Marketing Potential With Mobile Barcodes
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
The Mobile Marketing Association, global trade association for the mobile channel, has published ‘Mobile Barcodes: an Overview for Marketers’ a white paper that explains how marketers can leverage mobile barcodes to give their customers access to information, multi-media content, promotional opportunities, retail store locations, discounts and coupons, samples and more.
“Mobile barcodes offer unmatched opportunity to increase brand value by adding measurable interactive functionality and richer consumer engagement,” says Nicole Skogg, CEO of SpyderLynk and co-chair of the MMA’s Mobile Barcode Task Force, which authored the document.
“Mobile barcodes make static media – like packaging, print ads, broadcast TV and billboards – interactive. Our white paper explores the many possibilities of mobile activation functionality.”
‘Mobile Barcodes: an Overview for Marketers’ includes definitions, attributes and examples of Mobile Barcode services currently in use in the marketplace. The white paper gives an overview of marketing with mobile barcodes, with concentration on cross media engagement. It also delves into choosing the right mobile barcode for your campaign by outlining considerations and examining barcode types and formats.
The use of mobile barcodes is growing and evolving rapidly across the globe. According to a study by 3G Vision, the US is showing mobile barcode usage nearly doubling in the first quarter of 2011 alone. As marketers become more savvy and adopt best practices, growth is expected to continue at a rapid pace – especially as consumers become more ‘barcode knowledgeable’.
“The use of mobile barcodes as a mass-market medium for consumer engagement is increasingly prevalent, but not every marketer is well versed in the great potential it represents,” says Alberto Benbunan, founder and managing director of Mobile Dreams Factory and co-chair of the Mobile Barcode Task Force. “This white paper is intended for marketers who are beginning or refining their mobile barcode consumer activation journey to learn how to best make it work for their mobile campaigns.”
A service provider matrix identifies the attributes of different code types, ranging from source code availability and code activation requirements, to mobile barcode customization, marketing platform connection and analytics. The paper additionally touches on barcode resolution models.
“The MMA created this document to educate the industry on the exciting potential of mobile barcodes, and to encourage marketers to experiment,” says Michael Becker, MMA managing director, North America. “We invite companies using mobile barcodes in their campaigns to share their experiences and best practices to influence and help direct future MMA guidance.”
The white paper also outlines current industry best practices, which include creating a compelling experience; telling consumers why and how to engage; setting up your campaign to collect meaningful data; how to measure success; reducing the complexity of your code; optimizing for mobile; testing your code; and more.
“Mobile Barcodes: an Overview for Marketers” was created by the Mobile Barcode Task Force of the MMA Mobile Commerce Committee. ‘Mobile Barcodes: an Overview for Marketers’ can be viewed here.
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