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6 Ways to Take Advantage of QR Codes in Your Marketing

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Celina Conner

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QR Code Sample
Put yourself in this scenario:

While shopping in your favorite store, a flyer of a newly launched product was handed over to you by a sales agent. The flyer did not say much, but the product has quite captured your interest. You wanted to know more but somehow the agent could not answer more of your questions. Instead, he advised you to look into the quicker response (QR) code printed at the bottom of the flyer. The instruction is just to scan the code in a place with Internet access using a mobile device (e.g. smart phone, tablet, etc.) app. You did as told and you get access to exclusive content, the history of the product, price quotes, and special promotions.

In this article we will tackle 8 steps on how we can use QR codes properly in marketing our products.

1. Identify your target market.

Knowing your target market is the first step in propagating the use of QR codes in marketing. Studies state that most technology-aware people and mobile device users are those in ages between 25 and 40. So if your business’ target demographic is not in range, this marketing tactic might be more difficult for you to implement as it would be hard to encourage them to make good use of the codes.

If your target is in this age range, look into the ideal public places and the right media to post and distribute your QR codes. Majority of people in this age group are readers of newspapers and members of famous social networking sites like Facebook. So it’s suggested to put your QR codes in portable magazines, newspapers and websites (as side panel ads) for your audience to comfortably scan the codes right in their homes, offices, etc.

2. Post on the right spots.

Aside from newspapers, magazines and social media for targeted customers, you may also post your QR codes in other places for potential others. However, you have to make sure that they are the right spots. Good examples are on business cards, giveaway coupons, storefront displays, restaurant menu, product label, e-mails, newsletters where the codes can be scanned conveniently.

Bad examples, in contrast, are in moving vehicles like trucks and public billboards because getting the image from there is not that easy. When you’re moving, you most probably won’t take close attention to anything than the road itself. Another bad suggestion is in airplane magazines and in risky zones because passengers are not allowed to turn on or connect to the Internet for safety. These are places where people will just ignore the codes, no matter how striking they are.

business

3. Give useful campaign information that will enrich their lives.

In using the QR codes, you have the liberty to post it just about anywhere as effective without changing the code every time you have an updated content. The good thing about the QR code is that it serves as a bookmark icon or shortcut image that links your website and content to your customers instantly. So you can just alter the content behind it for them to get a different experience and depth of knowledge every time they scan the code. This form of advertising is a living and evolving one. Hence you should take good advantage of it by providing rich information that will make them come back next time.

4. Link the QR code to a specific and exciting message.

A common flaw is to just link this two-dimensional tag to a generic company website or home page. You have to remember that these are mobile people that are scanning the codes. So instead of a lengthy text, you must incorporate a creative short video or direct them to the page relevant to their interest (e.g. freebies, contests, discounts, etc.) to keep them around.

For example, if they are scanning the code from the back of a multivitamin bottle, the recommended linked items would be the nutrition contents about the multivitamin, the benefits it brings and instruction to post their own testimonies of the product online to win prizes.

In most cases, when both the product and company are still not known, customers would want to see info on the product, its uses and promotions rather than take an overview of the profile of the company, manufacturer or distributor. If you’re linking to a specific article in your web page, make sure that you have optimized pages for mobile devices.

5. Use them to get more “likes” and “follows.”
Macys-QR

You can link the codes to land into your Facebook fan page or Twitter account for a quick hit on the Like and Follow buttons. Attach an on-going contest or promo with it so people can be more engaged and you can establish a long-term marketing strategy after using the QR code as “bait.”

6. Integrate the codes to extend your marketing ad.

A great example is that of the Victoria’s Secret poster for its “Sexier than Skin” campaign. Victoria Secret had clutched into ingenuity when it placed the QR code right on the revealing area of the nearly nude models in the picture, to make users want to know more about the “secret” in their line of lingerie. People will always want to be surprised so position the code well in your print, instead of placing it in the most bottom part or the side lines.

Using QR codes is now a growing fad that will stay for years to come. It is an easy way to get customer information and track their interests by the content they access. If you use QR codes for marketing your offerings and brand, you are interacting with both potential and existing customers in real-time and entice them even more to interact with you. Posting QR codes is a fun way of advertising that is low-cost but effective when used properly.

Author’s Bio:
Celina Conner is a Yoga Instructor, an alumna of Marketing Management at Martin College Australia and a mother of a beautiful daughter, Krizia. She has a passion in cooking and formulating vegan recipes.Follow her adventures on her Twitter.

How to Identify the Highest Potential Strategic Partners

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Strategic Partnership Series

The Story

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I sat at the conference room table with two other people. I was the consultant. They were the President and Key Partner of the Investment Firm that Owned the Company. It started as a simple conversation.

We talked about the company’s situation — their revenues were declining by 10% a year. Their product mix wasn’t robust enough to support growth. Attempts at new product had been poorly conceived. Now they were sitting with one potentially successful product that, if left alone, would leave the business in a slow growth, high risk situation.

We talked about product life cycles in their industry. Successful products could expect to grow for 3-5 years. Then the natural decline — the downside of the bell curve — would follow and sales might continue out to year 10.

“What would be your product strategy?” the big boss asked me.
“I’d get on a plane. Go to the U.K. Buy quality product and adapt it to fit the U.S. market.”
“Why the U.K.?” was the next question.
“Because everyone has already been to Australia, and if you don’t get some product to market and earning as fast as you can, it won’t matter what strategy I conceive.”
“You’re going to London,” was the man’s answer.

By the end of the year, I not only went to the U.K., I was hired and I took my first of what became a yearly trip to build and nurture strategic partnerships around the world.

How to Identify the Highest Potential Strategic Partners

The idea of entering a strategic partnership is both intriguing and challenging. Strategic partnerships grow TWO businesses at a faster rate. The ability to share ideas, piggyback resources, decrease costs, and shorten timelines by distributing, versioning, and repackaging can bring a huge increase in ROI even to the smallest business.

But partnerships are tricky to begin with. Choosing the right partner is critical to success. Use these questions to identify the highest potential strategic partners for your business.

  • Who has product we can version for our customers? Would they consider making two versions as they build their next product? Potential strategic partners have to make product appropriate for our market that we might want to distribute. Define that as something for customers who are like ours, only slightly different.

    If we make packaging for boutiques, we might explore companies who makes packaging for department stores, grocery stores, computer stores, jewelry stores, restaurants — the list is huge. We’d be looking for what we might distribute to our boutiques. Those tiny “to go” boxes used by Chinese restaurants might make interesting packaging for boutique candy stores. Would they be willing to print an exclusive series of those boxes in fashion colors, we could sell them to our clients at exclusive prices?

  • Who shares our standards and values? Naturally a partnership needs to agree on what is quality workmanship, what is good service, and how to respond when problems arise. Shared values and standards are foundational to trust. Partners who share our values and standards see the quality in our work, understand our pricing, and trust our choices and decisions.
  • Who is good at what we’re not and needs what we’re good at? Can they extend our brand or strengthen our marketing? Can we shore up their product offers and idea development? A great partner doesn’t look like us. They look like what we’re not.
  • Who has a similar process for approving ideas? My experience over time has taught me to be wary of potential partners with numerous approval stages. A business with the more approval stages will control final decisions. The approval process will break down ideas and steal time.
  • Who sees the value of the partnership immediately? High potential partnerships are agreements between businesses each contributing value to the other business. If a potential partner needs to be converted to the idea, that equality of agreement is missing. It’s wise if we don’t work at making it work. Converts rarely stay converted. We’re likely to end up in something that looks more like a client/vendor relationship.

Great strategic partnerships demonstrate the idea that leaders look to build things that they can’t build alone. We share easier, faster, more meaningful way to reach customers that are just outside our “sweet spot.” We can offer product ideas that we could pursue without partner help.

Have you given strategic partnerships enough thought?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Watch for more on negotiating strategic partnerships.

5 Ways to Build Connections that Make Loyal Customers

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Tara Hornor

Why Using the Golden Rule in Business Works

The golden rule in business is just like the age-old standard of care: treat customers how you want to be treated. It is important that, as a business owner, you always think of your customers and what they want, like, and simply prefer above everything else.

If customers are not interested in what you have to offer and do not feel a personal connection, they will likely not return again. You can send them an email newsletter or direct mail postcards each week, but if they do not feel your “love” for them, you can still lose them as a customer. It is always easier to maintain previous customer relationships rather than gain new ones. Instead of putting yourself through this headache of losing and replacing customers, you have to constantly make connections with your current customers, especially if you want an easy road to success.

5 Ways to Build Connections that Make Loyal Customers

Whether you operate your small business from a local store or your business is operated entirely online, it is not so difficult to build connections that make loyal customers as long as you follow a few simple steps, which include

  1. Ask questions
  2. Talk about what they are interested in
  3. Listen to what customers have to say
  4. Have patience
  5. Use social media

1.) Ask Questions

Ask your customers questions — about their interests, what they like to do, and what they prefer when buying certain products or using certain services. It helps match the customer to the products that cater to their specific wants and needs. Use surveys, follow-up phone calls, or direct emails to ask them how you can improve.

2.) Talk about Them

People want to hear about themselves. You can do this throughout your marketing content. Talk about their problems that you can solve. Highlight recent positive customer experiences. Fill your pages with solutions to their problems – don’t just talk about yourself.

3.) Listen Carefully

Make sure you provide plenty of options for your customers to get in touch, in case problems occur. And just as important, when problems arise make sure you follow up and listen carefully to what happened. Acknowledge customers’ concerns and act aggressively to resolve any outstanding issues. Use a direct email address, Twitter and other social media profiles, and phone to give customers easy access to you.

4.) Be Patient

Patience is important. Avoid confrontation, even if something negative is said. Stuff happens and a patient, caring tone with a customer is critical to long-term relationship building. No matter how exasperated you are or they get, stay calm and work to resolve issues. You may turn a customer who called with an intent of burning bridges into a powerful advocate for your business simply by patiently working through issues.

5.) Use Social Media for Feedback to Build a Connection

Social media is an excellent tool for gaining feedback from your customers, which is especially ideal if you are running an online business. Through social networking sites, you can stay in touch with your customers and communicate with them on a regular basis. Your goal is to make them feel appreciated, as if they are family, so be sure to respond to the comments they leave on your profile.

How you follow the Golden Rule in your business will determine how many loyal customers you acquire. Therefore, take the time necessary to treat customers well, to listen to their feedback and complaints, and to constantly improve your process of dealing with individual customers.

These are just a few ways that you can build connections that make loyal customers. Give these five a try. They will work for you whether you operate your small business from a local store or if your business is operated entirely online.

What else do you suggest to build customer connections that last?

Author’s Bio:
Tara Hornor writes about marketing, advertising, branding, web and graphic design, and desktop publishing for PrintPlace.com a company that offers online printing for print marketing media. Find her on Twitter as @TaraHornor .

 

What Is Perfect in Business Thinking?

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Stardards Are Agreed and Repeatable.

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When I was in publishing, I spent a lot of time with editors, designers, marketers, sales reps, finance folks, and C-Suite executives. Each of them had different goals for success. Each had different ideas of what drives a successful business. Almost all of them wanted to do a great job for the company and for themselves.

But young product designers and builders that I worked with often had unrealistic aspirations and goals. They set a standard for the products they worked on. Their standard was that the products be perfect.

A standard is an agreed, repeatable way of doing something.

Perfect isn’t a standard. Perfect isn’t a repeatable way of doing anything.
Just as important, they would have been hard pressed to get the rest of the company to agree to their definition of perfect.

That idea of a perfect product worked against them.

What Is Perfect?

Those designers desperately would explain how to design the perfect product. Meanwhile, the sales reps, finance folks, and C-Suite executives each had their own definition of what perfect means in that context.

Perfect is in the eye of the beholder —

  • to the product builders — a writer, editor, illustrator, coder, programmer — a perfect product is structurally sound, without error, and elegant
  • to the designers a perfect product is aesthetically pleasing, easy to use, elegant
  • to the marketers a perfect product is new, compelling, and innovative
  • to the sales reps the perfect product is one that sells and stays sold
  • to the finance folks, a perfect product sells and makes money at the same time
  • to the C-Suite executives a perfect product seems to be one that does all of those things
  • to the only ones who count — the customers — a perfect product meets their needs, makes their lives easier, faster/simpler, or more meaningful.

Clearly the idea of perfect wasn’t the same from one team to another. Perfection is experience and perception, not a standard.

What Is Perfect in Business Thinking?

A quest for perfect is unattainable. What perfect judge would decide when we’ve succeeded?

The stress of perfection makes us less human. Our flaws and foibles, expertise and experience round out our thinking and define our appeal as unique beings. Perfect in business thinking is both strong with vulnerable. It takes wonderfully imperfect humans to truly connect a business to its customers.

It doesn’t matter whether our offer is a product or a service. If we focus on the work, it’s easy to forget the people. Yet, we’re do the work to attract, connect with, and serve people. Solid business thinking defines perfect work by how well it delivers value.

We can build in shiny bells and whistles that we decide will make our work perfect. If the folks we’re serving don’t see, need, or want the noisemakers we’ve built in, we’re not adding value. We’re adding cost — our time and energy to build them, their time and energy to avoid and ignore the ringing and whistling. (Unless they miss them completely, which is benign, but still a drain on our resources.

There’s no such thing as a perfect product. Even if we could achieve one, I’d go for the a product that attracts, delights, and serves customers. If a product serves the customer exactly as the customer wants and needs it to … To me that is perfect in business thinking.

When the next project comes — or even as your move forward on this one — here are a few imperfect suggestions that will get you closer to perfectly satisfying those customers …

  1. Unravel any rigid definitions of a perfect outcome to make room for new thinking. Don’t confuse wrong and different.
  2. Remember that perfect isn’t about you. Don’t define what’s perfect for customers. Let them tell you.
  3. Ask questions. Ask the people you serve to describe their “perfect” outcome. Do this before, during, and after a project. Do it often when you’ve encountered a problem.
  4. As you gather information from the people you serve, use it to set a true standard. Then live UP to it. An agreed upon, repeatable, and predictable standard makes business easier, faster, and more meaningful.
  5. Pay attention and keep tweaking until you’ve aligned your goals with your customers. Do more of what works. Stop what doesn’t.

Don’t try for perfect work. Like the young product builders and designers, any definition of perfect work will be flawed if leaves out customers. Perfect work in business thinking is outcomes and solutions that fit your customers’ needs as they see them. Show up consistently with generosity and your best reasoning. Be outstanding at seeing, hearing, and responding to people.

Make things easier, simpler, and more meaningful. Your work will be better than perfect. It will be irresistible.
And that’s perfectly appealing.

What’s your definition of perfect in business thinking?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

What to Find Out Before You Start a Business Blog – 25+ Web Resources

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How to blog series

We All Start Somewhere

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Most of us who started a blog before LinkedIn and Twitter, while Facebook was barely finished code, got to the blogosphere one at time. We picked out our templates and our blogging platforms and decided what we would blog about. We learned the culture, the rules, and how to use the tools. And all of us learned HTML — the alphabet of blogs.

It was an apprentice culture. We learned the craft from other bloggers. At the same time we linked our blogs, read and commented, we got to know and connected to other bloggers. Much of the information was passed on as we got to know each other. If we needed to know how to do something, we just asked someone who had been blogging longer than we had. Some started building courses and putting together tutorials, probably because they realized they were repeating themselves — an audience existed to learn these things.

Then things changed. Somewhere around 2006, bloggers got serious about making money, running business from their blogs. Social media brought millions of people who had heard that blogs could help their business have a presence online.

It’s no longer an apprentice culture. Still, we all start somewhere. Now, resources exist in the form of blog posts written to answer frequently asked questions and courses to teach the masses. Still, the best way to start is to have someone point you in the right direction.

What follows are 25 how-tos and guides that represent over 65 resources that offer top-notch information for a solid start on a successful-business blog.

What to Find Out Before You Start a Business Blog – 25+ Web Resources

You wouldn’t build a business or a building to house one, without doing a little research first. At least, I hope not. Before you start or restart your business blog, do some research to give you context as you make the initial decisions so that you be confident about the who, what, when, where, why, and how. Here is what to find out before you start a successful business blog.

  1. Prelaunch Blog Review Checklist
  2. 10 Blogger Best Practices: Guides as You Extend Your Reach
  3. Don’t Buy that New Domain Name Yet
  4. 10 Questions about Starting a Business Blog Answered
    An FAQ with links to articles answering basic questions for starting a brand new business blog.
    1. Why should I start a business blog?
    2. What blogging application should a business blog use? WordPress or Blogger?
    3. What is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
    4. Are there any advantages to hosted vs. self-hosted (through a third party)?
    5. Should comments be allowed?
    6. Is it okay to moderate comments?
    7. What should I write about on my business blog?
    8. Are there any rules to business blogging such as content, ethics, etc.?
    9. Are there any security issues that I should be aware of?
    10. Is there anything else I should know about starting a business blog?
  5. How to Start a Business Blog Series
    A ten part series for starting strategically:
    Part 1 covers the basics and benefits of starting a business blog
    Part 2 is on determining the purpose of a business blog
    Part 3 is about choosing authors for a business blog
    Part 4 covers policy-making for business blogs
    Part 5 is about blog platform and website/blog integration
    Part 6 is a continuation of blog platform and site integration
    Part 7 covers business blog design considerations
    Part 8 is about how to choose blog categories for a business blog
    Part 9 tells you what you need to know about creating initial blog content in the pre-launch phase
    Part 10 was a very interesting look into business blog crisis management planning and its importance
  6. 8 Things to Do Before Starting a Business Blog
    WeBlogBetter SlideShare Presentation with notes.
  7. Blogging to Build Your Business
    Why and how a blog builds a marketing platform essential for growth.
  8. Which Business Blogging Strategy Is Right for You?
    Resource Nation defines distinct approaches to business blogging
  9. Checklist: How to Start a Business Blog
    A brief checklist from Hubspot
  10. How To: Choose The Right Platform For Your Business Blog
    Criteria for choosing the blogging tool that will be your home.
  11. Blogging for Business: How to Choose the Best Blog Platform
    A quick comparison of Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr

    12. 7 Real Ways a Blog Raises Influence and Increases Expertise

  12. 8 Sales Rules for Writing – No One Kills a Messenger who Writes for Readers
  13. Cardinal Sin #1: Launching With No Content
  14. How Images Can Make Your Blog Post Demand to Be Read
  15. Writing a Good Business Blog
    by Dummies.com
  16. HOW TO: Create a Successful Company Blog
    by Venture Capitalist Mark Suster for Mashable
  17. Do You Know the Five Cornerstones of an Outstanding Business Blog?
    by David Hobart, Managing Director of Pure Content
  18. How to Hire a Great Web Writer, Copywriter, or Blogger
    What they do, What to look for, Where to look, What to ask.
  19. 10 Steps to Creating a Network of Guest Bloggers
  20. Paid Guest Blogging-Why Business Owners Must Hire Professional Bloggers
    The benefits of getting professional blogging help
  21. The #1 Conversion Killer in Your Copy (And How to Beat It)
  22. Blogging policy examples
    Sample policies – every company and blogger will have to modify them to meet their own needs
  23. IBM Social Computing Guidelines
    A great example for enterprise level policy
  24. 24 (of the) Best Business Blogging Guides, Tips and Tools of 2011
  25. The Most Important Blog Post You’ll Probaably Never Read

Take a look at the ones that answer the questions you’ve got right now. Then revisit this page to revisit it when the new questions come up tomorrow and the next day. You might also visit the New Business Blogger Page to find out more about building a successful business blog.

If you have great ideas or advice for starting up a Business Blog, tell us in the comments. If I get enough I’ll pull your comments together into a new post.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

How to Build Something You Can’t Build Alone

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The Power of Community Focused in the Same Direction

Whether you count yourself in huge corporation, a small team, or feel you’re the only member of an entirely unique group. If we hope to move forward, we all could use a more strategic view. We can chase our dreams. We can hire an evangelist. We can put our noses to the grindstone. Still the truth of the matter is we’re social beings and we build better things together than we’ll ever build alone.

The best dreams are built with insight from a variety of viewpoints. The best ideas and innovations are fleshed out with minds and voices that approach a problem from differing points of view. The best communities come together around participation and personal investment. And we’ve all seen the power of a community focused in the same direction.

Leaders want to build something we can’t build alone.

How to Build Something You Can’t Build Alone

When we think of social business, the tools may have changed, but the people haven’t. We’d still like our lives to be easier, simpler, and more meaningful than just getting up each day to go to work. Invitations attract us. Aspirations move us forward. Focus brings us to a clear path. Relationships well-chosen lighten our load. Quality raises our investment. True collaboration brings out our better selves.

Great leaders who build great things understand that human nature and engage it to fuel their goals. If you want to be that kind of leader — one who attracts, inspires, guides, focuses, connects, and unites — here’s how to build something you can’t build alone.

  1. Be a Magnet, not a Missionary. Quit converting and start attracting. Understand and respect our different, yet symbiotic purposes. The community needs the goods, services, and economic contributions of growing businesses. Growing business need the support and patronage of loyal communities.
  2. Have and Share a Vision. To make a thriving business, start with a long-term loyal, internal community of employees. They will build and protect a healthy innovative culture, promote the values of the business, stay with the company, develop expertise with coworkers, and live to serve customers.In any community, it’s not the how or what of work that builds connection and loyalty. It’s vision and mission. The underlying vision that unites us toward building something that we can’t build alone. A community needs leadership to set and invest that vision and so that they can feel smart, safe, and powerful in investing too.
  3. Know How to Choose the Easiest, Fastest, Most Meaningful Next Move Strategy is a realistic plan to advance a position over time by leveraging your unique opportunity. Recognizing opportunity and getting where you want to go is impossible if you don’t know where you are now. Position is informational — It’s part part property and packaging, part size, scope, and systems. Position is relational — it’s part values and relationships, part mission, vision, and perception. The most advantageous next positions look only slightly different than the place we already are. Deeply study your position and you understand the true value proposition of your brand.
  4. Lead with Relationships Choose the people around you — employees, vendors, partners, customers — wisely with deliberation and intention. They are the people who will build your business with you. Likewise, choose your sponsors and the businesses you support with equal thought to how they build your community and your life.
  5. Even Cheap Is Expensive When the Model Is Doesn’t Work Start a new business and you’ll soon see, that numbers reflect history. Without history, questions are what we use to generate the numbers we use. Numbers are important and useful, but they are as deep as the questions we ask. When we aggregate the numbers into a graphic they become shallow and flat. What I just saw will forgotten in an hour. What I just bought won’t win you my next dollar. Haven’t we figured out yet that impressions, circulation, and hits in general are short-terms goals and NEVER have been attributable?
  6. Understand the Power of Collaboration If communities and corporations, align our goals and head in the same direction the results could be amazing. But first we each have to know where we’re going and negotiate from the SAME SIDE of the table, recognizing that we’re stronger together.

Leaders make work and life easier, simpler, and more meaningful. Sometimes we do that simply by letting folks see what they see, know what they know, and do what they do … because other people see, know, and do valuable things that we can’t see, know, or do.

Leaders who need no one, lead no one. Don’t hire a staff, engage people who contribute. Don’t build a coliseum, raise a barn.
It’s irresistibly attractive to build something you can’t build alone.

How will you be a leader this week?

Be a leader.
Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!