WSI Webworks Blog - Web Design, Search Engine Marketing | Greenville, SC » Uncategorized

Do QR codes have a place in your marketing strategy?

Doug Fowler — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:12:01 +0000

Now that you know what a QR code is it’s time to determine whether you have any use for them in your own company’s marketing strategy.

Answer the following questions:

Does your company do advertising using print media, such as direct mail, newspapers, magazines? If yes, then you could use QR codes to integrate your offline marketing into your online strategy. Advertisers are limited with how much information you can provide in a print piece. A QR code solves that problem and allows you to engage users into your digital media (website, blog, videos, Facebook, etc.)
Are you engaged in email marketing ? If so, you could use QR codes as a way to build your email subscriber lists.
Are you looking for ways to grow your Facebook page LIKES? Why not create a QR code that drives people to your Facebook page where they can LIKE your company and get a special deal?
Do you have videos describing your service or how a product works? If so, you could create a QR code that links directly to the video thereby providing useful information to the user.

Once you determine that QR codes may provide some value in your marketing strategy, the next step is to create a strategy for using them. Your strategy should take into consideration your target audience, have clear objectives and provide useful and valuable incentives to deliver a favorable user experience.

Listed below are some ideas and considerations to help you get started on your strategy.

Does your target audience need instructions about the use of QR codes? Remember, not everyone knows what they are or how to ‘unlock / scan’ them.
Does your audience need to use a specific type of code reader?
Will the QR codes be scanned indoors or outside?
What type of material do you intend to use the codes on? Some materials may not allow for optimal scanning.
What types of information or incentives can you provide? Some ideas are listed below.
- Enter a contest to win
- Deliver a discount coupon
- Download a free eBook
- Talk to a live representative
- Take a virtual tour
- Demonstrate a product or service with video
- Download a free mp3

Don’t skip on the planning part. I’ve seen many poorly utilized QR codes that offer no value and actually leave a negative impression of the company. The most common mistake is that businesses fail to deliver value with their QR code campaigns. If your objective is to simply send people to the Home page of your regular, non-mobile site, then you would be best served to avoid using them at all at this time.

Get to work or your strategy or hire a digital marketing professional to help you with it.

In upcoming posts, I will be discussing implementation best practices and measurement / analytics…stay tuned.

Analysts and Web Designers Unite!

Josh Fink — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:11:15 +0000

As with everything, web design requires balance. Overemphasizing aesthetics will give you a cool trendy site which does nothing while underemphasizing it will kill your credibility. For those of us who work with numbers and results, there are some common mistakes made when it comes to dealing with those artsy “Web Designers” down the hall.

1. Allow your research to influence your web design.

Part of the problem between analysts and designers is the lack of coordination. Once you have your marketing plan set up with your data and goals, look at how people are browsing your site. You’ll probably find that the majority of your users will not visit more than 3 or 4 pages of your site. Which means your conversion architecture has to capture prospects in 3 clicks or less.

This is where your designers excel and will make your job much easier. Let them know what your numbers are telling you and tell them where you want your viewers to go. If they are any good, they will know how to entice viewers to the specific pages that you want them to read. In web design, the “short cut” has to be the “scenic route.”

2. Use your own ads in your web design.

People often complain about ads on the Internet, yet they never go away. Why? Because they work! Notice, however, that no one complains about the ads in Vogue magazine (which make up at least half of each issue). It key is integration. The ads in Vogue are part of the culture of that magazine, they are like articles of their own, explaining visually what is going on in couture culture right now. Allow your designers to create ads like this, and then put them on your own site. Let ads be part of your company’s culture and let them drive traffic where you want it to go. A great ad will always preform better than a link in your navigation bar.

3. Design your site for content.

Web designers have a hard job when it comes to content. Often, they are required to present a design, without any clue about what the site needs to say. Beautiful designs are created and filled with iconic “Lorem Ipsum” paragraphs. But, when the content comes, the design looses much of it’s value, because it doesn’t fit the necessary information. Whenever possible, know what you want before you hand the project to your designer. I promise, your web designers will love you forever if you can just tell them the goal before they begin. When that is not possible, be ready for the site to evolve. It will take time to slowly make content and web design work harmoniously.

For more information about web design and analytics or would like to talk with an excellent team of web designers in Greenville, SC, contact WSI Webworks.

Free Information

Julie — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:38:32 +0000

I recently had some friends move to China. They didn’t realize how cut off they were going to be. They couldn’t download Skype, which they had planned on using as their primary mode of communication with friends and family back in the States. They can’t access Facebook or Twitter. They were completely isolated.

Considering all the hoopla recently with Google threatening either 1.) to stop censoring search results of Google.cn or 2.) to shut down their service and branches in China all together, my friends did realize that censorship would be an issue, but what they didn’t realize was how isolating it would be.

For those who are on the wrong other side of the digital divide (meaning, you’re probably not going to read this anyway), it is almost incomprehensible how disturbing it is to be without access for even a week, but the situation my friends found themselves in highlights how vitally connecting the Internet can be. Iran and Twitter is a perfect example of free information empowering people. China has good reason to censor.

It did make me thankful for my free (as in liberated) access to the Internet and the wealth of information it provides.

(By the way, my friends did find a work around, and they are able to video conference now.)

Cargo USA

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:58:27 +0000

I mentioned in an earlier post that WSI Webworks was in the process of building a website for Cargo, a musical by Paul Field written to celebrate the bicentennial of the abolition of the British slave trade and to raise awareness about modern day slavery. We recently launched the full site, and we encourage you to take a look and learn how you can get involved in the fight against human trafficking.

For those of us who had the privilege of working on this site–at least for me–this was a life-changing project. As we researched the topic, we were confronted with the ugly realities of modern-day slavery. Like how an estimated 2.8 million children live on the streets and one third of those are lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home. Or how roughly 50,000 women and children are lured or stolen from their homes and brought into the U.S. each year for use in the sex trade.

It’s hard to type those statistics without feeling something, some kind of responsibility. And I think that’s the only appropriate reaction, because we do have a responsibility to educate ourselves about what’s going on in our world and a responsibility to help. Not knowing is not an excuse. In the words of William Wilberforce, the great British abolitionist of the 1700 and early 1800s . . .

“We are all guilty—we ought all to plead guilty, and not to [excuse] ourselves by throwing the blame on others . . . more immediately involved in this wretched business.”

Visit Cargo-USA.org today, register to attend one of the performances, and start learning what you can do to help end human trafficking.