app users from scanning product barcodes, which would be a lose-lose for everyone.

For more guerilla-style street campaigns, Stickybits sells barcode stickers, and users can print codes onto gear or download and print their own codes from home.

Gaming and QR Codes, A Perfect Match

Location-based services have been around for years. Loopt and Brightkite were early pioneers in encouraging mobile owners to share their location with friends via GPS-enabled devices.

Both services are still around today and each have their own appeal, but Foursquare, the second coming of Dodgeball, has pushed location-sharing into mainstream hands. Foursquare did it by hooking users with simple and engaging game mechanics, and now everyone, especially Yelp, is anxious to follow suit.

SCVNGR — which bills itself as a mobile way to participate in place-based, scavenger hunt-like challenges — is in part a check-in application, but with the gaming experience at the core of the service. Users can check-in at a venue using the SCVNGR mobile app, but it’s what happens after the check-in that makes this an application worthy of note.

SCVNGR is all about activity, and while it can be used as a Foursquare alternative, there’s so much business appeal here that it kind of exists in a new category of its own. Cities, museums, small businesses, universities and even brokers have already turned to SCVNGR to create their own location-based treks for customers or fans.

goSmithsonian, for instance, used SCVNGR to build a trek through nine of the Smithsonian museums that require solving clues and completing challenges. More recently The Boston Globe’s trek involved five different content-driven, city-based challenges. Treks are about mobile, challenge-based discovery, so they’re certainly Foursquare and Gowalla-esque in nature, but as the Smithsonian and The Boston Globe examples demonstrate, there’s more here than just checkins.

It’s within these challenges and treks where QR codes make their appearance and find real-life relevance. SCVNGR supports QR code challenges, so players can be tasked to scan a QR code to complete the challenge and earn the points. Of course, the QR code challenge is also a nearly fail-proof way to ensure that a player is where they say they are, which means it adds verification to the checkin.

Since the application doubles as a QR code scanner, the scanning activity happens right within the game and helps to familiarize users with the foreign notion of a barcode scan. It’s this familiarization that will help make QR codes recognizable and decodable to the human eye.

Obviously marketers and brands alike have shown an increasing interest in creative location-based initiatives. As interest continues to grow in this space, SCVNGR has a solid shot at becoming the de facto mobile application to facilitate mobile scavenger hunts, and propel QR codes to mainstream adoption.

Challenges Still Remain

Amidst all the possibilities, barcode scanning apps and services still face a number of obstacles before the general public will embrace them.

The biggest hurdle is the fact that there are so many disparate applications that support QR code scanning, each with their own purpose or twist. Of course, there’s also custom barcode/scanner services like Microsoft Tag, which is progressive in its own way but requires that users have a special app (they can’t use generic QR code scanners) to process Tag codes in the real world.

It’s asking too much of people to make them distinguish between a regular barcode, a QR code and some other custom code. We need simplification and standards.

The barcode scan is also heavily dependent on the user wanting to interact with it. They have to pull out their smartphone, load up an app and scan the code in question. It’s a matter of a few seconds, but the barcode is likely a missed opportunity, lost in the real world as real people race to get from point A to point B. Thankfully, Stickybits and SCVNGR both tackle the “why should I scan this?” problem, and we’ll be watching closely to see if that’s enough to push this edgy technology beyond the niche.

Companies with footers encouraging users not to print emails are being targeted by APIA’s paper – part of every day life campaign.

According to Tim Woods of the paper – part of every day life campaign, an increasing number of industry companies, organisations and individuals are damaging their business value chains by using email footers that suggest paper-based communications should be reduced.

"Slogans at the bottom of an email like ‘think before you print’ or worse, the totally incorrect ’save trees and email this’ imply there is something wrong with using paper, especially when compared to using email,” he said.

The promotional campaign is writing separately to every company, organisation and individual using these incorrect and unhelpful email footers, seeking their assistance to help promote sustainable communications media.
"We do not want to directly criticise businesses that are part of the same value chain and who fail to support paper as a sustainable communications medium. First, we are approaching them to seek their voluntary withdrawal of these email footers," Woods said.
Woods’ advice is for companies to rethink their email footers. "We should all have email footers that say things like: ‘Print and share this email to ensure the paper industry grows more trees’," he said.

"We all support resource conservation, so we should support print on paper as the only truly sustainable communications media. We must avoid falling into the trap of assuming that because electronic communications are new, they are more sustainable. That just is not true.”

Have you read the email footer from a CQ email recently? Take a closer look at the green text along the bottom. We’ve been saying this for quite some time Click on the picture below to have a look.

A great big CQ welcome to Marilyn!!!!! She has joined the CQ team and will be doing quotes. We are really glad to have Marilyn as part of the team. She has many years of experience in the digital print industry and has accumulated a huge amount of knowledge.

All quote requests are still to be sent to quotes@cq.co.nz

Every week her speech bubble will say something different.

What would you like her to say?

Click on Collette’s image below to go to the Collette Quinn photo album and enter your comments (nothing rude please). Best comments will be used on the wall and photographed for facebook.

Here are photos taken from the last four weeks showing the new offices taking shape. Hover over the photos for comments and click on them to enlarge.

Mid May:

Early June:

Making Print Fun:

Place point of sale signs at appropriate locations (check-out, table, counter or wall) and let the customer subscribe to your emailing list before they leave – just by using their cell phone!

• Set up your own unique text keyword
• Tell customers to text the keyword to a three digit number (easy)
• add that they’ll go into a monthly prize draw!

It takes under a minute and over 90% of customers will use their phone without hesitation.

And once they’re on your email list, we have tools that can automatically gather up more details from them online into your customer database, like their names, delivery address, favourite wine, interests, birthdays etc.

Building a customer database has never been this easy!

• Build up the customer database
• keep in touch with them via text, email or direct mail
• use offers to encourage visits to your physical or online store

This can boost monthly sales by 15-25%.

This is a great “print to mobile” loyalty marketing campaign.

CQ can help with all of the steps required to make this happen.

• POS signage
• TXT and email services
• Direct and personalised mail.

Email dean@cq.co.nz to find out more.