Introduced in October at MPA’s Magazine Innovation Summit, hy.pr was developed specifically to extend the reach of print publications and the life of their content by allowing readers to share links to the articles they read in print with their online social networks.  According to Smub, "With hy.pr, every reader is a potential social media marketer for the publication. By providing readers the tools to push content instantly to their online social networks, hy.pr drives traffic to the publisher’s website, increases brand awareness and lowers the cost of subscriber acquisition."

As reported by Folio Magazine, to use it publishers register with hy.pr, then create custom URLs for select articles and print them in the physical edition of the magazine. When the reader wants to share the article, they can then enter the URL into a web browser, which offers the reader a "share and save" page from which they can e-mail a shortened link directly to their contacts, bookmark the link or share it among social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Digg. Folio cites as an example, the French magazine Polka which includes the URL polka.hy.pr/punk which allows readers to then share pictures on social media sites.

According to Smub CEO Thierry Lamouline, "Our research shows that roughly 25% of all Tweets and Facebook status updates contain a link.  By empowering their readers to share content, publishers will create an audience of social media marketers who actively promote publishers brands, driving targeted traffic to publishers’ web sites, which in turn will dramatically lower the cost of a subscriber acquisition via the web."

New Cool Print-to-Mobile Tools

Instead having people attempting to key in those long text messages or complex website addresses on their phone, we use the mobile phones’ built-in camera to do it all for them in seconds. i.e. The phone instantly captures specific instructions from a specially printed item. e.g.:

Just snap a photo of the barcode which then:

1. tells the Phone web browser to go directly to the product providers webpage for more information, even to buy the product or
2. prepares the phone to email or forward a special message on, with a link back to the suppliers web page with a special offer or
3. simply tells the phone to just save the details into it’s built-in address book or perhaps use the message as a discount voucher.

All this could be very handy if say you see a promotion on a magazine ad, website page, on a building, even street, realty or bus sign, and don’t have time to take down all the details. Now you’d just snap a photo of it and the special QR barcode (click photo left).

This provides the information for the phone to do its special ‘thing’, like sending you to the corresponding website on that product or property, or translating it into readable text. This will take off this year as people upgrade to 3G Phones.

N.B. Many Vodafone users here with a good camera phone may already have this QR capability and don’t realise it. Simply TXT QR to 710 to find out. They will text back a link to download the correct QR Code reader, for free.  (Details click here)

As discovered overseas, QR Codes in printed signs, cards or flyers is a great way to connect with a youth market that’s notoriously difficult to reach – not just because it offers something new and different for them to interact with, but also because it generates a lot of street buzz.

Why Wait? Simply call us to discuss adding your personal QR code to your next brochure, poster or business card .

Looking for more neat QR code ideas? View the videos below:

But adopting this new strategy brings many new challenges:

1. Most clients have not collected the right data, or any data, on their customers, and if they have it, they are reluctant to share it.
2. Companies that have successfully produced programs using new bells and whistles are not sharing their results for fear that their competition will learn how to catch up to them.
3. A majority of creative content providers (writers and designers at the agencies) are totally without any understanding of or how to write and design for variable, versioned pitches, let alone Web-print-to-Web programs, or database mining.
4. There is the commoditisation in the products offered by a majority of print providers, and how it affects content providers, like creative firms.

(N.B. Above list derived from an amazing article by Harvey Hirsch)

Although challenging, none of these issues are insurmountable. The blueprint for success, although not widely known, is there and well proven. And like all successful marketing or advertising campaigns, expert planning and execution is the key.

Show me the money!

Certainly in our tight economy, the financial incentives to improve business results is strong. The question here is why continue using a largely ineffective, unprofitable marketing and advertising model, when a better, more cost-effective one can provide many times higher sales results?

This is because most online as well as traditional advertising or mailing campaigns treat everyone the same. It’s been referred to as the ’spray and hope’ system. These [often expensive] campaigns are relevant only to a few…

The secret to high response marketing lies in your customer database – It tells us WHO we should communicate with, HOW we communicate, and with WHAT offer.

Data mining helps you find a subset of your customers that are most likely to react/respond to your marketing campaigns. By targeting ONLY those likely to respond, you achieve about the same response/sales at a fraction of the cost!

But the problem with databases is that they’re inevitably in a mess. Companies are lucky to have one that has accurate names and postal addresses, let alone other specific details like the customers email address, birth date, product or service preferences and most importantly, previous buying patterns.

Step back and consider some alternatives. For example, underwear merchant Bare Necessities in the US recently tested coordinating a postcard campaign with email to a segment of its customer file and saw a significant increase in revenue from those who received both marketing messages.

According to David Wauters, director of marketing for Bare Necessities, the company saw a 15% lift in revenue (note that’s SALES, not just a response rate boost) from customers who received the direct mail postcard and the email, compared to the control group who received only the email.

Wauters has apparently stumbled on something that a lot of marketers talk about, but seldom do. A relative few marketers truly coordinate their email and print efforts, according to Jane Kaiser, president of online marketing consultancy Eclipse Direct Marketing. She said her clients consistently see lifts of between 15% and 25% when they send coordinated print and email campaigns.

But wait there’s more!

If you’re satisfied with a 15-25% improvement then a simple combined email and direct mail postcard is a no-brainer. After all, who wouldn’t be delighted with amazing results like this?

However sales improvements of 50% or more are now possible using PURLs.  Here we take the above a step further. We simply add a unique webpage link to both the email and postcard.  A great Video by small business marketing expert, David Frey, outlines this very exciting, simple concept.

Here at CQ, we’ve the expertise to build your own personalised landing page and direct mail piece to complement your own email campaign, or provide a complete purl webpage, email and variable print turnkey package. Note our PURL package has special features beyond that outlined in the video.

Best of all? It’s all remarkably easy, affordable and just perfect for any corporate, small business or community group – You heard it here first!

Increase your business results with Postcards

If you’ve a slim advertising budget, Postcard mailers are an effective way to professionally market your products, business services or website. And by ordering them online, you’ll save yourself weeks of effort and heaps of money.

DIY Saves – No more frustrating delays or unnecessary costs working with all those graphic designers, specialist printers or mail houses! And no need to spend hours with labels, or stuffing envelopes.

Now you can design the card yourself, using our smart MS Word templates, adding images from your digital camera then addresses using Word’s mail merge tools. When you’re done, simply ‘print’ them to CQ’s internet print queue and we’ll do the rest – What once took weeks can now be done in a few hours.

CQ’s Postcard mailers are the perfect low cost, super-effective marketing tool for the realty, motoring, home services, hospitality and travel sectors – In fact for anyone organising a special business, community or family event.

The fact is, Googles contribution to traffic and sales leads for the majority of websites is seldom over 35%. In one study, (right) it was a measly 8.3%!

Even in our internet age, the majority of people will still find out about your business website via ‘old fashioned’ business cards, brochures, signs, magazines, referrals, emails, networking.

Let Print Make New Media Better – So, if you think you’re spending too much time and money on website SEO development for little return, talk to us about a print strategy that will get you noticed on the net.

For more information phone us on 03 963 8899 or email info@cq.co.nz