QR Marketing!

Up until recently I had no clue what a QR code was!

Sure I saw them! Just really didn’t pay much attention to them. I figured just like UPC bar codes, they were primarily used for tracking and sales.

And, to be totally honest up until a few weeks ago, I really didn’t give a second notice to these types of tracking mechanisms.

Yet, and of all places to see how this type of tracking can be used, I stumbled upon it my sons Boy Scout meeting.

One of the scouts had brought in their collection of badges and one of them had a QR code as the design. I thought how odd.

John said to me, “Mr. Anspach use your phone to scan it?”

I replied, “scan what?”

You could tell he was taken aback, me the techie guy who didn’t know what John was talking about. Well, to be fair, I needed an app for that!

After downloading the free app…I positioned my phone over the badge and within seconds an image pulled up on my iPhone with more information on the badge. How cool!

A little history lesson before I tell you how to use the QR code in your marketing.

QR is short for “Quick-Response”! It was invented in 1994 by a Japanese company called Denso-Wave. It was created for the intention of allowing it’s contents to be decoded quickly. A QR Code is a matrix style barcode readable by QR scanners or mobile phones containing the required app. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on white background. The information encoded can be text, URL or other data.

Yesterday as I was catching up on Facebook, I noticed a QR image in my friends post. Okay, how odd, I get the scanner app, use it at a Scout function and now someone is actually using it to promote themselves.

I enabled that app on my phone and pointed it at the QR image on the screen…and almost instantly my screen shifted right to her Facebook Fanpage…hmmm, brilliant!

You could hear the gears in my brain start whirling at high speed now. As the proliferation of smart phones increases…QR images will be accessable to everyone.

Imagine, putting a QR code on your business card, or sales piece…the recipient can take his phone, scan the image and now have the ability to become a fan too, or be redirected to a special coupon, or website. The sky’s the limit on this.

Have you tried it yet?

Did you scan the QR image above? Where did it take you?

Would you like one for yourself?

Here’s the link…

http://www.likify.net/

Yep, it’s Free!

Until next time,

“Live With Passion”

Rob Anspach

P.S. Now, you can promote your fanpage with ease. Just put one of these funky codes on your website, biz cards, fliers and postcards and you have an instant way for people to find you.

Where do I sign up?

I just returned from a great vacation at the beach.

The cool thing was, it looked like I was was in front of my computer posting to social media the whole time. Nobody knew I was away.

Yeah, I know… it was wrong of me to trick you in such a dastardly way. But hey, even us marketing maniacs need a break now and then. So, I apologize if I tricked you. Although, it was so much fun…muwhahaha!

If you must I know I was in Dewey Beach enjoying the fun, sun, surf, sand and way too much food. I think next year I might have to take the whole summer off.

Well, I wasn’t without my iPhone!

I stilled checked voicemails, emails and occassionally poked my eyes into Facebook and Linkedin a few times to see what was happening.

One gentleman called me and couldn’t believe I wasn’t actually posting “live”, that everything that was appearing on my social media sites had been preprogrammed to go out at specific times.

I carefully explained to him that although I would love to be in front of my computer or tied to checking every post via my cell, it just wasn’t feasible and that it would hamper my ability to help my clients. And, that by having my posts staggered throughout the day I could live my life and focus on helping my clients make money.

“Where do I sign up?”…was his reply!

He had suffered frustrations from trying to post to every social platform out there, he was tired and needed a break. He just wanted to focus on what he knew best…and social media wasn’t it.

He realized that I could probably teach him how to do it, but that it would require time and he really didn’t want to come up with material for content, nor be distracted with trying to learn something new.

So as I write this, I’m also researching, writing and jotting down information to turn into brilliant, money-making, attention-grabbing posts for him!

How ’bout you?

Do you want to put your social media experience into overdrive? Are your frustrated with content creation? Maybe, you’re annoyed that you’re spending too much time glued to the computer and not enough time focusing on making money! Or, maybe, you just need a break away from knowing what’s going on with everyone on your social sites.

Yep, I can help ya!

Social media is rapidly changing the landscape of the internet are you prepared?

Facebook has surpassed Google in traffic. Yep, social media has trumped the world’s greatest search engine. Over 500 million users are actively engaged on Facebook!

Are you ready?

I am!

If you want to improve your social media experience, without all the headaches, without the frustrations, without all the annoyances or without all the sweat equity lost coming up with content and hours of posting every day… then you owe it to yourself to change.

If its frustrating, annoying, or a waste of time why do you do it?

Learn to change the rules!

Learn to simplify your life!

Click here to start the process!

Until next time,

“Live with passion”

Rob Anspach

P.S. I’m going to try raise $40,000 in 30 days, click here to learn more and how you can help. Tell your friends! The more people that can help the better chance this will succeed.

Three Marvels and a Dud!

I’m going to deviate a bit off my routine and share with you some great technological resources. Hope that’s okay with you!

Technology is great…well, sometimes! (Don’t ask my wife about her horrible experience with her brand new Bosch dishwasher…this high tech dud can’t even clean our dishes. A $599 paperweight is what it is! Very frustrating!)

These resources I’m about to share with you will hopefully save you some time, eliminate the frustrations and possibly make you look like a hero to some. Best of all…

…they’re FREE!

And, they’re on the web!

So, if they don’t work for you… you don’t end up with $599 paperweight… you can just decide not go to the site or simply delete the resource off your computer. It’s that easy!

Yep, they’re websites! Three of them…and they’re true technological marvels!

Gist.com helps you build stronger relationships by combining your inbox and social media sites into a powerful tool for resource and information gathering. Gist claims it will help you “know more about who you know”!

I’ve been using Gist for about 2 weeks and I’m still discovering more it can do. Like merging my Facebook, Twitter and email contacts into an consolidated easy to find, viewable resource. I clicked on one contacts name and up popped all kinds of information…like their posts, blogs, what others where saying about them, their pics and so much more. I really felt like a stalker.

Rapportive.com is a much simpler solution to managing CRM (customer relationship management). It’s only available for Gmail (Google email) right now. So if you have Gmail, you’re in luck and you can give a go! I unfortunately, don’t use my Gmail account much and didn’t have enough contacts (only have backup family email addresses who rarely use social media) that it wasn’t working the way it should. However, those that use Gmail frequently have so far loved it.

And this last one will really come in handy if you have a Mac and are trying to convert files to send to a PC or vise versa. I’ve actually converted movie files from my iPhone to a more acceptable format.

The site is called…. (drum roll please) … YouConvertIt.com

YouConvertIt.com can transfer any file into just about any other file with ease. Documents, files, audio, video… it can do it all. Mac to PC and back again! And it will send your file anywhere you wish it. Talk about easy! This is one of those no-brainer sites you need to bookmark.

There you go 3 sites that will save you time, energy, money and headaches.

Until next time,

“Live with passion”

Rob Anspach

www.robanspach.com

P.S. I’m sure you don’t want a $599 paperweight, but if you do let me know…I’ll be glad to send it your way!

The world’s most expensive earbuds.

Over the weekend I was surfing the net to find replacement earbuds for my iPhone.

I must’ve somehow got my original pair tangled on something and pulled them apart.

Maybe I could have MacGyver’ed a solution and fixed them…but honestly do I really want to use earbuds with duct tape, peanut shells and some gum holding them together.

So, there I was searching for a replacement.

Then, I found them.

What undoubtedly has to be the world’s most expensive earbuds.

Yep, at first I thought it was a typo.

I mean really who would pay $1,149 for a tiny plastic piece with wires that you stick in your ear to hear music.

I wondered!

What makes these particular earbuds $1,124 more than the exact replacement set sold by Apple?

Again, I wondered.

You see, for the majority of people a certain song quality is acceptable. You and I may never tell the difference in the highs and lows of the acoustical range or care about noise distortion. Yet, a pure audiologist will demand superb clarity.

My friends, this piece of technology is beyond the scope of what we might use in our daily listening… but for the pros and audiophiles using this device turns music into an experience.

I could go and on about the technical jargon and how this earbud is constructed and all the details of what makes it better than what I’m used too…but, I’ll spare you the boring details. (Frankly, I’ll spare myself from writing the techy stuff).

If you’d like to read about the $1149 earbuds… click this link… http://www.jhaudio.com/store/

It got me thinking about other situations where people buy the experience rather than a product.

My wife loves Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream. A pint of this costs more than a 1/2 gallon of most branded ice cream. It’s the flavor experience.

I was given a 42 inch flat screen TV for my 40th birthday and let me tell you…the picture quality is phenomenal. I wish I could replace all my TV’s with a flat screen. It’s a visual experience.

Sure you could sell customers on the everyday, ordinary and mundane, or you could kick things up a notch and sell the experience.

Until next time,

“Live with passion”

Rob Anspach

www.robanspach.com

P.S. Even in a down economy people still like buying an “experience”.

Buzz!

Ten days ago, the buzz started!

Everyday since… that buzz is getting louder and more menacing.

Usually where there’s a buzz, you can find honey.

That’s precisely what Google thinks too.

That their newest creation called Buzz will make them lots of honey.

Now, I’m not a big “lets try something new” kinda guy.

I need time to sift though, to sort out and pick apart new gizmos and social sites.

Sorry, just not that spontaneous.

Google is banking that there are less of me (not prone to media frenzies) and more of the drooling tech hungry “got-to-try-it-now-before-I-die” nerdy types out there to build Buzz for them.

According to the Google website, Buzz is a new and exciting way to start a conversation about all kinds of things that you find interesting. You can share videos, photos and yes, even recipes. (Do people still do that?)

If you have Gmail, Google’s answer to email, then you also have Buzz. And, like or not everyone person you chat with on Gmail is now following you through Buzz. (Nothing like having a built in stalking program!)

I actually tried Buzz on my iPhone and not only did it find my exact position, it informed me of all the other people in my community that were also buzzing. (Very creepy)

A blogger by the name of AccMan summed it by saying…”it didn’t take me more than 20 minutes of having Buzz plugged into my email to realize: I DON’T WANT THIS SHIT!”

Kind of profound!

Here’s the kicker… Google did indeed create buzz.

A buzz so strong that every media outlet picked up on the story… a buzz on Buzz.

Regardless, if you use it, try it, recommend it or flame it… you are creating free publicity for Google. (As I am unfortunately doing right not with this article, ugh!) And, that’s exactly what Buzz is all about.

Okay, you don’t have the distinction of being a Google or the money that comes with it… but you can create your own buzz for your product or service, just as Google is doing.

You can focus on your local area or think big and generate a buzz that can be heard ’round the world.

What can you buzz about?

Until next time,

Live with passion

Rob Anspach
www.robanspach.com

P.S. Check out my newest “Passions to Profits” interview with Chris Voss. Chris is a social media guru, business consultant and creator of The Chris Voss Show… and he raves about Google Buzz – go to www.robanspach.com/passions2profits.html to listen to the interview.