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mong the 500 owners of small businesses who were respondents in the survey, 14 percent have a mobile website that is unique from their standard site. From that group, 84 percent stated that “they have seen an increase in new business activity due to their mobile marketing efforts.”

The consumer uses his/her mobile phone to scan a simple QR code at the cash register terminal. The terminal is connected to Seamless' transaction platform and the QR code identifies the cash register that the customer is using. Seamless' platform then responds with a list of items entered and an amount to be paid. The consumer can thereafter pay directly using his/her mobile phone. The transaction takes approximately half the time of a standard card payment transaction.

The retail and grocery trade sectors currently pay high fees to credit card companies in order to use their services. In addition, they are required to invest in new card payment terminals every time a new standard is introduced. In the US, retailers pay $49 billion each year in credit and debit card fees. With Seamless`solution, retailers have a chance to halve their current costs.

"A person standing at the curb can go through the photos and decide whether this is a home they'd like to see," says Nowicke.

She's one of 30 realtors in the Bay area using QR codes. She says the new technology is the perfect trend for the real estate industry.

Some 5 percent of Americans — and 15 percent of smartphone owners — have scanned such a code in the last three months, according to new figures due to be released on Monday by Forrester. A year ago, only 1 percent of Americans had been willing or able to do so.

codes provide an efficient and cheap means to link the online and offline worlds.

Digimarc, are pushing methods for embedding the codes into the page so that they don’t disturb the visual layout. The challenge, though, is that it is harder for readers to know that there is more content available.

Where your visitors are coming from – very important if you’re targeting a specific audience.How your visitors found your website – this is very important for determining which of your efforts are paying off. It shows if visitors found your site directly, through a referral from another website (ex: Twitter, Facebook), or from search engines.Web browsers used by your visitors – knowing which web browsers your visitors use allows you to know which browsers you should be focusing on.What keywords were used by visitors in the search engines to get to your website – this is very crucial for SEO. Knowing which keywords people are searching for to get to your site determines if you are on the right track.

• USPS – the Postal Service is now running its second campaign that uses a QR code. In this case, it is offering discounts of 2 percent to companies choosing to use their mailers with the barcodes printed on them. This benefits both the companies and shows that there is still a place for snail mail in this increasingly digital and mobile world.

• Coca-Cola – the soft drink giant placed a QR code on its containers throughout the 2012 Europe Cup soccer tournament, giving scanners exclusive videos from the tournament, as well as an easy way to obtain the free SmileWorld social app.

• Proctor & Gamble – PGMobile shopping trucks were launched last month by the beauty and home products corporation, distributing free samples as they patrolled New York City. Both the samples and the truck were emblazoned with quick response codes that could be scanned by smartphone users.

Unfortunately, many of the consumers find that even when they do know what QR codes are and they use their mobile devices to scan them, they rapidly discover that the mobile marketers didn’t take the time to make the scan worthwhile. For example, if all the code does is direct the user to the homepage of a website, there will be a far poorer response than if scanning the code allows the smartphone owner to gain access to an exclusive discount coupon.

Among the main problems are that while they have become highly popular among companies, many consumers still haven’t figured out what they are. This is a slow learning process that is catching on, but that hasn’t included the majority of smartphone users quite yet.

Is your website mobile ready?Have you tested it on a mobile device?  If you don’t have an iPhone, iPad, or other smart phone device – find one!  You might be surprised to check your Google Analytics or other website traffic and learn how many people are viewing your website on these devices.

Have you claimed your business page on sites like Foursquare, Yelp, Google Places, etc.?Whether your customers have reviewed you on these sites already or not, these services may already have claimed your presence on these sites. By claiming your sites, you improve your search rankings and have some control over special offers and responses.

QR Codes are key to directing traffic in your sitePeople don’t remember or don’t have patience to type in long addresses into their mobile devices.  In addition, you want to direct people to take specific actions like see a specific page for mobile users, opt in to email or sms marketing, check in on your social media sites, and many other options.

Of course, there is a lot more to this and the mix and meeting point of resizing of images, while also ensuring they keep an air of quality can take plenty of skill. Aside from images and resizing there are other considerations at hand. To jump to the point; sometimes you don’t need to fit all the information from the big screen onto the small screen – the essentials are what matter. Responsive design cuts out all the needless stuff and gives people a web version of the site that is easy to navigate, without them having to zoom in and also provides them with what they want to see. It eliminates the noise and makes the whole mobile browsing experience a pleasure.

ipad users make up 68% of all mobile shoppers

iPad users were also found to have significantly higher conversion rates than other mobile devices. The iPad conversion rate was 1.5 percent, when compared to 0.57 percent among other forms of mobile device.

QR codes have reported the largest growth (63%) in the past six months. Activation through mobile can be a great opportunity to extend the conversation from a traditional medium and represents a tracking mechanism. However, it is only as good as the content provided; it needs to be done at the right time with the right content, providing value to the consumer.

visual (QR codes), mobile visual search (Google Goggles), audio (Shazam), and native (SMS, MMS).

According to comScore, 45% of all Facebook traffic and 55% of all Twitter traffic is mobile.

One of the biggest downfalls is that brands often rush into the online and social media space without fully thinking it through or tying to incorporate it into their other marketing activities.

Social media plays a pinnacle role in terms of helping companies get into their consumer’s mindset, understand how they want to be communicated with and actively engage with them.But not everybody is getting it right. There are a number of brands constantly making mistakes in the space and paying the price for it.