The quantity of Black Friday print flyers in this past Thursday’s (11/24) newspaper held steady again this year with 32 local & national print flyers compared to 33 last year in my local newspaper, the Foster Daily Democrat. What was disappointing this year was the lack of interactive ads as compared to last year, be it mobile coupons, text programs, 2d codes, offers via Twitter or Facebook, mobile app downloads, etc.. Last year there were only “two print flyers” each with one QR code. This year there were only “five print flyers” with QR codes, three flyers each with one QR code, one flyer with two QR codes, and one with 5 QR codes. Or a total of 10 pages of the 608 total combined print flyer pages had a QR code for a whopping 1.6%. A BUST on adoption of interactive consumer print engagement to say the least!

Before I ask why, here are a few other stats of my unscientific survey: new this year were national flyers offering their own Smart Phone App to download, and four chains using WEB-IDs or SKUs for each of their products within the flyers that consumer can input while on the chain’s web site via their smart phone or PC. Only four promoted an opt-in texting program, eleven noted to follow them on Twitter, fifteen noted to follow them on Face Book, and 30 of the 32 listed their web address. To summarize, of the seven marketing channels tabulated (mobile app, QR codes, twitter, Face Book, SMS texting, web ids, & web Urls) not one advertiser used all seven and only two of the 32 promoted via five channels within their print flyers.

According to IBM Coremetrics Benchmark™ metrics we know smart phones are being used as the following stats were collected over the past 48 hours;
“ Mobile shopping also remains strong this Black Friday:
- Mobile Traffic: The number of consumers using a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site is holding firm at 17.04 percent.
- Mobile Shopping: The number of consumers using their mobile device to make a purchase is holding steady at 9.51 percent.
- Mobile Devices: iPhone continues to lead all mobile device traffic at 6.58 percent, followed by Android at 5.20 percent and iPad at 4.71 percent.”
“As part of IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative, IBM’s online retail benchmark study reveals the following trends as of 12:00 am PST Saturday/ 11/26,2011:

CONSUMER SPENDING INCREASES:
Strong Thanksgiving shopping carried over into Black Friday with online sales increasing 24.3 percent annually.
THE MOBILE BARGAIN HUNTER:
Black Friday witnessed the arrival of the mobile deal seeker who embraced their devices as a research tool for in-store and online bargains. Mobile traffic increased to 14.3 percent on Black Friday 2011 compared to 5.6 percent in 2010.
MOBILE SALES:
Sales on mobile devices surged to 9.8 percent from 3.2 percent year over year.

THE APPLE SHOPPER:
Mobile shopping was led by Apple, with the iPhone and iPad ranking one and two for consumers shopping on mobile devices (5.4 percent and 4.8 percent respectively). Android came in third at 4.1 percent. Collectively iPhone and iPad accounted for 10.2 percent of all online retail traffic on Black Friday.
THE IPAD FACTOR:
Shoppers using the iPad led to more retail purchases more often per visit than other mobile devices with conversion rates reaching 4.6 percent compared to 2.8 percent for overall mobile devices.
SURGICAL SHOPPING GOES MOBILE:
Mobile shoppers demonstrated a laser focus that surpassed that of other online shoppers with a 41.3 percent bounce rate on mobile devices versus online shopping rates of 33.1 percent.
THE SOCIAL INFLUENCE:
Shoppers referred from Social Networks generated 0.53 percent of all online sales on Black Friday. Facebook led the pack, accounting for 75 percent of all traffic from social networks.
SOCIAL MEDIA CHATTER:
Boosted by a 110 percent increase in discussion volume compared to 2010, top discussion topics on social media sites immediately before Friday showed a focus on the part of consumers to share tips on how to avoid the rush. Topics included out-of-stock concerns, waiting times and parking, and a spike in positive sentiment around Cyber-Monday sales.”

“This year marked Thanksgiving’s emergence as the first big spending day of the 2011 holiday season with a record number of consumers shifting their focus from turkey to tablets and the search for the best deals,” said John Squire, Chief Strategy Officer, IBM Smarter Commerce. “This momentum continued into Black Friday where the big winners were those retailers that delivered a smarter commerce experience with compelling, relevant deals that people could easily access from their channel of choice.”

The stats IBM did not tabulate and unfortunately no one else will easily tabulate are the net effect of this year’s Black Friday’s print flyers had on retails sales, I believe they were significant.

Back in December, 2009, I wrote a blog titled, “2010 the Year for Interactive Print” where I stated, “It won’t be long before an advertiser says, why would we print another piece without an interactive or digital connection?” As much as I missed the mark for 2010, and for all we have heard about Twitter, Facebook and 2d Url QR codes so far in 2011, I expected to see more retailers using them in this week’s Black Friday newspaper, but we didn’t. What does my little survey again indicate? Missed opportunity? More education needed? Or is the effort in making print interactive not worth it?

I believe retailers missed an opportunity again to build consumer opt-in lists for subsequent text and internet offers delivered directly to consumer’s cell phones. Today still only some of the larger retail stores such as Target, JC Penney & Macy’s have text alert programs. From an educational stand point, opt-in programs are just one of the many proven interactive methods more retailers need to know about. Technology wise many interactive tools for consumer touch points are available today for advertiser & retailers to utilize as part of the media mix.

From the position of a Mobile Marketing Technology provider, looking on the bright side, there is much room for growth and education in applying integrated interactive solutions. Wherever the interactive growth is now in 2012, I believe Print Flyers will again continue strong with or without consumer engagement methods. Care to guess where the number will be within next year’s Thanksgivings day paper?

By Roger Belanger
Director, GossRSVP

Please send your comments to roger.belager@gossinternational.com

While Black Friday is still a couple of weeks away, the number of QR codes used in today’s newspaper brand flyers since last year has marginally increased. That is compared to the blog I wrote last year on November 27th, 2010 titled, 33, 6, 2, 1, 1…GO Print! It was a good benchmark and I will do another Black Friday QR use assessment at the end of this month and post results on November 27, 2011.

As a precursor of what is to come, I did a quick check in today’s Sunday newspaper. Of the 14 flyers in this Sunday’s Foster Daily Democrat there were 5 brand flyers with at least 1 QR bar code and 3 of the 5 brands employed a call to action with SMS as well as the QR code.

Of the ~ 248 total combined printed brand flyer pages there was a total of 10 QR codes, or ~ 4% of the pages had a QR code. While a few brand flyers placed a twitter and/or face book icon to inform consumers to follow them, there was ZERO call to actions via any Social Media Bar codes to join them from print or to “tweet” an offer to your friends from print via one’s smart phone.

If today’s flyers are any indication, Retailers are still not capitalizing on engaging consumers with their printed products. There is no reason to print another piece of printed material without a call to action; the call to actions for print is near endless. I.e., a call to action to join an opt-in alert program, to get a coupon, to join a text to win program, to view a video, get more info, to visit a mobile site, to enter an email list, to tweet an offer or like a brand, etc.

From the position of a Mobile Marketing Technology provider, looking on the bright side, there is much room for growth and education in applying integrated interactive solutions. Look for my next post on this year’s Black Friday’s brand flyers use of QR Codes & Consumer Engagement.

By Roger Belanger
Director, GossRSVP
Please send your comments to roger.belager@gossinternational.com

For Profile: click here or text rogerb to 64842

Ouch My Head Hurts is how a Printer must feel when the basic theme of all the speakers at GraphExpo was telling Printers they must become Service Providers, & do it fast to boot. While I believe many printers have taken this to heart, it was really validated by the traffic through the Marketing Pavilion that GossRSVP had exhibited in. I applaud the many printers walking through and saying, “I am here to learn, how can GossRSVP help a printer”. Well my natural reply is; we help Printers become a Multi-media Service Provider. However the key takeaway that I would emphasize to Printers is that other mobile service providers are knocking on the doors of their traditional print customers, offering them mobile solutions. With a GossRSVP designed to help make print interactive, Printers can offer both print and mobile consumer ad engagement elements such as text codes, text qr codes, direct qr codes, redirect qr codes and more to their traditional print customers and open “new doors” for them in reaching non-traditional print customers.

I think this is a much better way to explain it to a Printer. A little knowledge in this area and equipping their sales people with new tools will help assure customer loyalty, thus having taken a step in becoming a Print Service Provider.

By Roger Belanger, Director GossRSVP
For comments email: roger.belanger@gossinternational.com
For Profile: click here, rogerb or text rogerb to 64842

In addition to the large Goss International booth, # 1636, GossRSVP will have its’ own booth down the hall in the New Marketing Pavilion, booth #3866.

The Marketing Pavilion is designed to meet the needs of “highly experienced marketers & graphic communications pros that are, or want to learn “how-to” become marketing service providers. A complete one-stop destination for marketing education, resources, and networking, plus all the latest marketing and graphic communications tools and technologies”, (quoted from, Printing Impressions).

At the GossRSVP booth visitors can learn how to leverage the power of the GossRSVP Mobile Platform for both B2B & B2C revenue generation applications. While social media tools have their place for advertisers, the work horse common denominator continues to be the sms & http for retailers and businesses via direct consumer engagement by texting or scanning QR Codes. In addition, businesses are enjoying the benefits of connecting their own applications via API’s to our mobile platform, thus mitigating the cost of maintaining their own infrastructure.

Hope to see you there.

By Roger Belanger, Director GossRSVP
For comments email:  roger.belanger@gossinternational.com
For Profile: click here,  rogerb or text rogerb to 64842

Advertiser can now optimize their SMS spend dollars & reduce time by utilizing “Multi-Function” SMS text or QR codes that can be changed even after the code is in print. Now with just one SMS keyword, the GossRSVP campaign portal allows Users to change their promotion code function on the fly to at least eight different functions and three different queued alert functions.

Instead of leasing multiple SMS keywords, advertisers can now lease just one keyword saving money, while managing just one keyword saves time and effort. However the biggest advantage for advertisers is in building their Consumer mobile “opt-in list”, a valued asset for self-use or for selling 3rd party text & media advertisements. No matter what the function setting of the code is the keyword opt-in list builds as one list. In addition, naming the promotion keyword as your business name, further builds the advertiser’s brand across multiple touch points.

To learn more about this unique “new functionality” contact GossRSVP.

By Roger Belanger,  Director GossRSVP

For comments email:  roger.belanger@gossinternational.com

For Profile: click here, rogerb or text rogerb to 64842

What are Text codes?
Text codes are numeric, alpha or alphanumeric code used to identify a promotion or campaign which is sent as the “message” in a cell phone’s text message application to a business’s short code. The code can be the name of a business as well to promote its branding, ie., “subway”

What are Short codes?
Short codes are typically a 4-6 digit numeric codes used by businesses to communicate campaigns across all cell phone carriers. The short code is the number that is put in the “To:” field of the cell phone’s text message application. All cell phone carriers route the short code communications through an aggregator to the respective short code business owner to process the incoming promotion code, which is then routes back the requested information to the aggregator, the respective carrier, and then back to the originating consumer.  Click to see how this looks:

Click to see how this looks:

What are 2d bar codes?
Today, 2-dimensional (2d) bar codes are used to make media interactive. Today there are open market standard 2d QR codes and 2d data matrix codes which are the most widely used codes in the world. In America, QR codes are most prominent and most smart phones today come with QR code scanner apps or the app is free to download. Alternately, there are proprietary 2d codes requiring one to use only one type of code scanner.

How do I use text or 2d codes?
Just create and place a text code or a 2d code in an advertisement, brochure, article or web page and your customers will have a jumping-off point for value-added content. Additional text, photos, audio, video and landing pages via the Internet are brought directly to mobile phone just by texting or scanning the code. With text codes or 2d codes consumer engagement via ones mobile phone are virtually unlimited.
With the cell phone now being the ubiquitous device the timing for businesses to experiment and utilize mobile technology is right. Many small to large advertisers are now using mobile sms text codes and 2d bar codes in various marketing campaigns, events and for making print interactive.

Engagement for 100% of the market in mind:
When creating a campaign, advertiser users should create their promotions with 100% market engagement in mind. Therefore, the use of both text in parallel with a 2d bar code is the best practice.

If a 2d bar code is used, the most reaching method for a campaign is to place a direct Url 2d code with the “text to code” directly under it to a short code. Therefore near 100% of consumers can participate via texting, and the tech savy consumers, the 20% to 30% who know how to scan can take advantage of 2d codes can go right to the web. For examples of using both text and 2d codes please see our media link features, “picture links” & “more story links” at:

Features

Cost-per-lead-advertising
Advertisers are willing to pay more for ads that are likely to generate request for information about their offerings (CPL = cost-per-lead advertising), or direct transactions (CPA = cost-per-acquisition). These mature adverting data collection methods imply consumer engagement. Without engagement, or someone clicking on their advertisement, the ad is just information or an ad promoting their branding.

Become a Multi-Media Offering:
Printers and Publishers with their large customer bases are realizing that third party mobile marketing vendors are knocking on their traditional print customers. With GossRSVP Mobile Solutions, Printers and Publishers become a multi-media service provider to their traditional print customers. After all, all customers have media options, and the more low cost options Printers and Publisher can offer their coveted customers, the more loyal they will remain.

2d code Rule of thumb to maximize scan ability:
Keep the characters density low, and the code size in use maximized. For use in print a code should be ¾ to 1 inch square. The number of characters within a code, or the code density is most important. A 1″×1″ square with 20-40 characters will resolve on most phones. However, 40-100 characters will yield very small modules within the 2d code, as others have noted, making it difficult for many standard smart phones to resolve.

Camera pixels are not important, rather a macro helps significantly. With a macro, one can scan down to 2mm x 2mm sq codes with 5-10 digits. The last important thing which yields a poor user experience is low lighting conditions. This is the main reason why you will see all industrial scanners with a light assist. Depending on your cell phone, lighting conditions may need to be maximized for scanning.

A tip for maximizing your audience participation when using 2d Url codes, is to include the equivalent sms text code under the Url code. This gives you the best of both worlds and does not require the consumer to download a scanner with their first engagement with your product.

How do I Create Text or 2d code Promotions?
An efficient way is to utilizing a service that combines a media campaign creation dashboard, mobile ready content and web sites, an SMS & 2d QR Code generator, metrics, a reseller model, white label self branding ability and more all into one dynamic application. Recommend the GossRSVP Platform.

By Roger Belanger,  Director GossRSVP

For comments email:  roger.belanger@gossinternational.com

For Profile: click here, rogerb or text rogerb to 64842

The April-2011 edition of NEWS&TECH does a good job with its analysis of technology integration in newspapers & magazines. Their story on “Mobile tops newspapers 2011 wish list” is an ongoing confirmation for mobile technology integration. The top trend driving most interest at newspaper operations is mobile at 55%. However, today Mobile comprises a wide range of products, from simple sms, to QR codes to tablet application developments and more. For the full story and more visit, www.newsandtech.com

Contact GossRSVP to learn how to leverage our Mobile Technology Solutions for your publications.

By Roger Belanger, Director GossRSVP

For comments email:  roger.belanger@gossinternational.com

For Profile: click here, rogerb or text rogerb to 64842

At this year’s New England Newspaper & Press Association (NENPA) the fundamentals of many Newspapers, the “Newsroom” & “Journalism” were recognized as cornerstones of many Newspaper. Approximately 500 people attended the NENPA awards banquet at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, where awards were presented to the participating New England Newspapers.

GossRSVP displayed various methods for Newspapers to deploy mobile in 2011 within their Newspapers or as Resellers. Borrrell Associates research, presenting at NENPA, indicates 49% of business will try some form of Mobile in 2011. Over the next two years, “Ad promotions will increase from $0.5bil to $12.9bil, and promotions are to increase from $0.1bil to $2.4bil”. Borrell concluded and emphasized that Newspapers should be investing in Mobile in 2011 to position themselves for upwards growth.

Newspaper Publishers can learn how to offer Interactive Media and find new ways to Generate Revenue by contacting GossRSVP today. There is money to be found in your Newspaper Pages. With GossRSVP, we can help you “walk” into applying mobile technology, before “running” up unnecessary cost.

By Roger Belanger, Director GossRSVP
For comments email: roger.belanger@gossinternational.com
For Profile: click here or text rogerb to 64842

A great venue for the New England Newspaper & Press Association to gather to share past accomplishments, success and look to the further for Newspapers. Goss International a long time provider of Newspaper equipment and GossRSVP a provider of Interactive Mobile Solutions for Print & Publishers will both be exhibiting at the show. Show dates are February 11 & 12, at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers.

If you are at the show, please visit the Goss Exhibit booth located in the Clarendon room. New revenue generating solutions will be displayed by GossRSVP while new Customer Service solutions will be available by Goss representatives.

For additional details or to schedule an appointment at the show:
Call 603-743-5505, or fill out the form by clicking here: 

NENPA Appointment

By Roger Belanger, Director GossRSVP
For comments email: roger.belanger@gossinternational.com
For Profile: text rogerb to 64842

On November 30^th, FanVM announced the launch of Skechers email blast using GossRSVP as a partner. FanVM will use the GossRSVP Form Capture opt-in technology to harvest the Skechers fan club members CELL numbers. Participants will receive a personal message from Denise Austin with the launch of FanVM’ CSG IVR  partner technology every Monday for the next 8 weeks.

Form capture technology is a great way to engage & collect consumer opt-in information. Consumer who fill-out a form want the advertiser’s offer in exchange for the information.  The consumer is always in control, being able to opt-out at their choosing.

By Roger Belanger, Director GossRSVP
For comments email: roger.belanger@gossinternational.com
For Profile: text rogerb to 64842