Me too. Frankly, I don’t really like them. As a consumer or as a marketer. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me explain.

QR Code for my friend Paul Swansen who shares a lot via mobile

First, here’s the basic deal with QR Codes.

They are one type of 2D mobile barcode; there are many other types (Microsoft Tag, SnapTag, etc.) and they work like this: A smartphone with a QR Code reader app installed on it can be pointed at a code and it will make something happen on the phone.

It can open a website, open a mobile app store listing, start a video, send a text message, display a message onscreen or even send digital content to the phone. Sounds great so far.

Here’s why I am not a big fan yet:

As a consumer I find that most times the codes are little islands of marketing. There is nothing around them to tell me what will happen to my phone when I scan the code. What is my compelling reason to do it?

Also as a consumer, many times when I do scan a code it goes to a FULL SIZE website. OK, can you see the complete and udder stupidity of that? The only device that can even work a QR Code is a mobile device. Any action that the code takes must work on a mobile device.

As a marketer I am not a big fan because using a mobile tool that only works on smartphones leaves too many people out. With only a 35% smartphone penetration rate in the US and a 30% one in Canada, using only a QR Code is automatically excluding a vast majority of potential customers.

Also, there is a lot of potential for technical glitches along the way with QR codes that is not in my control. As a marketer, I want to make things smooth and easy for customers. As an example, if the end user has a crappy app for scanning that takes too long or one that includes ads on the results, then it makes my business look bad.

And, yes that happens. I was demonstrating a QR code once in a training class and one of the students who has just scanned my code to go to a basic mobile landing page I had set up just for the demo asked me, “Why do you have an ad for online poker on here?” Naturally, I didn’t and we figured out it was her QR scanner app that had inserted the app when it displayed my mobile landing page.

All that said, I DO think that QR Codes have a bright future as a mobile marketing tool. Once more phones come with high quality scanner apps pre-installed, businesses start consistently using them correctly and a vast majority of consumers have smartphones they will be awesome.

For now, I say leave the QR Codes on the shelf and use the tools that are more inclusive of all mobile users and work simply and reliably. Oh, and mobilize your website because you already have mobile traffic to your site, even if you think you have an audience that is ‘not really mobile.’ Trust me on this. I’ll do another post next week showing you how to find out what your mobile traffic is and share my shockingly high mobile traffic on one of my sites.

Additional Resources on QR Codes:

See my Mobile Marketing in the Wild post about a Cute QR Code I spotted at Jamba Juice. And, be sure to read Roger Marquis’ site 2D Barcode Strategy for tons of great information about all kinds of 2d bar codes including QR Codes. If you do want to dive into QR Codes anyway, check out QR Stuff (affiliate link) for building and tracking your codes .

Do you use QR Codes, as a consumer? In your business?

So, there are a lot of statistics floating around about how many people in the world have cell phones and some are slightly off (usually the number is rounded up). I want to share a reliable figure with you that I got from someone in mobile that I totally trust, Tomi Ahonen. Tomi crunched the numbers and has said that 67% of the world population has access to a cell phone. Tomi goes on to compare mobile to other forms of media and it is quite eye opening…

COMPARE THE REACHES
So lets put the media, tech and telecoms in context. If you use a fixed landline telephone, there are about 1.1 Billion phones that can ring. They can reach 3.7 Billion people, or 53% of the human population (if anyone bothers to answer the landline phone that rings at home, haha)

Radio receivers number 4.1 Billion in the absolute count, but are disproportionately in the wealthy countries. Only 4.2 Billion people worldwide are within reach of radio (of the population old enough to understand radio programs) which is still a very impressive 61% of the planet.

Television sets number only 1.7 Billion but are very evenly dispersed in those homes with electricity, and reach a potential target audience of 4.2 Billion people of age to understand TV programs. That is 61% of the planet’s population. Of those TV audiences, about 74% have a DVD player, 55% have pay-TV like cable or satellite; and 26% have a video gaming console.

Personal computers in the home are almost in half of homes, at 900 million in total – 49% of all households. Most are connected to the internet – but not all – 850 million PCs are, and they in turn have 900 million total internet users from the homes. Remember PC and internet users will add many hundreds of millions more from work, internet cafe’s etc.

And then we have mobile. 5.8 Billion total active mobile phone accounts currently worldwide, or one for 83% of the planet. While that measure is increasingly misleading even the real numbers are impressive – the unique user count is now at 3.95 Billion – 56% of the planet – the number of mobile phone handsets in use is 4.6 Billion – and the reach of mobile when we include shared phones – becomes 4.7 Billion real people worldwide (of talking and reading age) which is 67% of the planet.

In a very real sense, mobile is the widest reaching technology ever, compared to other communication and media technologies. It now reaches past poverty, past electricity, past literacy. And while the youngest of the major technologies discussed here, it is still growing by far the fastest and it generates by far the most revenue. Mobile is the technology of this decade, perhaps even of this century.

Everyone has a smartphone, or maybe not.

Now, let’s take a look at how many of these phones are smartphones because that is fairly interesting too. If you look around at your circle of friends you are likely to see a lot of smartphones and assume that is what the majority of the population has in their pocket.

Unless you live in Singapore, that is nowhere near accurate. In Singapore there is a 90% per capita smartphone penetration rate. Hong Kong, with the second highest smartphone rate per capita, comes in at 61%.

Everywhere else, except Sweden, is below 50% of people having smartphones. The U.S. is only at 35% and Canada is 30%.

What does this mean to you? Well, if you are doing mobile marketing it means you need to continue to pay attention to the technologies that work on all phones, not just smart phones. Text messaging and calling in particular.

It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of mobile apps and QR Codes, but the reality is that a small fraction of the population (unless you are in Singapore) can use these tools. Keep your eye on the marketing that works for everyone!

Bottom line in all this is that mobile marketing is not going to go away. Unless 67% of the planet is willing to give up the most powerful tool they have ever held in their hands. We all know that is not going to happen.

And, the tiniest little tip of the iceberg has been seen as far as the potential to build businesses, and generate revenue has been discovered. Keep your eyes open for the right match for you. It will be there.

Data Source:
TomiAhonen Consulting October 2011
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/10/7-billion-people-on-the-planet-how-relates-to-digital-divide.html

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/12/smartphone-penetration-rates-by-country-we-have-good-data-finally.html

What are you doing in mobile? Comment below.

Nielsen Wire recently released this upper cool graphic showing the US Media Universe that I just have to show you. Basically it shows a comparison between television and mobile devices. And there’s a ton of other cool stuff on there too.

You can see the whole report and a bigger version of the graphic here. What you can tell from first glance is that the blue side (MOBILE) is far bigger than the purple side (TELEVISION). This graphic is U.S. only. If it were a worldwide graphic that purple side might look like an M&M candy sitting next to a basketball.

One very interesting statistic from this chart is that the number of mobile phone web users in the U.S. is now 83.2 Million people. This number increases dramatically with smartphone sales soaring. A full 31% of Americans now have smart phones and it is predicted that by the end of 2011 smartphones will outnumber feature phones in the U.S.

Think it’s time to be doing something with mobile? Here’s an idea.

If you want to know more about what is going on with mobile marketing, I highly suggest reading this report. It is the Mobile Marketer’s Mobile Outlook 2011.

This 48 page PDF document is well worth your time reading. Please let us know in the comments what you think is most interesting.

Even a glance at the Table of Contents (listed below) is enough to give you a good sense of what is happening with mobile marketing in 2011.

Exciting, isn’t it?

• Mobile steamroller transforms content, commerce and marketing
• Traditional ad networks will clamor to join mobile ecosystem
• Mobile ad spend to increase noticeably
• Mobile tops agency priorities to meet client needs
• Associations look to support mobile marketers
• Majority of consumers to make use of mobile banking in 2011
• Verizon getting the iPhone will affect all carriers in 2011
• Anytime, anywhere easy shopping to be commonplace
• Brands advertising mobile content will have advantage
• Brands will develop deeper relationships via mobile databases/CRM
• Email is all about contextual relevance for mobile consumers
• Gaming moves from dedicated devices to mobile phones, tablets
• Legal analysis: Governing by putting a square peg a round hole
• Differentiation will be more of a challenge for OEMs
• Having a cross-platform mobile strategy tops publisher to-do list
• SMS calls to action will be all over traditional media
• Artists rely on mobile to make live music events more engaging
• Top mobile stats to remember in 2011
• Mobile SEM to become key aspect of all multichannel efforts
• Mobile social networking: location, location, location
• Mobile technology to augment what consumers do instore
• Expect testing of mobile TV/video monetization models

If you are excited by mobile marketing and want to jump into it now while it is still on the cutting edge, please check out MobiBlueprint. We’d love to help you get going.

Turns out she wasn’t the only one.

According to an article on Mobile Commerce Daily, “In 2009, eBay’s mobile gross merchandise volume (GMV)—the value of all goods sold—was more than $600 million. eBay expects to generate $1.5 billion in GMV through mobile commerce in 2010.” Wow.

Yes, it is clear that just through this one statistic, that people are more than willing to buy stuff from their mobile phones. And not just ringtones either. eBay is real stuff. Physical goods.

So what does this mean to the Internet Marketer? Quite simply, that you can and should sell your stuff via mobile too. To do that you need to start first with a mobile-friendly website. If someone comes to your site on their mobile browser it should serve them a mobile-specific site. This is the first step to capturing a mobile sale. If you don’t have this then you really can’t expect people to stay long enough on your site to shop, much less purchase.

Next, you need to be able to accept mobile payments. The quickest way to do that is through PayPal. It’s no coincidence that eBay has such great mobile sales and their primary payment gateway is PayPal.

Then you need to market your mobile capability. Put up announcements on your site that you have a mobile site. Include your mobile URL in your emails. Start a text message campaign with your next product launch. People can buy instantly (wherever they are) from their mobile with a quick click from the SMS message they got from you.

It is time to jump into mobile commerce…people are buying stuff with their mobile phones. Why not your stuff?

www.MobiBlueprint.com

Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who has commented on the blog and/or participated in the webinars we did yesterday. It has been so much fun getting to meet all of you.

To all our new members in MobiBlueprint we look forward to working with you to build your mobile business.

If you have any questions about MobiBlueprint that are not answered on the bottom of the main MobiBlueprint page, please feel free to ask them here.

http://www.mobiblueprint.com/minivideos.php

We look forward to your feedback.

Thanks
Gauher & Kim

http://www.mobiblueprint.com/success.html

Please post your comments about the report here.

Best wishes,

Gauher Chaudhry

Click Here For The Article

The article stated that by the end of 2010, there will be roughly 5 billion cell phone subscriptions.  That means that there are more cell phone users in the world then people who have access to the Internet.

When I first started taking an interest in mobile marketing back in 2007, it was very much in its infancy with really only the big corporations spending money on mobile advertising.

They were spending millions of dollars a year on mobile marketing for branding purposes and ROI was not really on their radar at the time.

Fast forward to 2010 and Admob.com is not the only source where you can buy mobile advertising.  Dozens of the competitors have popped up that can provide hundreds if not thousands of targeted clicks every day to your ad campaign.

Mobile CPA networks have started up, giving affiliates a new platform to drive mobile traffic to mobile offers. (I am currently testing this and getting my butt kicked… obvious tweaking and testing needs to be done).

There are obvious weaknesses when it comes to advertising on mobile phones such as screen size, attention span, credit card information, etc.  But with mobile marketing constantly evolving at a rapid pace, it is just a matter of time before the average person will be able to market effectively on mobile devices.

Mobile marketing reminds me of the wild west days of early Internet marketing where just a handful of people actually knew what there were doing while the technology was evolving quickly.

Mobile marketing currently out-pulls traditional marketing by 20 to 1 according to some recent statistics. I think this is because a mobile device is much more personal and it is hard for the user to avoid the advertisement as it is with other advertising mediums.

I think mobile marketing will become huge in the next few years and marketers such as you and me will be able to benefit from this advertising medium and make money.

Your thoughts?

Gauher Chaudhry

Stay tuned.
Gauher

Fellow marketer Amir Darwish sent me this link:

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/11/06/mobile-cookies-advertising-tech-wire-cx_ew_1106cookies.html

Best wishes,

Gauher