Two dimensional QR codes have been alive and abroad for several years and yet, the U.S. hasn’t quite taken to them.  Customers and users still aren’t sure what to do with them or why they’re on packages and posters. The early adopters didn’t spread as quickly as other technologies that were more tangible.

Marketers must educate the public about using the QR codes, why they are useful and why they are integral to our mobile world. Perhaps they’ve been marketed wrong or not at all – there certainly was no debut like the unveiling of the iPad2 so the codes have largely fallen under the radar. B2B Magazine found that “1% of U.S. mobile phone owners and 5% of smartphone owners had used a 2D barcode scanner in the previous three months” (B2B 3.14.11, p.11).

The importance of the QR code is its ability to act as a bridge between our physical and printed world to the virtual world. The 2D codes offer a direct line to further information for consumers. Post™ Cereals, Macy’s and art museums now sport the codes as another way to attract their audience to the continued conversation (discounts, events, consumer appreciation, surveys, give-aways, contests) and further strengthen the feedback loop. The inherent risks of the technology are broken links, codes that aren’t compatible with users’ mobile devices and thus loss of interest. Given time to develop and greater accessibility this could be the new technology with which the U.S. finally gets on board.

Another windy morning in Chicago last Thursday ushered in an intrepid LoSasso quartet to The Drake Hotel. Awaiting LoSasso President, Scott LoSasso and Vice President, Mark Hollingsworth were professors from colleges and universities around the Midwest, plumbing the depths of LoSasso’s interactive marketing expertise at the 2011 Spring Marketing Management Association Conference. The talk was organized by Don Jones and resulted in great dialogue between area professors and our LoSasso team.

The presentation addressed changes in the marketing industry and what businesses are looking for in new hires, especially those undergraduates hot off the presses. Particular attention was paid to content driven interaction: the driving force behind creating a space for consumers to interact with one another and with businesses. Industry forums and social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare) have become the new quilting circle or local watering hole where information is readily exchanged, available and digested at a rapid pace.

The message was clear: the toolbox has changed but the fundamental principles of marketing have stayed the same. Developing a relationship with a client is still at the core of those principles; it is the way in which we enhance that relationship that has grown to include social media, SEO (search engine optimization) and the need to build a presence both physically and virtually for every client.

Frequent and consistent messaging continues to be of utmost importance but a close second is the need for silos within businesses to break down. More than ever, direct marketing and public relations are completely meshed together: communications and marketing departments have to interface constantly to maintain that consistent messaging for optimal success in their campaigns.

The discussion was also centered around best practices for hiring and what makes a new hire successful. Scott LoSasso initiated the conversation by outlining optimal job candidates that contribute to a team work environment. Incoming new hires are strong writers, positive team players, involved in an array of social media platforms, creative thinkers and detail-oriented. For more information about skill sets businesses look for in new hires, visit iMedia Connection.

Thank you to the Marketing Management Association, Don Jones, The Drake Hotel and all in attendance for a great open discussion about our evolving industry!

” ‘Cause you can look right through me, walk right by me, and never know I’m there…” Or so goes Amos Hart’s sad little song in the musical Chicago.  Poor invisible Amos’ verse embodies the challenges facing websites struggling to create relevant content.

There’s been much debate over the amount of social media we process as humans on a daily basis: are we so inundated with messaging that we are developing blind spots?  This becomes the main hurdle facing the advertising business and it means blending traditional with more conversation-oriented practices.

Consumers now look to companies’ Facebook pages before being directed to their home pages.  If you want to be in AllState’s “good hands” or reap the benefits of State Farm’s magical jingle, commercials are telling you to visit their Facebook page.

At the end of the day, something is marketed so it can be sold and if we go back to the founding principles of customer service, the conversation between consumer and company reigns supreme.  Oddly enough, social media in its cold digital form has resurrected the more human approach to sales while benefiting the bottom line.

Questions, concerns, praise and complaints can all be aired on a company’s Facebook page allowing brands to respond directly to consumers and establish an open line of communication.  What better way to get instant feedback while developing a relationship with the very people to whom you sell?  The concept of the “invisible man” gets broken down when companies encourage their consumers to actively participate in the discussion, whatever the topic.

Brand websites – for years they have been arguably one of the most important tools for businesses to connect and share information with their customers.  Vast amounts of time and money have gone into creating, maintaining and perfecting these brand websites over the years.  But with all the hype around Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, some businesses are left wondering if all that work was worth it.

According to an article written by Pete Blackshaw in AdAge, the answer is yes.  Blackshaw points out that while in fact the online landscape has changed; branded websites are still an important part of a business’s online presence.  The key, it seems is learning to integrate the website with what Blackshaw calls “brand stands”, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc…

Blackshaw notes that a smart company should treat the brand website as a home base and all of brand stands as extensions of it.  By having content flow seamlessly between the website and the brand stands, and vise-a-versa, you are beefing up your brands presence on the Internet, thus increasing the likelihood of connecting with customers.

The bottom line is that while the online landscape is changing, the tried and true basics of Internet branding are just as important now as they ever were.  By simply integrating your brand website with your brand stands and keeping your content fresh and relevant, you can ensure that your brand website will never be obsolete.

Click here to read the article in AdAge by Pete Blackshaw in it’s entirety.

Scan our barcode linking to Losasso.com

Almost everyone knows what a barcode is – it is used to collect information via a scanner into an internal system that then tracks the price, as well as other information, of a particular item.  Recently, barcodes have began to evolve into a way to quickly and easily share and transfer information about yourself (or whatever you may be scanning) with others, in the form of mobile barcodes, also known as QR codes.

According to Wikipedia, a mobile bar code, or “QR Code is a matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by QR scanners, mobile phones with camera, and smartphones.  The code consisting of black modules arranged in a square pattern on white background. The information encoded can be text, URL or other data.”

Mobile barcodes are currently being used in advertising campaigns across the globe (they have been using them in China since the mid-90s).  From billboards to print advertisements, QR codes are showing up in a number of traditional advertising mediums.   This concept also has great potential as a networking tool.  Imagine walking into a conference or trade show where each person’s name tag displays a mobile bar code that when scanned links to their virtual business card or company landing page.  Take that a step further and each booth could have a mobile barcode that links to a PDF about their products or more information about their company in general.

Although this is not new technology, it is just beginning to show up in the US as a mainstream form of information exchange.  Mobile barcodes are a very interesting concept, but only time will tell how useful this technology will prove to be in the world of marketing and advertising.

*To download a free mobile barcode reader application, click here.

Today Facebook Developer Ray C. He announced that Facebook page administrators can now embed the latest Facebook Fan Page activity to their own website.

Essentially, this means that users can connect with brands, celebrities, companies, etc. whether they’re on or off Facebook.

The technology is called the Facebook Fan box and it allows developers to simply copy and paste the code into their site and—voila!—they can display the page’s latest updates on their main site.

The Fan Box takes a minimum of 200px width and 64px height with all features included, so it can integrate easily into a website.

This has the potential to be a great tool for online marketers because it makes Facebook even more accessible for web users, which will undoubtedly increase traffic to both sites.

Already, industry leaders are jumping on the Fan Box bandwagon. Companies like Newsweek and Coca-Cola have begun streaming Facebook from their sites.

Everyone knows the Internet has given power to the people. We rarely find the need to muster together the needed energy to call customer hot lines, attend town hall meetings, or send complaint letters. Within seconds, our important opinions that everyone is dying to know can be made available for the world via the World Wide Web. They call us “user-generated content (UGC) creators.”

And we’re taking over.

eMarketer estimates the number of UGC creators will grow from 83 million in 2008 to 115 million in 2013.

Furthermore, the number of US Internet users seeing some form of UGC will grow from 116 million to 155 million within the next five years.

So the more user-generated content on a page, the more attractive ad space will be to advertisers, right? ….Well, not exactly.

“Unfortunately, if things stay as they are, this frenzy of content generation and attention is not likely to produce commensurate rewards for marketers or site publishers,” says Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst.

Most advertisers seem to be shying away from nonprofessional content, and sticking with more reliable material. The unpredictability is too risky, and the ad effectiveness is too difficult to measure. “Finding lucrative niches will require patience, risk-taking, creativity and a long-term commitment,” says Verna.

Nevertheless, UGC sites seem to be pulling a fair amount of attention (and revenue) away from traditional media.

For more information, check out eMarketer’s recent article, “Can User-Generated Content Change Your World?” by Stephen Stills.

Like most years, the beer commercials are going to rule the much-anticipated Super Bowl advertisement extravaganza. This year, one company in particular is taking the competition to another level.

With the economy in the middle of a recession, Miller Brewing Co. has decided to forgo purchasing a 30-second commercial spot that would cost them up to $3 million to instead purchase a one-second spot.

Critics of this idea are wondering how on earth you can market a product in one second. While the idea seems ridiculous on the surface, Miller has created a campaign promoting it, causing so much buzz that the one-second ad could potentially be as monumental as Apple’s 1984 commercial.

Miller created a microsite found at www.1secondad.com where visitors can see the ads that “didn’t make the cut.” They are also running PPC advertising in the major search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Live.com.

The initial press release announcing the one-second ad received over 1,200 diggs on Digg.com, and hundreds of Twitter users are discussing it (sure to be thousands as we get closer to the game). The idea was also discussed on one of the most popular podcasts, This Week in Tech. Even USA Today, MSNBC and many other major news outlets are talking about it. The publicity is just astounding.

Who knew one second could be worth so much?

Mike Hernalsteen is the Senior Interactive Marketing Specialist at LoSasso Advertising Inc., a Chicago based interactive agency where he develops comprehensive online marketing strategies for leading B2B and consumer brands. (See more posts by Mike)

In December, our company developed a fun holiday greeting featuring a video of our staff singing “The 12 Things Our Clients Want This Holiday Season.” The campaign included a printed holiday card with a message to drive recipients online to view the video.

In the past, we have discussed the importance of video and its obvious increase in popularity and use. Key to success when using online video is the ability to make your campaigns measurable. A strong analytics platform will allow you to track general activity such as page views, as well as more granular information such as where visitors came from, how long they stayed and where they went when they left.

A campaign with this level of measurability allows you to better gauge success, and more accurately understand user behavior to achieve better results in future campaigns.

We snail-mailed 321 holiday cards (18 bounce backs) on December 15 with a message inviting the recipients to view the digital version on our website. Here are some very telling numbers from our little ditty.

Pageviews for www.losasso.com/happy-holidays.php

December 15 – 0 views (the page was launched on this day)
December 16 – 36 views
December 17 – 178 views
December 18 – 108 views
December 19 – 64 views
December 20 – 14 views

We began to see traffic to the video the day after the page went live (Dec 16), coming directly from the friends and family of the LoSasso team.

Wednesday, December 17 is when recipients of the snail-mail piece began to view the video. 42% of our views on 12/17 and 53% of the views on 12/18 came directly from the holiday card recipients. That is a total of 111 unique pageviews in just 2 days. 12/19 and 12/20 added 44 more unique pageviews from the mailing.

Our staff also shared this page on social networks, bringing in substantial traffic (12/17 through 12/20) from StumbleUpon (16%), Facebook (15%), Twitter (8%), LinkedIn (3%) and others.

The length of the holiday greeting video is just shy of two minutes at 1:57. Users who came from the mailing stayed on the page for an average of 2:36. Users from social networks stayed on the page for an average of 1:18. Obviously our clients and friends who received the holiday card were more “qualified” visitors with a bit more interest in the content of the video than the users from social networks, making their average duration on the page longer.

Some more interesting statistics: 27% of the users who watched the video went to the ‘our people’ page to read more about the employees in the video, while only 6% from social networks did the same. This signifies that our primary audience was genuinely interested in seeing/learning more about their favorite LoSasso employees.

We also posted the video on YouTube. Though we do not have access to the analytics to find out where traffic came from, we do know there were 191 plays on YouTube and that this version has been re-tweeted on Twitter by non-LoSasso employees twice. We still collect an average of 4 views a day in the month of January for the holiday video.

Through today, we have received 193 visitors from the mailout. That is a 60% rate of return from the direct mail piece!

We were very happy with our increase in traffic and interest in December. As a result of this campaign, we received a call from a prospect on our mailing list who has requested help with her website and a more extensive interactive marketing strategy. Who knew a holiday card would be such a nice case study?

With a strong analytics platform, you can better understand your customers’ behavior, boosting the performance of your programs while cutting out the fat. Push for stronger results. Make 2009 the year when you make your campaigns measurable.

Mike Hernalsteen is the Senior Interactive Marketing Specialist at LoSasso Advertising Inc., a Chicago based interactive agency where he develops comprehensive online marketing strategies for leading B2B and consumer brands. (See more posts by Mike)

In a recession, people research purchases more carefully. They do this on the internet. If you don’t have a strong web marketing strategy – it should be your top priority. Period.

It baffles me that so many b2b marketers have still not recognized that they are missing the single greatest opportunity that exists today in marketing. I see it every day. People pay lip service to the internet, but they don’t do anything about it. Which of these things have you heard in your organization?

“We have to do more online!” or “We have to get our website up to date” or, my personal favorite, “We really need to tie-in the web.” All of these things mean the same thing to me. “There is no web strategy.”

Wake up and smell the coffee people. Marketing is already web centric for your customers, it is high-time you show up at the dance?

If you are guilty as charged, there is a silver lining – your competitors are probably asleep at the switch too. And since we’re entering a recession, their spending is about to dry up. Your budgets are probably not growing either, so it may seem like a tough time to address this problem. I think the opposite is true. Now is exactly the time. Put all of your resources against this problem until it is fixed. If you do, you can at least be sure of one thing – your company will evolve while most of the competitors simply limp along. Do you agree that you could get ahead of your competitors in this way?

Scott LoSasso is President of LoSasso Advertising Inc., a Chicago based interactive agency specializing in content marketing strategies and customer acquisition for leading B2B and consumer brands. (See more posts by Scott)