Marketing|Demand Creation Blog: Thoughts on strategy, lead optimization, social media and the digital space

Thursday, June 09, 2011

Barcode This!

Back in December my company, Logarithmic IMPACT, did a little fortune telling with our "Top 10 Marketing Predictions for 2011," looking at some trends we believe will take hold this and in coming years.

One of our picks was a trendy new thing called called a 2d-barcode, which is really not new at all since barcodes revolutionized product manufacturing, distribution and package tracking and have been around for years in places like Japan.

I don't know if I've just become more aware of them of late, but in the first few months of 2011 it seems like their use has exploded beyond anything I saw last year. Certainly magazine advertisers are picking up on the power of the barcode to connect the print and online worlds -- it's a logical fit and lends some real numbers to the generally squishy measurability of print advertising.
As we've become an ever mobile-ized society I've noticed codes popping up on everything from theater promotional mailers, food packaging, plastic seedling tags (so you can scan the code and learn more about the flora you're about to put into the ground) to business cards. Back at the beginning of 2011, pharmaceutical industry magazine PharmaVoice surveyed over 500 people in healthcare and 48.15% in this famously cautious industry were at least somewhat familiar with QR codes (12.28% were Very Familiar). That sounds promising and suggests a bright future for the barcode in the marketing and demand creation mix.

Will 2d barcoding really be the ubiquitous marketing tool of the future? All I know is they seem to be great way to easily provide value-added information to busy clients and prospects on the go -- and all that extra engagement can't be a bad thing for the bottom line.

BTW, if you'd like to check out the rest of the "Top 10 Marketing Predictions for 2011," feel free to download a copy.




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Joseph Mann Thursday, June 09, 2011 Permalink | 0 comments |



Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Dazed and Confused

Dear friends, I opened my emails this morning to find a distressing message from Twitter:



Of course I do not believe my account was hacked in any way and have not seen any suspicious Tweets posted in my name, but regardless since just after midnight last night and throughout today my account at @JosephMann has been in a state of suspended animation.

I won't bore you with the gory details of how much time I've spent trying fruitlessly to get any kind of resolution from Twitter -- I'm sure plenty of people out there have had to deal with the same issues. Reflecting on this -- still ongoing -- experience I suddenly realized how dependent I've become on Twitter for my business (and occasionally personal) information. From a sense of apathy bordering on abandonment nearly 3 years ago when I first tried it, Twitter has become an indispensable feed of business information and conversation from and with like-minded professionals.

It is with a strange mixture of loss, anger, fear, resentment and some confusion that I've stumbled through this Twitter-less day. You might be tempted to say I'm addicted to it, but that's not quite it. In fact, when my account was working, although I regularly posted I usually only popped on 2-3 times per day to read, reply and post. I sometimes skipped a day or two of logging in without a second thought and I never checked it on the weekends.

So what's going on here? Maybe it's a sign of how far Twitter has come as a business tool, insinuating itself into the daily routine (for some anyway). And though it's still got a long way to go (hello? is my account working again yet?), I can't imagine how I would easily replace it with some other form of interactive, information-gathering communication. Google Wave? Interesting -- promising even -- but still a long way to go. My blog is whispering seditiously in my ear that I should update it more often instead.

Here's hoping I won't have to learn to be without Twitter for long!

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Joseph Mann Tuesday, February 02, 2010 Permalink | 1 comments |