Starting at 12:30pm EDT August 13, 2010 we are starting our free 16-straight-days live webinar series, 90 min every day. Register at http://www.jwag.biz/live/jwag-live2-details.html.
The webinar will be archived online and available until September 4, 2010 at http://www.ustream.tv/user/jwagtv/videos
Now on with our Gold Nugget for today...
All week, we've told you about QR Codes and some ideas to build a buzz around this new advertising technique. Curiosity from the current tech savvy consumer will drive them right to your doorstep.
As a QR Code advertiser, you will find yourself in the position of teacher in addition to your already busy duties as jewelry store retailer. But our guidelines below will save you time so you don't have to wade through figuring this out.
So far, in all our previous Nuggets, we've not told you what QR Code actually means. Wondering? The "QR" means "Quick Response" which refers to the ease of transfer from a physical ad into the online world. The user does not have to type. All they need to do is take a photo on their cell phone and they are whisked away to a website.
We have 3 recommendations right now for generating your QR Codes.
1. Using your Google Places account you can print out the "Google Favorite Places" sign and use that in your ads. Of course that means your barcode will bring them to your Google Places account so make sure it's really well prepared. (This setup will be demonstrated during our webinar series.)
2. You can use the website Delivr.com to generate a shortcut URL and associated QR Code for you. It's easy to paste your mobi website URL into their system and have them give you a trackable URL, and an easy to use automatic printout for you. No thinking needed! What they create for you is suitable to put in your window or print on a postcard. Or you can give it to your graphic artist designing your next print ad so they can copy the barcode. The advantage of using Delivr.com is that they give you statistics on how many people scanned your QR Code. Visit http://bit.ly/DeliverQR to get started.
3. You could use a direct QR Code generator to simply convert your URL into a barcode. Our recommendation (naturally) is Google's QR code generator, but you need to be using the Google Chrome. Visit: http://bit.ly/QR4Chrome for details. You would need to track your own statistics with this method. The benefit of this is that you are not relying on some other company that might go out of business, and in the process seriously harm yours. This is the hardest option, but if you already have a serious online marketing strategy then this is the strategy for you.
Tech savvy customers will already have QR Readers on their cell phones. You will have regular customers who see your ad and ask what it's all about, so here's what you need to know. All smart phones have the ability to load QR Code reader applications; you just need to find the right ones.
We've set up a shortcut URL that will lead each person to QR Code Readers for their phone. Just go here: http://bit.ly/get1QR from your cell phone web browser.
It would be helpful if your own phone was set up with this technology so you could demonstrate it for them.
