It's long been possible to prove a business's popularity by putting stuff in its window; newspaper reviews and/or a lot of customer's written comments could do the trick. Google's offering a higher-tech approach, however, with the release of bar code decals and a "Favorite Places on Google" program.
Google started by sending stickers to 100,000 local businesses. Business owners are supposed to put the stickers in their front windows, and then consumers can scan them with their smartphones and see reviews or access coupons.
A post on the Official Google Blog explained to people on the customer side, "This launch is part of our overall effort - online and offline - to provide you with the best local business results whenever you're trying to figure out where to go . . ."
And business owners should know, "We plan to periodically send out new waves of window decals to qualifying businesses. . . . If you weren't selected in this round, your first step is to claim your listing with Google's Local Business Center for free. That will help us determine that your business information is correct. Then, you can enhance your local business listing by adding enhanced content like photos and videos."
This program may not fare too well; it's hard to imagine a lot of folks walking down a street, seeing a sticker, scanning it with a phone, and then doing a little light reading in order to make a buying decision. Still, now you've got the information, at least.
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Comments
I'm with you...
Like you, Doug, I'm not sure this is going to become a big deal to consumers but for me it certainly won't as my safety and security store is online only...not sure where I"d put the bar code : )
QR Codes Of The Future
These bar codes, actually called QR codes, are picking up a lot of steam in Asia. You say you don't see a lot of people walking down the street scanning bar codes before making buying decisions but I disagree. Just the other day I was looking at car seats for my daughter. I wanted to get some more information on one that I was looking at so I used my iPhone to get online and read some reviews and more product specs. I see this as similar to using the bar codes and I think it is becoming a more common practice. If all of the car seats had QR codes it would have been a lot easier and the manufacturer could actually have included information that they wanted their customers to see or coupons that could have swayed my decision. I also see a lot of uses for this in print advertising say in magazines where you want to lead your readers back to your website...
I Received One!
There are many tracking
There are many tracking tools that are available to determine the success of an online marketing campaign. What is the best software to use? What factors should be analyzed? What even determines the success of an online marketing campaign?
Google...
The business section of today’s Globe has a very good overview of Google’s new barcode program for retail stores.
SEO and skewing results with scans
This barcode scanning will make it very hard for all businesses to have a level playing field in the SEO arena. Companies that are popular with the younger people will have higher rankings than those they do not frequent simply because certain age groups will not be comfortable with the technology. I wonder if google considered this in coming up with this idea. For example a dress shop for 60+ women is not going to get high rankings with this technique, but its customers want to easily find it in the listings also. This shop may take a real hit in the listings due to this new feature on Google. What do others think about this?
QR codes have been in use in
QR codes have been in use in Japan for almost a decade now, and with fantastic success. You can’t find a single product or advertisement that doesn’t bear a QR code on it somewhere in Tokyo.
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