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It is clear that their usage is still in the early phases of adoption – both by marketers and consumers. A report by Nellymoser showed a 439% increase in usage of QR codes in magazines in 2011, illustrating an increased interest from promotional marketers.  A report from Scanlife shows a 300% increase in the volume of scans of QR Codes, showing in increase in interest from consumers.  A report from Forrester showed that, even though consumer interest is rising, adoption of QR code scanning is still only in the range of 15% of all smartphone users.  The Forrester report made the observation that a lack of compelling experience or content behind the QR code link was a key barrier to greater adoption.  In other words, most QR code campaigns are lame.

The majority of QR codes you see on products and in print advertising simply point toward a brand’s web page.  Marketers are starting to see the potential for finding more creative ways to use QR codes to engage their customers or improve their buying experience.  Examples of campaigns that are not lame include:

JC Penny offered online holiday shoppers the option to record a personalized YouTube greeting for which a custom QR code was automatically generated and printed on the gift card.

HGTV ran a campaign that printed QR codes on promotional materials distributed through Valpak that linked to a well designed landing page that offered entry into a sweepstakes, social sharing functionality, and previews of upcoming TV shows.

WJ King, a UK microbrewery, printed QR codes on taps and bottles that linked to a YouTube video of their brewmaster describing that particular beer style.

Sweepstakes marketers are starting to adopt QR codes as a technique for promoting their campaigns by driving smartphone users to their online sweepstakes pages.  In past entries, we have discussed how Bozuko offers an alternative to simple sweepstakes and how QR codes can be used to location-gate a Bozuko campaign.  In addition to on-location marketing, a QR-linked Bozuko campaign can be deployed via direct mail, in print media, or directly on products.

The brand awareness and return of a like-gated, mobile ,instant-win promotion with minimal hurdles to play can drive unprecedented levels of campaign participation.

The user experience of interacting with QR-gated Bozuko promotion is simple.  1. Customers see a QR code in an ad, or on a product. 2. They scan the code and are redirected to a mobile optimized entry screen. 3. They accept the terms and enter with an information gate including an email address and/or Facebook Like.  4.  They play a quick, fun game for a chance to win something interesting.   To see how straightforward it is, try out our demo game by scanning the QR code here.

We see a huge potential for bringing mobile, instant win games to consumers wherever they are interacting with your brand.  Check out how our new Bozuko Enterprise offering lets brands and businesses run unique, facebook-integrated, mobile marketing campaigns.

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The answer to this is partly subjective, but partly quantitative. A location-based business mostly only cares about getting exposed to the portion of their customers’ facebook friends that live close enough to the business to be potential customers themselves. (Let’s ignore destination venues like Las Vegas or Disneyworld and national chains like McDonalds). We decided to dig into the subject of geographic distribution of Facebook friends.

First, we did a survey of any research already done on the subject. Facebook tracks a huge range of demographics of their users based on the information provided in your account profile. While most Facebook users do not fill out their exact address in the contact information tab of their profile, many do fill out their “Current City” in the Basic information tab. An interesting paper from the Facebook Data Team looked at the number of connections between people in a given geographic region, weighting a greater frequency of connections with brighter colors, yielding this outline of the globe.

Very Cool Picture from Facebook Data Team

A more technical paper from the Facebook Data team went further, digging in to the relationship between friend networks and the distance between friends that had filled out their exact address information. Using the data, they developed an approach for predicting a Facebook user’s approximate address based on the addresses of their friends.

These studies are fascinating, but do not answer the basic question that location based marketers have:

What portion of my customers’ facebook friends are potential customers of mine?

We decided to crunch some statistics of our own, based on the friend networks of a randomly selected group of Bozuko users. All data was kept anonymous and all Facebook privacy rules were enforced. Bozuko users are predominately in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, but otherwise should be representative of the broader Facebook population in urban and suburban areas.

Bozuko Demographics

We compared the “Current City” of each individual in our sample group to the “Current City” of all their friends. We calculated the distance between the Bozuko user’s city and each of their friends’ cities using the Google Maps API. Somewhat arbitrarily, we decided that 25 miles was the cutoff distance that would determine whether someone lived close enough to a Bozuko user to indicate they likely shopped in the same places. For each user in our sample, we determined what portion of each individual’s friends lived within the 25 mile radius. Then looking across the full sample, we were able to calculate the relevant summary statistics. The answer:

On average, at least 45% of your customers’ friends live within 25 miles of your customers.

We think this statistic is pretty re-assuring. Given the average facebook user has 130 friends, every time your customer makes a post related to your business, it hits 58.5 of their friends walls. That seems like a good platform for building word-of-mouth advertising for location based businesses.

That’s enough stats for today. Try to keep up with Bozuko by subscribing to our blog, following us on Twitter, and liking us on Facebook.

Go Pats!

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One of the challenges that all promotional marketing must deal with is how to focus incentives on a specific population.  Paying for a direct mail campaign that delivers coupons to 1) people who are never going to buy your product or 2) people that would have bought your product at full price is a classic promotional marketing problem.  Sweepstakes and contest-based promotions face similar challenges when they offer a chance to win valuable prizes to anyone who enters.  Easy-to-enter, online sweepstakes, that are open to anyone surfing through can be a great tool for building your contact list and driving attention, but marketers need to be realistic about the return of such contests.

Broad sweepstakes may have a place in the marketing mix of large brands, but they hold little utility for location-based marketers looking to engage customers on site.  Furthermore, open sweepstakes are typically not appropriate for a local business that draws customers from a specific neighborhood or region.  Location-gating your promotion can create a much more targeted sweepstakes campaign.

The “text-to-win” sweepstakes evolved, in part, as a way to tie promotions to a particular location.  On-location signage will prompt customers to text in SMS short codes for a chance to win prizes.  By promoting the codes on site, marketers can limit entrants to the on-location population.

Sweepstakes designed for GPS-enabled smart phones can location-gate a promotion by creating eligibility criteria based on being physically in the vicinity of a place of business.  Setting up this kind of eligibility criteria can be made easier by leveraging the location networks incorporated in Facebook, Foursquare, or Google Places.  If you open up your Bozuko app and go to the “Nearby” tab, you will see a list of local businesses sorted based on how far they are from your current location.  This list of businesses is sourced from Facebook’s list of claimed businesses as well as user generated places.

There are a few ways to create the actual location gate.  You could choose to only make games visible to individuals in the vicinity.  Or you could require players to “check-in” on a social network in order to declare their presence at your business.  Bozuko enables a few options, including combining a location gate with “Fan-gating” – that is requiring individuals in the vicinity to “Like” the business on Facebook in order to enter.

Another approach to location gating is to leverage a QR code displayed on in-store signage or other displays.  Customers scanning the code with a QR code reader are directed to a mobile web page where they can play the game.  GPS and other geo-location technology can be used to help further tune the location requirements or even change the game depending on region.  Bozuko has begun incorporating QR code gates into our Facebook-linked, instant-win sweepstakes promotions.  To try out our demo (sorry, no real prizes), scan the QR code here with your Android or iPhone.  We have some exciting plans for mobile web that we will be talking about soon.

bozuko.com/demo

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That said, the space is increasingly crowded.  Giants Living Social and Groupon are getting challenged by Google Offers, collaborations between Foursquare and deal aggregators, and a never-ending supply of hyper-niche and hyper-local companies targeting very specific businesses or audiences.  The remnants of BuyWithMe, formerly the number 3 in the industry, were acquired last month after being unable to continue to fund their growth-by-acquisition strategy.  It seems that there may be some limit to 1) how many deals the market can consume and 2) how many businesses can continue to see value in promotions based on deep discounts.   Bozuko’s CEO, Jake Epstein, talked to the Boston Business Journal on the topic last week.

We have blogged before about the right and wrong reasons to explore group discounting.  The glut of deals in the industry suggest that not all businesses are discounting for the right reasons.  A few months back, Inc Magazine had a nice piece on the 10 Pros and Cons of Using Groupon.  In short, promotions based on highly publicized deep discounts can be effective in creating a one-time surge of new customers.   Beyond this surge, businesses need to design promotions that help retain and upsell their customers by creating a lasting engagement.

Creating a promotion based on a contest or game can be very effective at engaging customers.  When games are linked to social networks like Facebook, businesses can leverage the added visibility of their customers’ social graph and develop lasting communication channels to their customer base.  Bozuko lets brands and businesses create promotions based on instant win games linked to Facebook that customers play on their smartphones.  By optimizing the game experience for mobile phones, Bozuko is unique in its ability to let businesses engage with customers while they are on-location. 

See how Bozuko can work for your brand or business immediately by logging in and building a promotion in minutes.  Click here to give it a try.

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1. Keep variable costs of your giveaway low.  This does not mean you should be cheap – just that you should think creatively about what you can give away that does not cost substantially more than the additional revenue you would add from attracting a new customer.  For some businesses, it could be a free iPad.  For others it could be a $1 Amazon song download.

The best giveaways are those that cost you NOTHING in terms of variable cost.  Free movie ticket, Free Yoga Class, No Cover charge, Free parking.  All of these things may represent lost revenue opportunity, but didn’t cost you a thing.  Free fountain soda, upgrade from small to large pizza, upgrade from standard to deluxe car wash, may cost a few cents.  If you brainstorm for a few minutes, you will find something valuable you can giveaway that doesn’t take much – if any – money out of your pocket.

“But wait,” you may ask, “why would I want to miss out on that revenue?”  The only rational reason is that if you CAN MAKE MORE MONEY by doing so.  This is possible if your promotion is so fun that it encourages people to come back regardless of whether they won or lost.  Even cooler, is when you design your promotional giveaways to drag revenue from complementary goods.

2. Drag revenue from complementary goods.  Many things that you give away are destined to be consumed with complimentary goods.  For instance if you give away 1 free movie pass – odds are that person will bring a friend (paying full price).  And they certainly are likely to buy a popcorn and soda (at full price).  Or you give away 1 free large popcorn – which is physically impossible to consume without a beverage (purchased at full price).  A pub gives away free hot wings – requiring (full priced) beer.   There are many examples of how to leverage complementary goods in building profit into promotional giveaways.  If necessary, you can force complements within the prize description – e.g. free coke with purchase of large sub.

While giving something away may mean lost revenue opportunity if that person was going to buy the product anyway, you can ensure that each giveaway actually drags along profitable business.  If you find the right formula, you can afford to increase the number of giveaways which will make your campaign even more exciting and lead to more customers who come just to play.

3. Give away something – don’t discount your core product.  One of the well known drawbacks of discounts is that customers get trained to expect them.  It is better to give something away entirely than it is to offer “50% off.”  If you can’t give away something in its entirety, give away a set amount of credit.  $25 of free merchandise with purchase of $25 or more.    Or, buy 1, get 1 free.  Groupon has started doing this with most of their deals because one of their (many) criticisms was that they train their new-found consumers to expect a very low price making it hard to convert them to full paying customers.  You want your customers who win a prize to return because 1) they had a great experience and 2) they have a chance to win again.

There are other elements to a great promotion.  Great promotions need to be fun, need to leverage your brand, and need to tap into social networks  – all of which we believe Bozuko is unparalleled in its ability to help you with.  Use these 3 keys to economical giveaways to design great Bozuko promotions.

If you are having trouble thinking of what to give away, let us know (by emailing or replying to this blog) and we’d be glad to brainstorm.

If you haven’t checked out our free mobile app for iPhone and Android yet, you need to.  If you are a business and you haven’t checked out our Free Beta Program, you need to.  Even if you are not ready to launch a campaign, just play with our easy-to-use campaign builder and let us know what you think (you need to be an admin of a Facebook page with a place associated with it).

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BOZUKO CONNECTS BUSINESSES TO CUSTOMERS WITH INSTANT WIN GAMES ON MOBILE PHONES

Bozuko makes mobile – social marketing campaigns simple, affordable, and virally addictive.

MEDFORD, Massachusetts, October 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Bozuko, Inc., whose platform lets brands and businesses build marketing promotions based on instant win games for mobile phones, today announced that Bozuko Beta is now publicly available.  In 2 months of private Beta with eight Boston-area businesses, the Bozuko App has been downloaded by over 2000 users who have played over 60,000 times, winning close to 5000 prizes.

“We built Bozuko to enable social-mobile-location based marketing promotions that appeal to mainstream smart phone users,” said Jake Epstein, CEO of Bozuko. “We saw businesses wanting to build their social media presence and customers craving something to do on their smart phones, but at the same time we saw limited engagement with existing location-based platforms.  Bozuko taps into the widespread appeal of instant win games with a platform that lets businesses build fun, mobile marketing campaigns as simply as they would create online party invitations.”

Bozuko’s early Beta customers range from restaurants to parking garages to gas stations to sports venues.  Minor League Baseball team, The Lowell Spinners, launched a Bozuko campaign in August.  “We are always looking to reach new consumers and realize the important role social media plays in expanding our customer base,” said Jon Boswell, Director of Media Relations for the Spinners.  “Bozuko has allowed us to generate over 200,000 appearances in Facebook news feeds as fans played to win Spinners’ prizes. Our likes increased and our check-ins jumped exponentially.  With consumers placing increasing value on word-of-mouth recommendations, Bozuko allowed us to substantially increase our social presence”

With Bozuko Beta publicly available, businesses can use the basic service through November 30th for free.  After the beta period, there will be a free version and a premium service for more customized campaigns.  For more information on Bozuko Beta, email info@bozuko.com or login to Bozuko to launch your own game. 

The Bozuko App is free in the iPhone and Android stores. 

About Bozuko

Bozuko connects brands and businesses with their customers through instant win games on smart phones.  Offering a simple to use, online game builder and free iPhone and Android Apps, Bozuko simplifies the process of running social network integrated, location-aware, mobile marketing campaigns.  For more information about Massachusetts-based Bozuko, visit www.bozuko.com.

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The growth of smart phone use has increased the importance of mobile marketing with 1) Location based services enabling users to more easily identify nearby businesses of interest (and businesses to better target nearby users); 2) social networking tools offering apps optimized for mobile browsing; and 3) internet enabled phones that enable users to check email and surf the web while on the go.   Location based businesses in particular need to be considering how to connect with their customers on their mobile phones.  Here are some basic tactics to consider when developing a mobile marketing strategy without breaking the bank.

1.  Mobile optimize your email newsletters
In 2011, consumers are spending more time surfing and checking email on their phone than they do on their computer.  If you regularly send an email newsletter, take the time to consider how it looks on an iPhone and Android.  Optimizing email for mobile is a bit of an art, but some basic design strategies will prevent you from delivering a message that is unreadable on common mobile devices.  This blog from Bronto offers some basic strategies for email design.  In short, keep your newsletter simple – light on images, heavy on well written, interesting content.  Good email newsletters are great marketing.  But if you don’t currently have one, instead of spending your time ramping up a good one, consider first scaling up your Facebook posting activity and mobile optimizing your website.

2. Keep up a steady stream of activity on Facebook
A May 2011 study from Flurry Analytics showed that smart phone users spend approximately 1/3 of their mobile surfing time on social networking apps like Facebook.  Once a business or brand invests in building a healthy fanbase, they need to keep them engaged with regular, interesting, and valuable news feed posts.   Make sure you are getting your share of your customers’ attention as they play with Facebook on their mobile phones.

3. Claim your Google place
Google maps is one of most popular location enabled apps out there.  Increasingly, it is how smart phone users search for nearby businesses, evaluate their options, and plan where to go.  Businesses can claim their Google places entry for free  – customizing their entry with offers, video and most importantly, a link to their website.  The ability to impress potential customers with a well designed, helpful, mobile optimized website can differentiate you from the competitor down the street that has not spent the time to claim their place.

4. Mobile optimize your website
Again, users are spending more time surfing on their mobile devices than they are on their computers.  You need to make sure your website is readable on smart phone screens.  If you outsource the development of your site, consider creating a mobile version that is the default for mobile phone users.  If not, make sure your site avoids common mobile pitfalls – no flash, light on images, and clearly defined navigation designed for touch screens.

5. Engage your customers on their phones when they are at your business
Consider whether your business lends itself toward running mobile based promotions for on-location or nearby customers.  Apps like Shopkick can create new incentives for browsing your merchandise.  Game based apps like Scvngr can give your customers new reasons to visit your store.  Discounts and deals from Foursquare and Google can leverage location to present promotional discounts and loyalty programs to potential customers.  And there is this genius new concept from Bozuko that lets a business create simple instant win games that give in-store or nearby customers the chance to win prizes in return for Liking the business or checking in on Facebook.

No matter what type of business or brand you are marketing, you need to think mobile.  These basic tactics are great starting points for smaller businesses not yet thinking mobile as well as must-haves for larger businesses already experimenting with more sophisticated mobile campaigns.

Bozuko continues to roll out in the greater Boston area by invitation only.  New this week, stop by to gas up at the Route 128 Gulf stations in Newton and Lexington and play for a chance to win great prizes.

Visit Bozuko for Business to learn more about how we are helping businesses get more out of their promotions dollar. Try to keep up with Bozuko by subscribing to our blog, following us on Twitter, and liking us on Facebook.

Download our iPhone or Android apps today for a chance to win some great prizes.

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For businesses who had been interested in driving Facebook check-ins, all this means is that instead of your customers posting:

They will post something like:

This is similar to the way twitter works today.  The challenge will be to get users to spend the extra few minutes to comment (hopefully positively) about their business.   This does not radically change the way Bozuko or other apps that leverage Facebook’s user network and business pages.  When “checking-in” using Bozuko, instead of creating a post like:

we will create a post:

Customers playing Bozuko at your business will still broadcast their interest to their friends.  One of our theories at Bozuko is that customers are more willing to engage with businesses via Facebook when 1) they are in the store and 2) you offer something valuable to them.  It is not all that surprising that Facebook felt there was insufficient usage of places to justify continue supporting on their app, because users got little value from just checking in.

So what about the apps like Foursquare, GoWalla, and Google+ still support check-ins?  Over time, Bozuko will consider supporting additional applications.  For now, we believe that the 750 Million global Facebook users and the well established infrastructure for businesses to develop Pages to connect with their customers is worth us focusing on.

Bozuko continues to roll out in the greater Boston area by invitation only.  Last week we launched at: Margaritas in Lexington, the Sea Dog Brew Pub in Woburn, and Laz Parking at 125 Summer Street.

Visit Bozuko for Business to learn more about how we are helping businesses get more out of their promotions dollar. Try to keep up with Bozuko by subscribing to our blog, following us on Twitter, and liking us on Facebook.

Download our iPhone or Android apps today for a chance to win some great prizes.

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