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QR Codes – How To Use Them To Promote Your Business

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QR codes are the Rubik’s cube of marketing. Many people understand they can be a great solution to promote their business, yet they only get part way to the solution by simply using a QR code to direct clients to their web site.

It just requires a little more creativity and strategy to get to the point of solving the riddle and coming up with a viable use for these crazy little codes.

The easy out is directing people directly to your site, but why not think out of the box, or in this case out of the cube?

You need to put yourself in a client’s shoes and ask what they want from you and your business. One of my favourite examples is restaurants.

What does your client want? Food!!!!! Will a link to your website solve this? What if instead you had your savvy web site designer create a custom mobile web page for your smart phone visitors that took them directly to an embedded video showing off your most popular dishes and a link to your menus? Would this ramp up client interest better than a static web page full of content?

What can you do for your industry that is out of the box? If you would like to get some ideas to help promote your business, use the contact form below to see what we can come up with for you!

 

QR Codes – Part 2 on the News

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Global TV wrapped up their story about QR codes on the news tonight, here’s the video.

If you are interested in creating some of your own QR codes, here is a link to a site where you can create your own QR codes.

How to Create your own QR Code

If you would like ideas about how you could incorporate QR codes into your business contact us at 403-870-4663 and we can arrange a consultation.

March Facebook Fanpage Update Coming!

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Facebook Fanpage Update March 10th

If you’ve missed it, tomorrow March 10th is the day everyone will be required to switch over to the new redesign of the Facebook Fanpage. Now many Fanpages have already started the rollover, but it will be mandatory come the 10th.

The big changes are the removal of tabs across the top of the page and the addition of the photo-bar across the top making the page more closely resemble regular profile pages. If you are concerned the special tabs you had are completely gone, don’t worry, they have just moved down the left side of the page, again like the profile page.

This new navigation system is much cleaner and easier to use, but at the expense of also blending in much more than the former tabs did. Time will tell if this becomes a feature people are aware of, or will simply be ignored and become less valuable of a capability.

Perhaps the most talked about feature though is the ability to post as the Fanpage. You can now login as the Page itself. To do this you just need to go to your account tab and choose Use Facebook as Page.

From there you have the option to switch to a page you are an admin on and now you are that page. If you “like” another page or post, it shows up as the Fanpage, rather than as your personal profile (although there is nothing from stopping you liking it with both!).

The advantage of this is Fanpages can do a much cleaner method of ensuring their branding themselves properly. Prior to this, it all merged together, now Fanpages and personal pages are their own separate entities.

The final user feature I will mention is the new method which posts appear on the wall. They no longer appear chronologically, but rather by popularity. This allows the most commented and liked posts to move to the top of the page and the less popular ones slide further down.

Of course with all these changes there also has to be some background changes. These technical changes involve the transition from Facebooks current FBML language to the use of iframes. For the average user this won’t make much difference, but for those of you with custom pages or looking at getting a custom page, the use of iframes brings up an amazing multitude of new possibilities.

I have a new page I am working on, so watch for details to see what some of the early techniques you can use are to optimize your fan’s experience!

Mobile Marketing – Is Your Business Ready?

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I just finished reading a great post over at the MarketRumba website (http://www.marketrumba.com) that talks about how mobile is the next huge area of growth for business. Some of the numbers are simply astounding as far as the penetration of smart phones into the market and the growth projections over the next year. Add on top of that mobile devices like iPads, galaxy’s and a whole stream of other tablet products that either are on the market, or are arriving weekly.

It’s a market that smart business owners cannot ignore, because their competition isn’t! If you own a smart phone and have ever done a Google search, you already understand the power of being connected anywhere and anytime. Potential customers can now find out about you (or your competition) immediately rather than waiting to get to their desktop.

Because this is such a new market for many businesses, we are just at the beginning of the curve as far as new ways of engaging clients, selling products and even capturing client information. There will be new advances that will absolutely astound us when we first see them, but will be commonplace over the next few years. And business cannot ignore this.

Dianna had a great video from Google on her site which I have grabbed from YouTube and embedded below for you. I’ve also included a link below to her original article. The video itself is just over an hour, but I highly recommend you watch it if your business is not already marketing online to the mobile market.

Here is the link to Dianna’s article,   Is Your Business Mobile Ready?

QR Codes- Everything You Need to Know About QR Codes

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QR Codes- Why We Need Them

Have you ever seen an ad somewhere for a product or a service you absolutely needed. Then hours later, when you finally have some time at your computer to look it up, you discover your mind has generated this huge vacuum where absolutely no hint of what you positively had to have can ever reappear?

It happens to the best of us and it appears to becoming much more common as we get lambasted with more and more non-stop advertising. This continual barrage of ads, information, and general branding messages eventually causes us to try and forget more than we remember. Or at the very least numbs us to the majority of it. I would like to think this is what led to the creation of QR codes. It was all just to help the overwhelmed out there who are just like me.

So what exactly are QR codes and more importantly how can they help people remember those ads? Let me start by explaining what QR code stands for. It is an acronym for Quick Response code and is an extension of the bar codes found most often in retail establishments. This extension involves turning the straight bar code into a 2D code and I have an example below.

QR Codes – It Takes More Than Just The Code

Now the QR code is only part of the puzzle, or in this case the solution. The second part is a device that can read these 2D bar codes. We aren’t talking about anything as clumsy as one of those large hand scanners you find at Wal-Mart either. We are talking about that iPhone in your pocket, or that Blackberry you carry everywhere with you. The device more and more people cannot live without and carry with them everywhere.

By installing one of the many free QR code readers onto your smart phone, you are ready to scan away. This brings us to the next question which is, So What? What is the point of being able to read these codes?

This is where the people who get this, can really see the value, So pay close attention. Consider you are in the market for a new vehicle and just happen to be out for coffee and reading the newspaper. Suddenly you notice an ad for the vehicle you’ve been looking for. As you look closely, you notice the QR code in the corner of the ad. You quickly grab your smart phone, fire up the QR reader and take a picture of the QR code.

Within a few seconds, your browser on your phone opens and takes you directly to a link on the dealer’s website where you simply enter your name, phone number and you can book a test drive later that day. Right from where you are sitting. No need to call in, no need to write all the details down to as you can simply bookmark the page on your phone. All with minimal fuss and no vacuum affect where you forgot about it by the time you arrived home.

This is just one example. Other ideas may be a restaurant putting their QR code on their window. Instead of going inside to determine what the special is, you can scan it and have access to the entire menu, or even just determine today’s specials. Or maybe they put the QR code on their takeout menu. Now you can scan the takeout menu and the link there takes you to their online menu. Suddenly you can flip to your bookmark while you are riding home on the train and order your food ahead so it is waiting for you on your way home.

QR Codes Make It Simpler

Sure, you could easily have just typed the longer web address in your phone for either of these examples, but this is so much simpler. It is just so much cleaner and easier. But it doesn’t end there. You see QR codes don’t have to just direct people to a web page.

You can put QR codes on billboards, so someone can scan it from the street. You can put them on business cards, vehicle signage, almost anywhere. Even more interesting is understanding that it doesn’t just end with web addresses.

You can use the QR code to load a GoogleMap to help someone locate your business. You can use it to grab an email address or a phone number. You can use it on your business card to send your VCard information. Or even to direct someone to a YouTube video. The possibilities are endless!

QR Codes Uses

This is what is so exciting, especially to small business owners who can react to this and incorporate the possibilities into their business. Think about this from your business’s perspective. How could you use this to help your company do any of the following?

  • Solve client problems
  • Promote special deals
  • Streamline providing clients with information

How is this for some quick answers? If you provide a product that has an FAQ to answer common questions, you could put a sticker with the QR code directing clients to the FAQ. If you business has monthly promotions you could include a QR code directing people to that month’s or weeks special. If you have just released a new product and want your clients to see it, create a YouTube video walking the product through its paces, then create a QR code you distribute out in your advertising that directs clients to the video.

I’m barely touching the surface here. Currently transit systems in Asia and Norway use QR codes to help people with bus routes. Some Realtors in the US are including QR codes on their listings signage to direct people to the properties info sheet online. People are using QR codes to direct clients or friends to their Facebook FanPages.  The more you think about the potential, the more ideas you can come up with to market with QR codes.

I’ve included a couple QR codes in this article for examples, so if you have a smart phone, go load a QR code reader up and scan them in. Experience for yourself what can be done and how easy it can be.

The next challenge for you after you have thought about this is to leave me a comment and tell me a potential use for QR codes you can see happening. Or tell me how you are already using QR codes in your business and what your impression of the technology is so far. Our creativity is the only thing holding us back, so be creative!

Have You Claimed Your Google Place?

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Google Places Listings

It’s amazing how many local businesses have no idea about Google Places. Which brings up the question of “What exactly is Google Places?” To answer that I helped a friend of mine Steve Bell of Target Your Site Locally to create a video explaining a bit about Google Places to you.

You can watch the video below to learn a bit more and Steve has also put together a free guide explaining how you can actually set up your own Google Places listing. Just head over to his site at http://www.targetyoursitelocally.com to grab it, after you watch the video of course!

Some of the information that didn’t make the video is that a company doesn’t even need their own website to get some value from a google Places listing, but the two in combination can really help your marketing efforts.

Anyway take a look at the video and if you have any comments or questions I would love to hear them.

Just a quick note for you, if you already have your Google Places listing configured, but it hasn’t really helped your business, it may just require some optimization. Along with helping companies set up their own Google Places listings, we can also come in and optimize the listing for you to ensure you are getting the most bang for your buck.

Enjoy,

Bill

Is The Internet a Fad? Or Will It Take Off?

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Rumour has it the Internet may take off one of these days. They say it could even replace things like Yellow Pages, newspapers and possibly even TV some day!

If you are a small business this might be rather important information for your companies future success. On a little more serious note, the Internet has already had a significant impact on all three of the areas I mentioned in the first paragraph.

Think about the last time you used the Yellow Pages? We actually threw ours into the recycle bin when we received them. (Confession time, I actually retrieved the Yellow Pages from the recycle when I realized everyone advertising in there needed my services!) When I need to look up anything from vehicle repair to carpet cleaning, I just go online like just about everyone else and just like your customers.

This is turning those high priced Yellow Page ads into expensive propositions with steadily diminishing returns.Just when people need to stretch their marketing dollars the most!

As for newspapers, wow. You can get most of the information from the paper in their online versions or sometimes faster via services like Twitter. Remember the crash of the plane into the Hudson River in New York last year? It was on Twitter almost a day before it made it to the newspapers.

I even found out about Michael Jackson’s death on Twitter! It was almost two hours later before I found any info on some of the news sites and again not until the next day until it hit the newspaper. Often times it is old news by then.

No wonder readership of the papers is down, no wonder advertising there is also less effective. Less eyeballs looking at the ads translates into fewer clients, less business and again potentially wasted marketing funds.

Finally TV, between PVR’s streaming online video and boxed DVD sets of TV series arriving in stores in what seems like hours after the season ends, bring sup the question, who is actually watching TV commercials these days?

The Internet is taking off all around us, it’s not the future it’s now. Its on our desktop at work, it’s on our smartphone we carry with us and it’s bringing an entire revolution to how businesses need to market to succeed. Companies today that don’t recognize this will be following the footsteps of the businesses who thought the automobile was a fad.

Do you know which companies those are? Exactly, because they didn’t make the transition and were left behind, so no one is talking about them. Obviously you don’t want this to happen to you, really what business would? So what can you do?

First off, you should probably become more informed of what is currently taking place out there. For this I have created a special report which you can grab over on the sidebar to the right.

Second, you can contact me for a no obligation consultation. I can give you a quick explanation of what we have done to help other businesses, what is currently working in helping these other businesses get more leads, more prospects and ultimately more business and discuss whether it would work for you as well.

Or you can simply sit back and wait to see if the Internet really is the next big fad? The question is, are you willing to risk the future success of your business by sitting on the sideline?

Is Your Website Too Pretty?

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If it is, lucky you, unless of course the pretty factor is wiping out your ability to be found by potential clients on the Internet. You’ve all seen the sites that have the incredibly cool graphics on their home page, the pictures that change, the flash movie or intro you have to watch before you enter the actual site. Well the ironic part is these cool features may be actually impeding your ability to get found by potential clients.

Yep, Google doesn’t see the flash movie that plays, it cannot tell what the cool pictures are and pretty has absolutely zero ranking factor with Google. Yet this is exactly what many business owners get sold on when getting a site designed. Sure, it’s nice to have a cool site, but who cares if no one ever sees it?

Think of it this way; imagine having the best kitchen in your home that you could possibly have, quite possibly the best kitchen in North America. Imagine the granite counter tops, the beautiful cabinetry, an incredible island with a stainless steel gas stove built right in, all the luxuries, all the amenities, simply a beautiful, pretty kitchen. So beautiful that Architectural Digest would die to come see it, to take photos of it to show others, but ironically only people you specifically invite into your home ever get to view it. It makes you happy when you are in it, but 99.9999999999% of the population will never ever know about it. Does this sound like your site?

Now depending on your business, pretty may be a factor, ultimately a website is a tool to attract more clients, inform potential and current clients, and to provide information about what your company does. While we still run into many websites that are simply tired old online promotional material converted from old paper style brochures, the companies that get found by new clients are doing so by providing information, focusing on key words that clients search for, and using their websites as a sales tool to help grow business.

If you are simply using your site as a place card to store your address online you are missing out. With today’s technologies, it is possible to create email campaigns that promote targeted items to interested clients, to build lists of potential clients that you might possibly convert into active clients, and to track how people are finding your site so you can focus on converting those people into extra business/revenue for your company. Perhaps most importantly, most of this can be automated for you, creating a sales person for your company that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and helping you to increase profitability. In today’s economy employees like this are invaluable!

If you would like to learn more or to have us do a free evaluation of your site, email us at bill@billbiko.com or call us directly at 403-870-4663. Wouldn’t it be worth it to find that a few simple changes could mean extra business for you?