Near Field Technology and QR codes....Variable printing and more......

There are more and more products coming to market that are helping the technology orientated printer / designers grow their businesses. I thought this week I would point out some of the emerging systems and talk about the ones I hope to see growing.

Variable Data – now this phrase is used a lot but I don’t think it’s truly understood or used enough to gain that extra impact. Send a 2D Direct Mail with personalisation and you are increasing your chances of the recipient following your call to action by 30%, who doesn’t like to receive a piece of mail with their name up in lights? So by Variable we mean personalised, directly targeted to the Person, gender, age or many other demographics if you have the data to support it – these days there is no excuse for not personalising DM campaigns of under 5000 runs, design and go.....the results speak for themselves.

QR Codes – Today our phones are smarter than us....with a QR scanner you can follow printed “call’s to action” from posters, Direct Mails and Point of Sale. QR codes are the Square 2D Barcodes turning up on stuff, Popular? I am not sure, they are being used and we are printing more of them on products but I think more people need to understand what they are for, both users and Business owner / managers need to understand where they fit in. A downside also is that for many people’s phones you need an App for scanning. There are also a couple of QR rules:

1.       MUST go to a Mobile enabled landing page – example scan the QR at the bottom. (Mobile Only) Although this is our main Url when you use a mobile it defaults to our mobile Url

2.       Must have the item designed with a QR, don’t just plonk into a spare space.

3.       If you are hoping to drive traffic to a main mobile optimised website.....have a little landing re-direct page so you can count the success on your analytics – if you have posters in multiple locations then use multiple landing re-directs to judge which location send the most traffic.

NFC Technology – Here is a new one, some phones and one day I imagine all phones will come with the ability to receive a RFID signal from a printed piece of Material. Here at Apple Print Ltd we can print a Label that transmits a signal that a phone or NFC enabled device can pick up, unlike QR’s there is no app required, you just need to move your phone to within 10mm of the transmitter / poster / DM. We can encode wrist bands, Business cards, Key Rings, Posters and Direct Mails with the ability to send the user off to a website, download contact info and many more applications. A great Client and Partner business, Kremer Signs, will be using them in Estate Agent boards to provide passersby with Property details with the swipe of a phone. This will be the big one, swiping for info will be second nature in a few years. Many of the rules for QR’s count here as these will be used by mobile devices.

Although I did not mention it above I am going to look into 3D printing over the next few weeks.....I will keep you up to date should we choose to invest. For now......give great Service and remember to tell everyone.