Are you trying to decide the best way to connect with your prospects? Which is better; email or conventional direct mail? Both mediums have their advantages and disadvantages and some products, promotions and audiences are better served with one or the other. Continue reading
What if there was a way to help your customers: place orders easier and get delivery faster and even guarantee that they order the right product for their application? Is that something you would be interested in reading more about? Oh, one more thing it lets you get orders directly without having to deal with the customer’s procurement process.
So what is the catch? You have to identify the customer’s current order so they can reorder nearly automatically. The magic is a QR code.
The Quick Response type square bar code is familiar to most folks in business. You have seen one version on UPS packages and USPS stamps and on some display cartons of consumer goods. The secret is a two dimensional bar code that allows much more information to be stored than in a linear barcode like a UPC or code 39. The magic of profitable reorders is in your use of that information from the QR code.
The QR code was invented by Denso Wave Corporation to mark parts going into Toyota cars. In Japan the QR code has found thousands of uses from delivering details about CD albums to assembly instructions. The standard configurations of the bar code blocks can hold from 10 to 4296 alphanumeric characters. These messages can be read by QR code reading software that is standard on many modern Smart phones or as downloadable apps.
If you use such a reader on the image above, your mobile device will take you to the following Mobile Page.
The beauty of this application for you as seller is applying your own QR code to your product so that reorders come directly from the cell phone of your customer.
Consider a couple of scenarios:
1. Your customer uses your product in their production. They get to the end of their supply or realize they need more than they have on hand of a particular material. The operator can just scan the QR code on the side of your package and read it on his cell phone. When your ordering information comes on the screen, the operator pushes a button which takes him to the your special mobile ordering web site and allows them to enter the quantity of your product they want and hang up. You get the order immediately, ship it quickly and the customer is happy and both sides of the transaction reduce their processing costs and delivery times.
2. You make machinery or parts that wear out or need regular calibration. When the time comes to replace or remove your part from your customer’s production stream they need an exact replacement quickly. The fastest way to get that exact replacement part is to scan the QR code you have put on the part. The information you have encoded can include not only part number and model number, but detailed specifications even special modifications made to custom parts and the date of manufacture. Your customer orders exactly the correct replacement part and gets the best delivery possible by just using his phone and your mobile website.
Modern Media can help you create your own QR codes of any complexity and they can be printed on packaging and literature for virtually no additional cost. Likewise we can build the mobile web site to handle these orders and provide your order entry process the data in the correct format to make these orders fly right through. If you would like to learn more, call or email us today.
Only if you want people, especially sales prospects, to remember you.
USP is the abbreviation of Unique Selling Proposition. What is it that your company does better, faster, smarter, cheaper than others? Or what is it that you would like to be known for. Not just laying brick, insurance sales or building machines, but what about your trade do you want to do so well, that people will remember you and call you because of it?
In most cases, the new prospects and customers will not be familiar with your company and therefore they will have to find a place in their understanding to put you. You want to create the mental mailbox where they will keep you. That mailbox tag could be “Fast Worker” “Great service”, “Innovative problem solver” or anything else you choose. You have to give them the tag or they will make their own tag which likely not be as positive or memorable. If you have already completed a corporate mission statement, the USP should be easy to derive from that and your sales experience.
It is very important to any sales effort that there is at least tacit agreement from all the management team of what the sales message will be. This ideal message will need to be given not only to sales contacts, but also to all the people who talk to the customers. Even the field people who will talk to customers or their agents should be aware of what your company does best and wants to be known for. It should permeate all the company literature and customer interactions.
If you can reduce that USP to a slogan of six words or less, you can use it on your business cards, your emails and correspondence. Customers will remember the slogan because it is the reason they hired you in the first place.
More than just a slick phrase or idea you should be shaping your company to live up to your slogan. If you are “The fastest tool maker in town” it should not take more than four hours to return calls to prospects. Your thinking and work routines should be adjusted to make the reputation you proclaim visible to customers, inspectors and other trades.
Like that old song, leave them “Something to remember you by”, your USP.
As Facebook use by busines continues to grow, it’s important to note that the professional look of your fan page can make the difference between begin able to “show face” and not.
Here are some examples of some name brand businesses who have done it up:
You can have this consistent look for you Fan Page too, and for a lot less than you imagine.
Please Contact Us for a free consultation.
“The web is dead, long live the Internet“…. read the cover story headline from Wired Magazine’s August issue.
Perhaps a sensational prediction, but it points out the dramatic changes that are taking place in how the web is used today as compared to just a few years ago.
As we know Internet time moves at a quick pace, so today’s prediction can quickly become tomorrow’s reality.
Some interesting predictions on Intenret traffic types:
See the full article at Wired News
