Who Reads Texts? Do you QR?

Recently I had the opportunity to attend a webinar hosted by Bob Serling, marketing coach and founder of Profit Alchemy.  At this meeting he presented Mike Koenigs, author of Instant Customer Revolution, which contains real life stories on the subject of capturing, converting and closing sales with his new tool for integrated marketing, using smart online and mobile marketing (Koenigs, 2012).

I’d like to share some of the facts from Koenigs’ book, which were also discussed during the webinar.  I think these are significant points to ponder for all businesses and marketers alike (Koenigs, 2012).

• 96 % of ALL TEXT MESSAGES are opened.
• 88% of ALL VOICEMAIL MESSAGES are listened to.
• 69% of consumers will use a business if it is on a SOCIAL NETWORKING site.
• 1 in 8 people on the planet are on FACEBOOK.
• A client is 22 times more responsive if you follow up within FIVE MINUTES.
• Over 6 billion MOBILE PHONES will be in use by the end of 2012 and 15 Billion by 2015.
• 78% of customers use 2 or more CHANNELS before purchasing.
• 30% are using 3 or more channels (mobile phone, tablet, Internet, voicemail, social media…)
• Most small businesses only use EMAIL to market themselves.

A little over a year ago I received an email from Serling that said, “When it comes to marketing your business online, NOTHING compares to the power of email” (Serling, 2011).  He explained that email is used to generate invitations for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and just about any other social media, but he also suggested that businesses mix their media when appropriate (Serling, 2011).

The time for mixing media has come, and the need for diversity is enormous.  Many small business owners want and urgently need help (Koenigs, 2012).  They know that traditional marketing alone won’t work anymore, so Koenigs has created a tool that either they can use, or we, as marketing consultants can use to help these businesses jump headfirst into the electronic marketing age.

The system he developed can generate emails with instant responses, send out Quick Response (QR) codes, texts and instant access to video links.  All of these services are available individually through other companies, but it is expensive and frustrating for business owners to try to coordinate all of them to work together.  If you are interested in learning more about his system of combined services and how it works, Koenigs’ free book can be downloaded for a limited time at: http://instantcustomerrevolution.com/. (Otherwise you can purchase it later.)

One of the things that intrigued me, because I am not as quick as others with technology, was that with Koenig’s system you can fairly accurately pinpoint the demographic who is responding by the way that they are responding to your communications (Koenigs, 2012).

• People in their 20s scan QR codes.
• People in their 30s-40s text their responses.
• People in their 40s-50s reply on web pages.
• People 55-70 phone in with their information.

I hope this information is useful for future marketing.  For fun, I visited a free site and created a QR code for the Buy The Way Blog site (the image at the beginning of this blog).  Today I discovered that someone else had done the same thing about a year ago. Oh well, great minds think alike!  Anyway, if you have a QR reader on your smart phone, give it a try.  If you don’t have one yet, it’s time. You will see QR codes and contests with QR codes everywhere, maybe even on your soda cup!  Free QR reader apps can be downloaded onto your phone. Download one and have some fun!

You can create your own FREE QR codes at this site: http://quikqr.com/

If you are interested in learning more about QR codes and how to grow your business with them here is an excellent article: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-qr-codes-can-grow-your-business/

Resources:

Koenigs, M. (2012, July 1). Instant Customer Revolution. Retrieved from http://instantcustomerrevolution.com/

Serling, B. (2011, April 24). Brain Fuel Bulletin #15.