Automotive aftermarket emerging  with QR Barcode

The automotive aftermarket industry is emerging into the dynamics of QR barcode technology to gain on and off line Brand Equity with some of the most innovative marketing programs ever to hit this industry.   With over 5 billion phones in the hands of people all over the world, the automotive aftermarket industry has tapped into the lucrative QR (Quick Response) Barcode technology for its mobile device friendly marketing initiatives  and 100% ASCII Character compliance.  Virtually every major phone and mobile device today have a camera and every major mobile device manufacturer like the most popular Android, Blackberry or iphone offers a Free Scanning app for their devices that allows the end user to simply take a picture of a QR Barcode and view it then or at a later time.   Imagine that, in just a few seconds your fans or customers can simply take a photo of your Custom QR Bar Code and Wham, they’ve opted in now and instantly entered into your database and ready to experience a variety of your marketing campaigns.

The beauty of it all,

It’s a CAN-SPAM compliant automatic Opt-In; once the pictures taken they opted in, and that can be leveraged time and time again for additional marketing if you include an Opt-Out or Unsubscribe clause that meets the CAN-SPAM criteria.

QR barcodes are uniquely created images that can store a great amount of information (meta data) and trigger several different activities in virtually every language, including Kanji;

1. As a direct link to your mobile device optimized landing page
2. Automatically add you as a contact in their address book,
3. In the display of a simple SMS text message
4. Dial a phone number of your choice.
5. Immediate entry into an event, a Give-a-way, a contest etc…

The variety of QR barcode marketing

options available are virtually endless and so are the many types of analytic programs to track and measure your marketing campaigns success.  As an example (and this is further discussed in Barcode Hijacking below)  During an upcoming or current event, the event team can strategically place the QR Barcodes on the Posters announcing an event, which can then direct them  where to purchase tickets in advance (pre event discounts etc..), the schedule of events, a map to a specific booth etc…  Now the strategy changes, once in the event there could be new displays of your QR barcode and some different marketing messages, like Special offers for attendees only, Specific Platinum Sponsor QR Barcodes for their unique event activities etc..     With my analytic data I am able to determine where each and every scan was done; how many scanned my exterior events and from which location, where they browsed after, ticket sales and,  if they attended (because I have their IP address, even their operating system version and browser version) I can see what interior QR Codes were scanned, by who and where they went thereafter.

During the 2011 Scottsdale AZ Goodguys Rod & Custom Association march 2011 Event  I had not seen every car we could as it was just overwhelming , our objective was to take photos, get the car owner or manufacturers  info and tag every photo with this info to leverage for our automotive aftermarket marketing.     I immediately went our local Custom Vehicle Wrap and Graphics client and we embedded a Custom QR Barcode with a simple marketing message ( about 8 inches in diameter) onto the custom graphics of our 2010 Dodge Ram:  “Scan Me and get 20% off your Custom Graphics Today!”  Our marketing campaign directed them to our mobile device optimized landing page (a required format to properly display on a mobile device) which required your name, e-mail address, make and model of vehicle and free flowing comment section to describe their wants and needs.   We didn’t need their phone# we already had it once they took that picture.   Our landing page prominently displayed our Facebook and twitter assets as well as some great crowd sourcing which funneled them in the specific direction we designed into our campaign.

The end result over a 2 week period of a few local car shows and just driving around:

1. 810 new unique IP Visitors to our website with a 9% bounce rate, an average of 3 page views per visit and an average site residence of 3.5 minutes
2. 810 Opt in phone # for SMS text ad marketing (SMS text messaging has a 97% open Rate, gotta luv that)
3. 810 e-mail opt in ( this was a true indication of how the industry was so far behind: mailchimp.com is one of the largest e-mail marketing service providers and they didn’t even have an Automotive category to benchmark for the % of opening  http://www.mailchimp.com/resources/research/email-marketing-benchmarks-by-industry/ )
4. 42% sales conversion on the whole and we actually created several new proprietary products
5. 36% Facebook Like conversion
6. 18% Twitter following conversion
7. Their vehicle make, model and out of the free flowing text we gathered the semantic keywords used to describe what they wanted to be later used to support further optimizing our website and extended keyword rankings.
8. Our Custom Graphics Sales expansion into commercial fleet Bar Code marketing (those vehicle graphics come in handy when a vehicle is parked and “Scan Me For this % off or Enter to win etc..
9. Our business has expanded in several languages
10. Our Brand Equity has an extended reach across new mediums.

Bar Code Hijacking, the unscrupulous:

1. If left unattended someone can simply overlay their barcode on top of yours and re-direct your potential customers to their site, or, as a prank, direct them to something unflattering to say the least.
2. There are phone apps available that allow anyone with a mobile device to tag and add content to any existing barcode.

Barcode reputation Management

1. Every barcode generated can be monitored for tags and there is a process for removal
2. We cannot provide physical protection for the over-lay

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