Are QR codes working?

I am glad to find out that a lot fewer females are using QR codes than males according to the blog, no wonder I seldom noticed QR codes around me. As a result, I immediately found myself lack of position on judging this tool. I talked to my male engineer friends and tried to get more information. They told me that QR codes are very popular right now and they are everywhere. However, since I never recognize myself as a technology lagger and I seldom use this tool, I believe that the QR codes still have long way to go.

I found one thing that is very weird. Most of the QR codes scans happened at home. For my information, one of an outstanding QR codes’ advantage is that it contains more information and more channels than bar code. Once you scan a QR code, the tool will guide you to a webpage. Imagine you are at home sitting in the sofa while surfing on your iPad, will you still reach out your smartphone, scan a QR codes and go to a webpage on your phone? It’s not reasonable for people to scan some codes while they can reach out much easier tools to get the information. However, the realty is there. People are doing this. It turns out that they find the codes majorly from newspapers and print magazines. Now let’s talk about future. If the QR codes tie itself to print media which is dying, it won’t have a promising future.

Are QR codes working?

Sure. There are many people in the world using these codes. But from my point of views, the QR codes should figure out something better as a carrier.  Obviously, print media is not good choice. The nature of QR codes being bundled with smartphone decides that QR codes should work closely with the functions of smartphone. I agree with Dave that most of the usage of QR should be outside. I read another blog Danyl Bosomworth wrote about QR codes. He talked about several QR’s promising applications which I agree a lot. One of them is “Map and Signage”. QR codes can help people find locations and directions. My suggestion is that the codes can be combined with GPS and map on the smartphone. With an easy scan of a QR code, people can get all the information of where they are and the related information such as restaurants and shops, maybe even news happened in the near area.  

In my opinion, the reason that QR codes are not that popular yet is it doesn’t meet people’s needs, at least not my needs. I don’t find any QR codes that are attracted to me to scan. Maybe for some events and coupons, I can use the tool to check the exclusive information. But if we want to push QR codes to larger audiences, we want to stimulate the interests and needs of people to use and only use QR codes.

Reference

Dave Chaffey, “QR Code Statistics” http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/qr-code-marketing/qr-codes-location-demographic-statistics/

Danyl Bosomworth “Marketing with QR codes” http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/proximity-marketing/marketing-qr-codes/

Comments on “Marketing is dead”

It is quite inconsistent that the author said “marketing is dead” while using traditional marketing methods to attract readers by using a blog name like this.

I agree that with the advent of Internet and social media, buyers’ behaviors are inevitably changed. Traditional marketing strategies are playing a less and less important role in influencing customers while discussions about e-marketing become hot issues.

E-marketing can be buying commercial spots on Google or other search engines, can be posting funny videos on YouTube and also can be sending promotion emails to customers. The formats are quite new and different from traditional marketing methods such as TV commercials and public relations. The new marketing methods are created based on the natures of Internet media platform. The essence of marketing has not been changed. No matter whether traditional marketing or e-marketing, it is and will be always about communicating with and passing information to customers. Companies still need to build marketing strategy to introduce their products or services, promote them and build brand images. The concept of marketing can’t be ignored anytime. Especially, since everything is on Internet right now, customers can be reached in many ways. Competitions have never been such fierce. Businesses need to pay more attention to come up with different and effective marketing strategies. What’s different right now is the ways to pass the information have been changed. Now advertising, public relations and brandings have to find new ways to reach their customers.

The hottest issue in e-marketing B2C is social media marketing. How to use social media effectively to marketing is always a question mark for me. Right now companies open their home pages on Facebook and accounts on Twitter or put commercials on these social media. From my point of view, companies’ home pages on Facebook are no more than profiles. Companies upload their products information and promotions on the page. But are these all about social media? As the author talked in the article, “word of mouth” is the key point. Market professionals need to work out how to put the “word” into people’s mouth. In other saying, we need to focus on creating connections and perceptions unnoticeably in customers and raise their interests in a passive way which means let customers believe that they love the products forwardly but not pushed by others, maybe by friends but not by marketing people.

What I want to say is that marketing is becoming invisible online. Since people tend to trust what their peers said much more than what advertisements said, marketing people should take steps back behind scenes. We should manage influence invisibly. We need to create an environment to let people believe they make their decisions on their own.  However, what customers don’t know is marketing people are actually behind all of these. We can create buzz on Internet; we can create public relation events by offering peers influences. There is huge space out there for marketing people to innovate and to become the “unseen” hands.

Reference

Bill Lee, "Marketing is dead" http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/marketing_is_dead.html

 

What's happening to customer behavior? Comments on "Attack of the Customers: The Pampers Dry Max Crisis."

I personally find this article very interesting. What I take away from this article are basically two thoughts. Firstly, how customer behaviors changed with the advent and development of Internet and SNS. Secondly, how P&G dealt with this PR crisis that hadn’t happened before anywhere.

Personally I have never called a complaint number because it always related to an impression of long waiting time and annoying lines transferring. I like to write down my using experience and advice on a comment note or book. Unlike me, there are a lot people out there enjoying their efforts to the products they use. They called the 800 numbers and wrote mails to companies to report their using experiences. However, with the Internet becoming the most important communication tool, customers’ behaviors have been changed gradually. People started to interact with the companies by emails and companies’ website. It’s becoming easier for customers to get connections with companies and gain information more directly and accurately. Then there is social network website that customers can organize their own thoughts and share with friends. “The word of mouth” can be like a coin with two sides. On one hand, companies can use positive customers’ reviews as a marketing tool to promote their products. People tend to believe more on what their peers and friends told them than what company said. On the other hand, just like the problem that P&G met, customers’ reviews which were posted on Facebook had been used as a sword that threaded the reputation and sales of the product and the company. The Pamper Dry Max was the first time that customers’ review made to the broad publicity by social networks. It rapidly got attentions and gathered customers’ who had the same concerns.

This “customers’ review” behavior is the new behavior pattern that customer adopted with the advent of Internet and social network. Before making purchase decisions, customers will search online to see reviews that customers wrote after their using experiences. Facing this new customers’ behavior, companies started to adopt their strategy to it. Just like what P&G have learned from the crisis. It’s always too late to get in touch with the angry people. Companies should get to their customers before they get back to you. Internet is the right tool to use to achieve this goal. It shortens the distance between companies and customers. Companies open forums for customers to share their thoughts, open Facebook and Twitter for customers to follow and update customers’ reviews as feedbacks to observe market.

When it comes to how P&G dealt with this crisis, I will say that P&G did a pretty good job. The nature of its strategy on launching a new product would cause some problems, such as misunderstanding on its strategy and its value. What I think that P&G did the best was that it didn’t go after those inflammatory stories, but focused on child safety and well-being problems. It’s a very smart move. On one hand, P&G built its brand reputation by showing its social responsibility. On the other hand, P&G tutored customers on how to solve the problems, which really meet customers’ needs at that time. There is one thing that played a very important role in dealing this crisis. Besides the criticism, customers still have faith in the brand. With this winning card in hand and some really smart moves, P&G also adapted to the new customer behaviors, which led to a very good result.

 

Reference

Paul Gillin, Attack of the Customers: The Pampers Dry Max Crisis

http://gillin.com/blog/2012/08/attack-of-the-customers-the-pampers-dry-max-crisis/

Comment on "Is Google Making Us Stupid"

When I was typing email on my iPad at the airport waiting for the flight to Houston, I never thought about what life would be like 10 or 20 years ago. While I was reading the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” I can’t stop imagining the time when people used horses and carriages as transportation tools and the time when people had to wait for several months to get a mail from a far-away family member, and the time when people were helpless when they found their hand-written library directories were ruined by fire or rain.

I am always fascinated by emerging technologies and how these technologies can change people’s lives. Inventions such as steam engine brought the society a new civilization. Technologies such as Internet set the society a whole new standard of everything. When people were thinking what’s next, Apple created a new market for music and entertainment. Technology companies such as Google, Apple and Amazon.com give people’s life new definition. The most obvious example will be Google search engine. Just like the stream engine, Google brought huge benefit to the society. Tons of time has been saved to design more world-changing ideas by just typing some words and clicking some links. The best information and the most needed information are provided in less than one second. People can quickly scan the results and pick out what they want and then take their time to explore the details. If we view the situation from the e-commerce aspect, Google provide companies a platform to reach out their customers effectively and efficiently. This is obviously a win-win-win situation. Customers, Google and businesses all find their ways to achieve what they want. The rule is defined by Google; people take advantage of the rule and gain benefit.

Go back to the article where the author talked about how Google changed the way people read and write and think, I have to admit that I agree with some of the points. Firstly, I like how the author can jump out from the time he was in and the place he was at and consider the changes of himself. Sometime nowadays I feel hard to concentrate on what I am doing and easily be distracted by real-time update emails or links along side the web page that Google thinks that I may be interested in.  I like how the author described people nowadays as “fickleness”. It makes me think about the situation of myself. I am more and more used to the high speed of everything and find myself losing patience in thinking deeper of a question because it is just easier to find the answers online by a click.

Am I the only one that adopted this new habit? Are there other people in the society who are also addicted to Google and Amazon? As a marketing person, instead of thinking whether Google makes us stupid, I would like to think more about how to market a product by using this change and how to meet customers’ new needs generated by all these emerging technologies.