IMG March 2015 Newsletter

NEWS ISSUE 05/ MARCH 2015

Setting the Standard

Vandalia Bus Lines FEATURE IMG COMPANY Is Social Media

Recruiting Dead?

How to Win Back

Lost Customers The Modern Face of

Display Ads

How to Keep Your

Sales Team

Engaged

GOOGLE’S NEW BUS IS FOR THE PEOPLE/

$15 MILLION LAWSUIT BLAMES BOSTON BUS CRASH ON GPS, DRIVER/

Meet a kinder, gentler Google bus -- not the sleek and occasionally despised charter...

IS SOCIAL MEDIA RECRUITING DEAD?/

A $15 million lawsuit filed on behalf of 11 Bucks County residents who were injured...

UBER-INSPIRED SKEDADDLE WANTS TO INFUSE TECH INTO GROUP BUS TRAVEL/

The founders of Boston-based transportation technology startup Skedaddle came up...

INSTAGRAM PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS FOR BEGINNERS/

Are you new to Instagram and perhaps a little intimidated by where and how to start...

“One key to leveraging the value and reach of social media is to evolve as the...

NEW APNEA BULLETIN PUBLISHED/

Following up on concerns that medical examiners and medical examiner training centers may...

THE MODERN FACE OF DISPLAY ADS/

When I began in search, display advertising had been oversaturated with the most...

HOW TO KEEP YOUR SALES TEAM ENGAGED/

6 CRM TOOLS EVERY ENTREPRENEUR NEEDS FOR MANAGING CLIENTS/

HOW TO WIN BACK LOST CUSTOMERS/

HOW TO MAKE A QR CODE IN 4 QUICK STEPS/

Keeping your sales team plugged in with the rganization is critical to your business...

Among the commonly accepted business precepts is the fact that retaining existing...

Managing a business can be challenging, with entrepreneurs often required...

“Really? We’re talking about QR codes?” Fair reaction. For a few years now, QR codes have...

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President ’s Message February was Superbowl and now “March Madness” is upon us. Sports teams - professional, amateur, fans, sponsors, they all rely on motorcoaches for transportation, during their season and playoffs.

At IMG we are proud to be the choice of transportation for so many teams. It is very unique work. When working with an individual team not only does the quality and safety of the operator come into the decision process, but also a key component is the driver. Knowing where to go and how to access the stadiums and locker rooms; when and how to interact with the team is vital. Superstition even plays a role, with many team requesting specific drivers who have built a relationship with the team and coaches.

For large events such as Superbowl, the coordination of transportation is a huge behind the scenes logistical exercise to create a seamless, worry free experience.

Congratulations to the IMG carriers who participated in Superbowl XLIX in Phoenix, we now have Superbowl 2016 in San Francisco in sight.

Now it is “March Madness”, one of the busiest times for many IMG carriers. Being able to react to the wins and losses of each team as they progress through the tournament is key, as this impacts team transportation requirements. Having the IMG network behind each individual company, makes the reaction to changes just a little easier, as we reach out to partners we can trust.

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During February, we also held IMG’s Focus 25 Sales & Marketing Meeting in Seattle. We covered many topics, discussed best practices and spent time with customer’s learning about their businesses. In addition, we visited IMG’s Starline Luxury Coaches – these visits provide further insight into each member company and build the trust that we all share in each other.

As we look ahead into 2015, some warmer temperatures in the East, we look forward to a year of increasing business, continuing to grow the IMG brand and seeking new opportunities.

Bronwyn Wilson President, IMG

IMG working with Sports Teams

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IMG Feature Company Vandalia Bus Lines

Vandalia Bus Lines is today one of America’s heartland leading, privately owned motor coach companies.

It all began in 1932 Over 70 years ago, in the small western Illinois town of Vandalia, a small bus company was started. In 1932 Vandalia Bus Lines, acquired Blue Goose Bus line, which resulted in a fleet of 5 coaches for the local route runs into St. Louis. With the advent of World War II, in 1939, the need for Military transportation rapidly grew. Â To respond to this need, the company moved from Vandalia, to Collinsville, Illinois so the business would be closer to the St. Louis market. In 1949, the company moved to Caseyville, Illinois, where the company is located today, 9 miles east of St. Louis.

From scheduled service to charter In common with many other bus companies, Vandalia Bus Lines over the years, transitioned from a scheduled service operator to charters and then to operating tours. It was in 1963, when the newly-formed BiState Transit Districted acquired the scheduled bus service on the Illinois side of the river that Vandalia began a shift into charter business and acquire more sophisticated equipment.

Streif Bus Service Leon and Judy Streif purchased Vandalia Bus Lines in 1975 and today second generation family members

continue to run the business. Born in 1933 on a farm near Lebanon, Illinois, Leon worked as an apprentice mechanic after graduation from high school and for several years owned service stations and an auto repair business.

In 1963 when Bi-State Transit put several local bus operations out of business, it did just the opposite for Leon. Bi-State did not take an interest in local services; Leon acquired a school bus and provided much needed transportation services for students under the Streif Bus Service name. The school bus business flourished and over the next few years he won multiple school and special education contracts that would eventually see the school bus operation grow to 150 buses.

Nashville – a charter business begins Leon married Judy in 1967 and she soon became active in the bus business. Leon purchased an ex-Greyhound PD4151 in 1970, a vehicle that was already 20 years old, to initially transport student athletic groups. One day, a patron of Leon’s popular country and western bar “Klub 50” said: “Let’s all go to the Grand Ole Opry on Leon’s bus”. In a coach without a lavatory, and therefore many stops, the 350 mile trip was just a short nine hour journey. Leon drove the bus, Judy provided food and a charter business began. With the success of their first tour, the Streif ’s began to develop a tour business around their coach fleet. This success with tours prompted Leon and Judy to purchase Vandalia Bus Lines in 1975.

A family business Today, Vandalia Bus Lines has grown into a first class charter and tour operation serving St. Louis and other areas. The company operates a total of 60 vehicles that travel most anywhere in the United States.

Leon passed away in 1996, leaving the care and management of the business to his family. Members of the family have learned the business from the ground up through the years. Leon’s three sons are directly involved in the company. Dale is the president of Vandalia Bus Lines and he handles the day-to-day operations of the company. Dennis is vice president and also manages company operations. Roger oversees company service and maintenance. Leon’s daughters are also directly involved with the company - Melissa Streif Kaemmerer serves as company treasurer and helps in day-to-day operations as necessary, and Lori Ditzler serves as the company book-keeper.

Vandalia continues to grow and be successful with an embedded ethic of hard work and as Dennis Streif, says: “The ultimate factor of our success has been safety and service level. Safety and service is the heartbeat of our company and first class service is what Vandalia delivers – every time. Quality control is a given when all aspects of group travel rests in the same capable hands, and when the end results reflects on the family name.”

For more information about Vandalia Bus Lines www.vandaliabuslines.com

IMG Sales Meeting - Seattle - Fo

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Lawsuit Blames GPS Company

$15 million lawsuit blames Boston bus crash on GPS, driver In the suit, filed in a Massachusetts state court, attorneys representing victims of the bus wreck are charging that Garmin, the maker of the GPS device, sold a defective and unsafe product.

A $15 million lawsuit filed on behalf of 11 Bucks County residents who were injured after a charter bus slammed into a Massachusetts overpass two years ago is blaming a GPS company.

In the suit, filed in a Massachusetts state court, attorneys representing victims of the bus wreck are charging that Garmin, the maker of the GPS device, sold a defective and unsafe product.

The suit argues that if the device was made for

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commercial vehicles, it would have directed the driver around a bridge with a 10-foot clearance. But it wasn’t, and the device’s packaging did not make that clear, according to the suit.

“So if you put on your box, ‘Not for commercial use,’ or when the thing lights up when you put it on, ‘Do not use in a commercial vehicle,’ then the company’s absolved. But they didn’t do

that,” said attorney Jim Ronca, who is representing the victims in the case.

Mary Levy, a law professor at Temple University, said all the screaming disclaimers seen on products of all sorts are the fruit of cases like this one.

“These suits prevail all the time. That’s why you see products that contain more and more and more warnings,”

Levy said. “And you buy a lighter today and there’s like a paragraph disclaimer on it, and it’s because litigants along the way got injured by the lighters and they claimed they didn’t get the proper warnings.”

The bus, carrying around 30 high school students and their chaperones, was on its way back to Philadelphia from Boston, where the students took www.greenazine.com

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a field trip to Harvard University as part of a group working with at-risk youth.

Just minutes into the journey, the 12-foot-tall bus struck the bridge, collapsing its roof. The collision seriously injured one teenager and sent 35 others to the hospital.

Matthew Cruz, who was paralyzed after injuring his spinal cord in the accident, is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. Ten other injured passengers are also suing.

Attorney Ronca said faulty GPS directions have caused numerous bridge collisions around the country.

“There have been some injuries and a lot of damage done to bridges and vehicles by this issue, which could be very easily eliminated, or vastly reduced by simply advising truckers and bus operators, those with commercial drivers licenses, not to use a standard GPS,” he said.

Attorneys are also suing Samuel Jackson, 67, of Philadelphia who was driving the bus but was not injured. The suit alleges that he was distracted and did not notice signs cautioning the imminent low bridge.

Authorities do not believe Jackson was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Yet after striking the bridge, he continued to drive an additional 500 feet, something he couldn’t adequately explain to police.

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Once again, Setra has raised the benchmark in the North American luxury motorcoach segment, with over 30 innovations in design, passenger and driver comfort, safety and environmental efficiencies. Daimler’s new, unique Front Collision Guard (FCG), for instance, is a passive safety system engineered to protect the driver and tour guide in the case of a frontal impact. Experience the all-new Setra TopClass S 417. From Daimler Buses North America, the worldwide leading manufacturer of buses and motorcoaches.

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Skedaddle

Uber-inspired Skedadd into group bus travel 16 www.greenazine.com

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The founders of Boston-based transportation technology startup Skedaddle came up with the idea for their company by making a simple observation: Young people are ditching their cars in favor of cheaper and more environmental friendly transportation alternatives, but people still find it difficult to travel in groups to events like races and sports games using charter buses.

The four co-founders launched Skedaddle to help solve that problem.

“We’re bringing technology to the bus industry like Uber brought technology to the taxi industry,” said co-founder and CEO Adam Nestler.

Backed by $100,000 in angel investor funding to date, the startup offers a website in which organizations (and in a few months, individual users) can enter the trip details and allow other passengers to join and buy individual tickets on their own.

Skedaddle handles logistics with charter bus companies including Boston’s Local Motion, and works with those companies to sometimes offer discounted rates to passengers.

The startup quietly launched last summer at about 25 East Coast colleges, and is officially launching this week — competing with Cambridge transit startup Bridj, which launched a similar service called BreakShuttle.

“Any two points that aren’t connected by public transportation and you have a group of people that need to move, we can fill that need,” said Nestler, formerly project specialist and account manager for Boston-based tech and energyefficiency startup WegoWise.

“We’re bringing technology to the bus industry like Uber brought technology to the taxi industry,” said co-founder and CEO Adam Nestler.

The company makes money by taking a percentage of ticket sales and by offering on-board corporate sponsorships and affiliate advertising on the website.

Skedaddle plans to launch a mobile app later this year, and is currently run by Nestler, Princeton University graduate Brad Werntz, and two others.

Skedaddle aims to close a $500,000 angel investor seed round by the end of March, which would help double headcount to eight and ramp up sales and marketing efforts.

To date, the startup’s major angel investor has been John Chatzky, the vice president and general counsel for The PRC (Property Resource Corp.)

Group in New York City.

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Instagram

Instagram Photography Tips for Beginners Are you new to Instagram and perhaps a little intimidated by where and how to start sharing your photos? You probably started on Instagram by looking around at some of the big brands that are really active (Nike, GoPro, Starbucks), and developed a little case of “social media analysis paralysis”. “SMAP” is what happens when you want to post something that is noteworthy, sharable and will possibly “go viral”. You spend so much time analyzing and trying to get “just the right shot”, that you end up doing nothing at all.

It’s not rocket science. Besides, Instagram makes it even easier by giving you some great tools right at your fingertips to make you look like a pro. Here are a few basic tips to keep in mind when you’re framing your shot for sharing on Instagram.

For demonstration purposes, I’m using a photo of Helo, who happens to be one of my favorite subjects. The example below is the unedited photo directly from my photo library uploaded into Instagram.

Though it’s centered within the grid, it’s pretty uninteresting.

Basic Composition Remember the “rule of thirds”. Think of your photo as a grid with nine squares (See photo below). If you’re shooting

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your photo directly in Instagram, it takes care of this for you so you don’t have to imagine it. Position your subject matter along these lines and you’ll get a much more dramatic shot.

If you’re loading a photo into Instagram (as I did) that wasn’t taken within the app

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itself, never fear. When you select the photo you want to use, the grid is overlaid automatically.

Use the grid to position, scale and crop your subject along the lines and create the drama that way. For example, when I enlarged and repositioned Helo’s face I used the upper, right two thirds of the grid.

Lighting Pay attention to where the light source is in your image. If you’re shooting outdoors, having the sun behind you is great unless your subjects are people.

They may be squinting to keep the sun out of their eyes if they are facing you directly.

By the same token, you don’t want the sun behind them either. Shooting directly into the sun makes it difficult to properly light the faces of your subjects.

Early morning and late afternoon sun can create interesting impact with a lot of contrast.

If you’re shooting indoors, you may or may not want to use your flash. You have the option to play around with it if you’re using the camera app on your phone instead of using Instagram. In other words, to select and post only your best photos on your IG profile, try taking the same shot with and without a flash with just your phone’s camera.

Using the same example, the lighting was good and I loved the angle. It just needed a little tweaking.

Fun with Filters Possibly the coolest thing about Instagram is the filter feature. Here is where you will want to experiment and find your favorites - there are over 20 to choose from.

When you’re using this feature, once you have selected the filter you want to apply, tap it twice and you can change the degree to which the filter is applied if you want something a little more subtle. This is also the area to select a frame for your image by clicking on the box.

Here are a few of my personal favorites that you may want to try (left to right): Lo-Fi - Creates a really dramatic image without any other adjustments.

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Earlybird - Great for a TBT (Throw Back Thursday) image; looks like an old Polaroid.

Inkwell - Nothing quite like a classic black and white image. You may want to play with the contrast a bit to get just the right look.

Nashville - If you use this one, definitely apply the frame. It will give your image the look of an old piece of film.

Try the Tools If you prefer to “do it yourself ” when creating images for your followers, then skip the filters and try out the tools. IG has quite an array of editing tools. For example, if you have items in the background that you

can’t remove by cropping, use the “tilt shift” tool to blur everything except what you want to be in focus.

For this tool, choose either “radial” or “linear” and use your fingers to change the area that you want in focus.

You can also use “vignette” in the same manner; to direct focus to the part of the image that you want to be noticed.

Important note: In order to post Instagram photos to Twitter and have them show up in your feed, you’ll need to use a tool called “If This Then That” (IFTTT. com). This handy little tool will bypass Instagram turning off Twitter cards when you post a photo.

(Without this tool, your Instagram photos will simply show up in your tweet as a link to the Instagram site.)

Mind your Settings

Scheduling your Posts

One rather important thing to remember about Instagram: if you are taking photos within the app itself (not just uploading them there), filtered photos are only saved to your camera roll or gallery AFTER you have shared them. To make certain that the original photo is saved, go to Options under your Instagram profile and turn on “Save Original Photos”.

If you’re using Instagram to build engagement as you are with other social media channels, there may be times when you need to schedule a few posts ahead of time. Here are a few schedulers out there specifically for Instagram that you may want to check out:

Leverage your Content

Instapult

When you’re ready to post your posts, you have the option to cross post in other social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Foursquare. If you have a larger audience on any of these, it’s a great way to let them know to find you on Instagram.

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Google’s New Bus

Google’s new bus is for the people Meet a kinder, gentler Google bus -- not the sleek and occasionally despised charter service that transports thousands of Googlers to the company’s suburban headquarters each morning, but a

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free public shuttle that launched here this week.

The electric-powered Mountain View Community Shuttle is Google’s gift to a hometown still grappling with

the weight of being the corporate hub for a global Internet giant. The two-year pilot program also helps the company sustain its do-gooder image amid rising anxiety over the Bay Area’s real estate prices and

economic inequality, both frequently blamed on the meteoric incomes of tech workers.

“They’re responsible for a lot of the pain the area is feeling,” said newly inaugurated City Councilman Ken Rosenberg, part of a new political slate at Mountain View City Hall eager to build more housing to accommodate the tech worker influx.

“But ultimately I think Google is just a really good corporate citizen, and this is an example of it.”

The Google-funded fleet of four 16-

seat buses quietly began following an hourlong loop through Mountain View’s residential and commercial neighborhoods earlier this week, picking up curious seniors and other passengers beckoned by drivers offering a free ride. Heads panned wherever the blue-and-white shuttle bus stopped, and some were clearly confused by its presence despite a months-long publicity campaign in English, Spanish and other languages.

“Are you supported by Google?” asked 74-year-old Ying Lu as she boarded the bus near her home on Wednesday afternoon looking for a way to get to a cellphone store.

“Somebody told me Google donated some bus.”

Partially blind and unable to drive, she said “public transportation is very important to me. It’s the only thing I can use.” The regular rider of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s bus service said she was happy for another option to get around.

The new bus makes 30 stops, passing the library, shopping malls, senior and teen community centers, parks, residential neighborhoods, the Caltrain and VTA station and the city’s downtown commercial district on Castro Street. It has bicycle racks, Wi-Fi connectivity, a wheelchair lift and space for two wheelchairs.

Google has declined to say how much the service costs. The pilot will run for at least two years, with an option to continue for a third year or longer.

“It’s the right thing to do,” said Google real estate director John Igoe, after watching a bus depart during the service’s launch celebration Friday.

“This is our home, our community.”

The new bus makes 30 stops, passing the library, shopping malls, senior and teen community centers, parks, residential neighborhoods, the Caltrain and VTA station and the city’s downtown commercial district on Castro Street.

He added that the company has plenty of experience running shuttle buses.

City records show Google employs more than 11,000 people in Mountain View. Add contractors and it rises to some 15,000, about 19 percent of the city’s job base. But only about 3,000 of them live in Mountain View. More than 6,000 others arrive on a corporate fleet of about 140 luxury, WiFi-enabled buses that carry Google workers from San Francisco, the East Bay and other far-flung parts of the Bay Area. Some of the buses have been met with protests since 2013 in urban neighborhoods of San Francisco and www.greenazine.com

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Oakland where activists are concerned about techfueled gentrification.

Anxiety is not quite so high in Google’s home base, but concerns over the company’s impact on traffic and real estate exist -- especially over the question of whether to build housing in the booming North Bayshore office district between 101 and San Francisco Bay, where the Googleplex and other corporate campuses are located.

Along with its free community shuttle, Google is helping to launch another free shuttle Monday -this one to get commuters out of their cars on their way to tech campuses in the North Bayshore district.

Google and six other companies, including Intuit, LinkedIn and Samsung, are splitting the costs of running the new MVGo buses, run by the corporatefunded Mountain View Transportation Management Association.

“This is really about solving the very common problem of what’s called the “Last Mile,’” said Michael Alba, a transportation manager for LinkedIn, describing the distance between a transit stop -- in this case, Mountain View’s Caltrain station -- and the suburban office parks where most commuters are headed.

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“Some of the large companies are able to fund private shuttles on their own, but that ends up being less efficient than a shared, public system,” Alba said.

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Social Media

Is Social Media Rec

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cruiting Dead?

A year ago, reports revealed that only 2 percent of large brands’ Facebook posts were reaching their fans, and one Forrester analyst lamented the death of social media’s organic reach. But does the same hold true for social media recruiting?

Last November, Facebook announced in a blog post a “significant decrease in distribution” of marketing and promotional posts from large brands.

Earlier in the year, research firm Ogilvy reported that these large brands’ Facebook posts reached just 2 percent of their fans (a number that was falling by .5 percent per month). And earlier this year a Forrester study showed that on average, only .07 percent of top brands’ Facebook fans interact with each of their posts.

Forrester analyst Nate Elliot writes in this blog post that these statistics mean Facebook -- and by association, other social media outlets brands use for marketing and promotional purposes -- have effectively killed social media’s potential for organic reach.

That’s terrible news if you’re a marketing professional, but what are the implications for recruiters, hiring managers and HR professionals who regularly use social media to search for, engage with and hire talent? The fact is that social media still holds tremendous value for these hiring professionals. They’ll just have to work a bit harder.

I’m Not Dead Yet “While social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook may have gotten more crowded in recent years, it’s far too soon to say that these sites have reached their saturation point. Recruiters across all industries still rely on social media to locate, vet and engage job seekers on a daily basis. Last year alone, 73 percent of recruiters successfully hired a candidate via social media,” says Kimberley Kasper, CMO of job search site Jobvite.

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“One key to leveraging the value and reach of social media is to evolve as the technology does,” says Kasper. At its core, social recruiting is about going where your audience is, and especially with the millennial generation of job seekers, that can mean many different social media platforms.

“Even if some networks might become less popular with the younger workforce, new channels like Instagram or Snapchat are popping up to provide new avenues of engagement for recruiters. As social media evolves, so will social recruiting,” Kasper says.

That also means spreading out your recruiting efforts using all the technology available, like mobile and even email. According to Forrester’s Elliot, “Your emails get delivered more than 90 percent of the time, while your Facebook posts get delivered 2 percent of the time -- and no one’s looking over your shoulder telling you what you can and can’t say in your emails.

If you have to choose between adding a subscriber to your email list or gaining a new Facebook fan, go for email every time.”

Mobile, too, is nearly ubiquitous today, especially among younger job seekers, says Jobvite’s Kasper.

However, despite 43 percent of job seekers using mobile in their job search, 59 percent of recruiters currently invest nothing in mobile-optimized career sites.

“Job seekers are undoubtedly leveraging mobile to search for potential opportunities and if recruiters are smart, they’ll tap into that. Recruiters can’t be afraid to take advantage of the tech trends evolving in the industry. Often times, these trends offer untapped ways to connect with job seekers, and that’s what recruiting is all about,” Kasper says.

I Don’t Like Spam Of course, use caution when using email and social media. Nobody likes spam, and flooding potential candidates’ social media feeds or inboxes with job postings can be a surefire way to kill the success of your social media outreach, says Emily Gordon, strategic director at Seven Step RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing).

“Every job seeker expects that your company will have a social media account, but it can be used against you if you’re not using it well. That means your social

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media posts and activity must be relevant to the jobs available and the job seekers you’re targeting. Instead of just blasting job postings every hour, you must work on placing a call to action and engaging candidates through creating a community,” Gordon says.

That call to action should involve promoting your business as a great place to work, and touting the benefits and perks available for candidates who are hired, says Gordon. Make sure your business is one candidates seek out in their search by developing a community within social media, she says.

“For the most part, your average job seeker goes to a search engine and types in ‘developer job Boston’ and then looks at general listings for all different companies.

What you want them to do is search specifically within your company for positions because they feel they’re already part of that community -- the one you’ve built through social media outreach,” Gordon says.

Doing so will go a long way toward attracting higherquality talent that’s already knowledgeable about your firm and knows they’ll be a good fit, skills-wise and culturally.

Another way to create an engaged community is to leverage current employees and enlist their help reaching out to their own networks of friends, family and former colleagues, according to Jobvite’s Kasper.

“Personal connections will continue to influence recruiting; 60 percent of recruiters report that their best candidates come from referrals. With employees getting the word out on open positions, companies can circumvent Facebook’s imposed limits on brand engagement and still be effective with their social recruiting efforts,” says Kasper.

So, while social media may have reached a saturation point for large brands’ product marketing efforts, there’s still plenty of opportunity for recruiters, hiring managers and HR pros, says Seven Step RPO’s Gordon. Making sure your posts and your outreach are memorable, engaging and targeted can make your social media recruitments efforts wildly successful.

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In regards to the Motorcoach Marketing program, we love it. So far, we have made the 1000 postcards, and we did some full page handouts. We just got a stand up banner.

When I get some time, I’ll be making new rack cards for both offices. We made 500 church theme postcards and 500 in the safety theme.

We sent out the church cards through a local mailing company to every church within 50 miles. So far, we have had a great response and 4-5 people booked trips from it. I plan on using the safety ones soon by sending them to our new customers. All of our staff and drivers love the modern design and the finished products. Only one of my staff has watched the videos so far, but we will be working on that next month. So far I’m very happy with the service. It works well and looks great!

Chris Knittel

Owner/General Manager New Mexico Texas Coaches, LLC

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Sales Team

How to Keep Your Sales Tea 32 www.greenazine.com

Assess Sales Managers to understand where there are gaps in skills and knowledge.

Draw up a plan to address these gaps and prioritize key competencies.

Implement “coach the coaches� training and empower Sales Managers to lead.

am Engaged www.greenazine.com

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Keeping your sales team plugged in with the organization is critical to your business. Low employee engagement is a leading indicator of sales turnover, a very expensive problem. Also, customers are directly influenced by the attitudes of their sales reps. A poor experience with a sales rep will taint the customer’s overall buying experience.

How do you make sure your sales team is more than just hired guns?

Employee Engagement Identifiers First you must understand what “employee engagement” is in the context of sales. Within a sales organization, you can identify an engaged employee by these two characteristics: Good internal relationships Engaged sales reps have a healthy rapport and relationship with the Sales Manager. The Sales Manager is the coach, actively leading the sales rep and communicating clearly.

Healthy external relationships Engaged sales employees have strong, healthy relationships with their current accounts and clients. These relationships are not one-sided, and encourage customers to become advocates of the company.

Both of these characteristics are linked, and work together to create true employee engagement.

You can identify unengaged teams and individuals by some common warning signs. There are three red flags.

First, the Sales Manager is focusing on the top 25% who are top producers.

The rest of the sales reps are ignored or given little attention.

Second, the Sales Manager has stopped sharing best practices and

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coaching the team. Instead, the Sales Manager is “cracking the whip.”

Third, sales teams that have become unengaged are often isolated. They are isolated from other parts of the organization and from each other.

Sometimes it is just one or two members of a team who have disconnected. Indications that a sales rep might be unengaged include: Hoarding clients and withholding information about the client A change in the key metrics and a drop in activity-based metrics (e.g. number of sales calls, number of updates to sales system) Changes to their LinkedIn profile, including connections with competitors or clients of the competitors. (Note: Compare the changes to historical behavior.

Some LinkedIn profile changes may actually be a positive thing) Pushing on internal processes so they can bank more commission. For example, inaccurately reporting time spent or sales results Treating people poorly within the organization Pumping other departments for company/product information (this could indicate they are interviewing elsewhere) Frequently canceling internal meetings or opportunities to connect with teams

3 Things That Hinder Sales Team Engagement Sales Managers directly impact sales team engagement. The following three mistakes can dramatically lower employee engagement. Try the recommended solutions to help Sales Managers re-engage those sales reps.

1. Measuring the wrong set of metrics Problem: Siloed metrics that don’t relate to the rest of the organization.

Sales Managers must incentivize employees to engage with the metrics they are measured against. Sales reps need to understand how their work directly impacts the organization’s success. And how the organization’s success directly impacts their career success.

Solution: Use a balanced scorecard approach and integrate objectives

from across the organization.

Make sure the metrics reinforce the company’s overall strategy and execute intentionally.

2. Isolation Problem: A top-down culture that artificially separates sales from the rest of the organization. For example, a program that provides incentives to sales reps only. If the rest of the organization can’t participate, isolation results.

Solution:

Give

sales

reps

the

opportunity to have a tour of duty with other teams. Set the sales strategy to align with organizational strategies. If isolation continues, get visibility to and awareness of the problem.

3. Poor coaching Problem: Often the biggest mistake that sales leaders make is not actively coaching their sales reps. A bigger problem, however, is that often Sales Managers are not empowered to coach. In this case, they will default to managing instead of coaching.

Solution: Assess Sales Managers to understand where there are gaps in skills and knowledge. Draw up a plan to address these gaps and prioritize key competencies. Implement “coach the coaches” training and empower Sales Managers to lead. Our Top Sales Competency Guide can help you improve your Sales Managers’ success.

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Win Back Lost Customers

How to Win Back Lost Customers Among the commonly accepted business precepts is the fact that retaining existing customers is far cheaper than winning new ones.

So it makes a great deal of sense to make sure that you are keeping your current roster of clients happy.

But in the real world, that’s not always possible, especially when circumstances beyond your control arise and a customer decides to take his business elsewhere.

That doesn’t mean, however, that your customer is lost for good. In fact, even before your client is fully out the door, start formulating a work-smart strategy for winning back the business. Here are five tips for doing so:

1. Find out why.

Customers don’t walk away without reason, so get to the heart of why this one left. Be honest with yourself.

Conduct a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (or SWOT) analysis, assessing why your product or service was no longer perceived as having the best value.

What are the company’s weaknesses, especially in light of potential changes in the market?

Are you staying current, both in your pricing and level of service? Has the market moved beyond your capacity to stay competitive? How was your relationship with the client?

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Look hard in the mirror for the underlying answers. And if you can’t be objective, put someone who was not on that account team on the case.

This is not only an important first step to winning back your client; it’s critical in ensuring that more customers also do not depart.

2. Get it in writing.

You need a plan of attack, and that means creating a written plan for winning back the customer. Lay out benchmarks and timelines for when to check in with the client. And don’t wait too long.

Too often companies make the mistake of waiting a year and a half to two years before reconnecting.

That’s a mistake.

You need to find ways to stay on a client’s radar by politely touching base from time to time. And while that outreach may seem random to the client, it should be a well-timed part of your written strategy.

Don’t wait for your client to tire of the company that beat your firm.

Find reasons to stay connected on a regular basis.

3. Claw your way back.

Don’t necessarily set your sights on completely winning back your client’s business . It may make more sense to incrementally edge your way back by taking on smaller pieces of

business.

With this “foot in the door” tactic, try to score a smaller “yes,” a one-off project. Or you might even provide an entirely different product or service than you have offered before.

Then set out to turn a smaller yes into a bigger one.

4. Request an exit interview.

Ask for a meeting with the client to debrief you on the relationship.

What were the factors that have gone into the company’s decision?

understand that nothing is forever.

Look at loss of a client as a new opportunity to win the business back -- and likely at a lower cost than you paid the first time.

5. Fire yourself not the firm.

So ask the client, “Is it me?”

Sometimes two companies are a good fit, but perhaps not the two owners in particular. You may need to fire yourself as the leader of the project for the sake of retaining the larger relationship. Asking this tricky question may lead to a much deeper and honest conversation that will lay the groundwork for winning back the client.

A great vendor-client relationship is often akin to dating or even a marriage. Sometimes the chemistry is just not there.

Finally, don’t become too emotional.

Client churn is a part of the business experience, and once you accept that, however grudgingly, you will also

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Don’t be defensive. Take responsibility and apologize, if appropriate. Use the meeting as a means for improving but also as a basis for learning more about your client’s needs. The new service provider may not be asking these questions, resulting in there being a potential opportunity down the road to try to win back the client.

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37

Apnea Bulletin

New Apnea Bulletin Pub

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blished Following up on concerns that medical examiners and medical examiner training centers may be pushing too aggressively for sleep apnea testing in truck drivers, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has posted a bulletin regarding its current guidelines for testing and disqualification. The bulletin explains that the FMCSA groups obstructive sleep apnea with other respiratory illnesses, including asthma, emphysema and bronchitis.

The latest guidelines, issued in 2000, state that “even the slightest impairment in respiratory function under emergency conditions (when greater oxygen supply is necessary for performance) may be detrimental to safe driving.” In addition to posing the risk of breathing problems, apnea prevents the sufferer from sleeping through the night.

Heightened drowsiness can lead to “impairments to a range of cognitive abilities such as vigilance, reaction time, attention span, memory, learning, problem-solving, decision making and multi-tasking.” Under the 2000 guidelines, the FMCSA encourages medical examiners to refer drivers to specialists for testing and treatment of sleep apnea if the examiner believes the driver’s ability to operate a commercial motor vehicle may be compromised. The bulletin emphasizes that the medical examiner has latitude to use his or her judgment in deciding whether a driver should be qualified, but it also provides a long list of suggestions.

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Drivers with apnea-hypopnea index scores at or higher than 15 should be identified “to ensure these drivers are managing their condition to reduce to the greatest extent practical the risk of drowsy driving.”

For screening, drivers should be assessed for snoring, sleepiness, body mass index, neck size, past incidents of apena and past involvement in single-vehicle accidents. In making diagnoses, examiners can use either in-lab or at-home tests, and the FMCSA also provides for a variety of treatment methods. In addition to the traditional continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, the bulletin acknowledges

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the potential benefits of other approaches, such as weight loss and dental appliances. Drivers who have been affirmatively diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea should not be permanently disqualified, according to the bulletin, as long as they “demonstrate they are managing their OSA to reduce the risk of drowsy driving.”

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FMCSA Bulletin to Medical Examiners and Training Organizations Regarding Obstructive Sleep Apnea The purpose of this bulletin is to remind healthcare professionals on FMCSA’s National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners (the National Registry) of the current physical qualifications standard and advisory criteria concerning the respiratory system, specifically how the requirements apply to drivers that may have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Current Physical Qualifications Standard for Respiratory Conditions

FMCSA’s physical qualifications standards prohibit individuals from receiving a medical examiner’s certificate to operate commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce if they have an “established medical history or clinical diagnosis of a respiratory dysfunction likely to interfere with his or her ability to control and drive a commercial motor vehicle safely.”

(49 CFR 391.41(b)(5)). OSA is considered a respiratory dysfunction when there is a determination that it is likely to interfere with the driver’s ability to operate safely because of the severity of the case.

OSA is a respiratory disorder characterized by a reduction or cessation of breathing during sleep coupled with symptoms such as excessive daytime sleepiness. Given this, OSA may culminate in unpredictable and sudden incapacitation (e.g., falling asleep at the wheel), thus contributing to the potential for crashes, injuries, and fatalities.

During sleep, OSA blocks the airway and prevents the individual from breathing up to dozens of times per hour, awakening the sleeper. This means that the time in bed does not equal time slept – in fact, eight hours of sleep with OSA can be less refreshing than four hours of ordinary, uninterrupted sleep, posing serious cognitive and neuropsychological risks. Moreover, someone without enough restorative sleep is often unaware of impairments to a range of cognitive abilities such as vigilance, reaction time, attention span, memory, learning, problem-solving, decision making, and multi-tasking. OSA can also lead to mood swings and difficulty controlling inappropriate feelings. In driving simulations, OSA patients were more likely to unintentionally swerve and strike objects – a serious and dangerous outcome for the transportation industry.

OSA raises health and safety concerns beyond those of other sleep disorders. Near-term increases in fatigue and cognitive dysfunction can result. Also, there are long-term adverse health effects such as dramatically increased risk for hypertension, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and obesity.

FMCSA’s Advisory Criteria from 2000

In 2000, FMCSA issued advisory criteria providing interpretive guidance to medical examiners concerning its physical qualifications standards. These advisory criteria are recommendations from FMCSA to assist medical examiners in applying the minimum physical qualification standards. The advisory criteria have been published with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations as part of the medical examination report form in

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49 CFR 391.43 (Physical Qualification of Drivers; Medical Examination; Certificate, 65 FR 59363 (October 5, 2000)).

The advisory criterion for § 391.41(b)(5), which has been unchanged since 2000, provides the following guidance for medical examiners in making the determination whether a driver satisfies the respiratory standard:

Since a driver must be alert at all times, any change in his or her mental state is in direct conflict with highway safety. Even the slightest impairment in respiratory function under emergency conditions (when greater oxygen supply is necessary for performance) may be detrimental to safe driving.

There are many conditions that interfere with oxygen exchange and may result in incapacitation, including emphysema, chronic asthma, carcinoma, tuberculosis, chronic bronchitis and sleep apnea. If the medical examiner detects a respiratory dysfunction, that in any way is likely to interfere with the driver’s ability to safely control and drive a commercial motor vehicle, the driver must be referred to a specialist for further evaluation and therapy. Anticoagulation therapy for deep vein thrombosis and/or pulmonary thromboembolism is not unqualifying once optimum dose is achieved, provided lower extremity venous examinations remain normal and the treating physician gives a favorable recommendation.

Based on the above advisory criterion, it is clear that FMCSA has considered OSA a respiratory dysfunction that interferes with oxygen exchange. And the Agency recommends that, if a medical examiner believes the driver’s respiratory condition is in any way likely to interfere with the driver’s ability to safely control and drive a commercial motor vehicle, the driver should be referred to a specialist for further evaluation and therapy. This advisory criterion is helpful to medical examiners when the examiner has sufficient experience or information to recognize certain risk factors for OSA, or when a driver tells the examiner that he or she has been diagnosed with OSA. Under these circumstances, the medical examiner should consider referring the driver to a specialist for evaluation before issuing a medical examiner’s certificate, or request additional information from the driver and his or her treating healthcare professional about the management of the driver’s OSA, respectively.

Role of Medical Examiners’ Clinical Judgment in the Medical Certification Process

FMCSA’s physical qualifications standards and advisory criteria do not provide OSA screening, diagnosis or treatment guidelines for medical examiners to use in determining whether an individual should be issued a medical certificate. Medical examiners may exercise their medical judgment and expertise in determining whether a driver exhibits risk factors for having OSA and in determining whether additional information is needed before making a decision whether to issue the driver a medical certificate and the duration of that medical certification.

FMCSA urges medical examiners to explain clearly to drivers the basis for their decision concerning the issuance of a medical certification for a period of less than two years or the 42 www.greenazine.com

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denial of a medical certification. The Agency encourages medical examiners to consider the following in making the medical certification decision: •

•

•

•

•

The primary safety goal regarding OSA is to identify drivers with moderate-tosevere OSA to ensure these drivers are managing their condition to reduce to the greatest extent practical the risk of drowsy driving. Moderate-to-severe OSA is defined by an apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) 1 of greater than or equal to 15.

The Agency does not require that these drivers be considered unfit to continue their driving careers; only that the medical examiner make a determination whether they need to be evaluated and, if warranted, demonstrate they are managing their OSA to reduce the risk of drowsy driving.

Screening: With regard to identifying drivers with undiagnosed OSA, FMCSA’s regulations and advisory criteria do not include screening guidelines. Medical examiners should consider common OSA symptoms such as loud snoring, witnessed apneas, or sleepiness during the major wake periods, as well as risk factors, and consider multiple risk factors such as body mass index (BMI), neck size, involvement in a single-vehicle crash, etc.

Diagnosis: Methods of diagnosis include in-laboratory polysomnography, at-home polysomnography, or other limited channel ambulatory testing devices which ensure chain of custody.

Treatment: OSA is a treatable condition, and drivers with moderate-to-severe OSA can manage the condition effectively to reduce the risk of drowsy driving.

Treatment options range from weight loss to dental appliances to Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) therapy, and combinations of these treatments.

The Agency’s regulations and advisory criteria do not include recommendations for treatments for OSA and FMCSA believes the issue of treatment is best left to the treating healthcare professional and the driver.

Conclusion

FMCSA relies on medical examiners to make driver qualification decisions based on their clinical observations, findings and standards of practice. The current regulations and advisory criteria do not include guidelines concerning OSA screening, diagnosis and treatment. Medical examiners should rely upon their medical training and expertise in determining whether a driver exhibits symptoms and/or multiple risk factors for OSA, and they should explain to the driver the basis for their decision if the examiner decides to AHI = (apneas + hypopneas)/hours of sleep. Apnea is a term for the involuntary suspension of breathing during sleep. During an apnea there is no movement of the respiratory muscles and the volume of air in the lungs initially remains unchanged.

Hypopnea is a term for a disorder which involves episodes of overly shallow breathing or an abnormally low respiratory rate. This differs from apnea in that there remains some flow of air. Hypopnea events may happen while asleep or while awake.

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issue a medical certificate for a period of less than two years to allow for further evaluation, or to deny a driver the medical certificate. www.greenazine.com

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Display Ads

The Modern Face Of Display A 44 www.greenazine.com

It’s time to wake up and check out what display’s really like. If you have spent the last 10 years assuming that display is dead or at least pining for the fjords, you owe it to yourself and your business to revisit the possibilities it offers.

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When I began in search, display advertising had been oversaturated with the most infamous of elements — pop up ads, flashing banners and punch-the-monkey gimmicks were everywhere.

Among we cool, hip, search folks, there was a general consensus that display ads just didn’t work.

It was in 2005 that Google infamously promised to never show display ads (a promise long since broken).

Yet, even in 2005, display’s situation wasn’t as dire as many presumed.

Yahoo reported at the time that customers who were served display ads were 61 percent more likely to do searches on keywords related to the product — meaning that, at the very least, the two played well together. Much of the naysaying came from the competitive nature of internet marketing at the time.

Budgets for online were small and every penny had to be fought for.

In other words, we bought into the hype, and that hype’s lasted for a good long time.

What’s Happening Now In Display?

It’s time to wake up and check out what display’s really like. If you have spent the last 10 years assuming that display is dead or at least pining for the fjords, you owe it to yourself and your business to revisit the possibilities it offers.

Display is a lucrative channel for many companies and it is as relevant and targeted in the hands

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of an expert as any good search campaign.

Display has improved in every possible area. Technology is better than ever: programmatic helps companies develop responsive campaigns; data, both big and small, is available and actionable; and first-party cookie technology means that data come back for a longer period with a better evaluation of reach, frequencies and viewability.

With better attribution models, it is possible to see how display contributes throughout the funnel from awareness to conversion.

As a part of a holistic marketing process, display supports other channels by bringing in new audiences, reinforcing awareness for current audiences and

retargeting current customers with appropriate offers. The flexibility of a display campaign is one of its greatest strengths, allowing the marketer to focus on meeting business goals.

It’s a fast channel – allowing a company to make and traffic an ad in a very short time, immediately beginning to raise awareness or give a jolt to a sale.

Like search ads, display gives you the chance to appear in front of potential customers without a long development period. Compare that to the longer investment of organic social and search and you’ll see how valuable it is to have display in your media toolbox.

Display still has a strong presence as the familiar banner and skyscraper ad units across the web.

But under the hood of those ads

are targeting, measurement and attribution models dedicated to serving the right ad to the right audience. Modern ad servers allow advertisers to target audiences where and when it’s most advantageous.

You Don’t Know What Display Is Things don’t stop there, however.

Beyond banners and interstitials, there are hidden display channels all over that are attributed to anything but display.

Hidden Display 1: Facebook

Ads are one of the major display ad networks. After search had established itself, it found itself

with a new challenger: social media marketing. But unlike display and search, search and social found a way to peacefully coexist and in fact to support each other from the beginning. Facebook, along with Twitter, became the poster child for social media marketing and soon both launched ads to capitalize on that interest. And the form they took? Display.

Hidden Display 2: Video is display. And done right, it’s staggeringly effective not only as an awareness channel but also as an acquisition method.

Hidden Display 3: Mobile

advertising? That’s mostly display too. We live in a multi-channel,

multi-device world. Pushing ads onto phones, tablets and wearables is big business. Display advertising networks are right there, reaching out to customers and converting views into dollars.

Display is a powerful channel that should absolutely be part of your marketing mix. It may be already and you didn’t know it. To close, I want to offer a challenge: if you are a display denier, give it another shot. What you find may surprise you.

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CRM Tools

6 CRM Tools Every Entrepreneur Needs for Managing Clients 48 www.greenazine.com

head-to-head comparison feature lets team members see how they stack up against others in the organization and calculate sales achievements with a real-time calculator. The tool also levels the playing field of the team members by allowing them to observe the actions of their peers, especially those who are in the lead.

For client management, Rev has a module that stores each client’s profile, along with a detailed sales history, notes, and task manager for necessary actions. Team members can also pull a purchase trend analysis or forecast analysis, along with accessing an area within the tool for storing notes for miscellaneous comments.

Rapportive If you spend much of your day switching between your CRM and your Gmail account, Rapportive can save you time and make you more effective. The app connects to your Gmail account to show in-depth information on each of your contacts. You’ll be able to see your contact’s LinkedIn profile picture, determine if that contact is nearby, and see detailed information from his LinkedIn profile.

Rapportive also uses a contact’s LinkedIn profile to determine contacts you may have in common. This information could lead to an important introduction or simply allow you to forge a common bond with the people you communicate with every day.

InfusionSoft InfusionSoft allows you to manage your contacts, including using segmentation to send targeted communications. With lead scoring, your team can focus its efforts on those who are most likely to become customers, upping your sales each month. Leads are scored automatically based on both demographics and the actions the potential clients take.

Managing a business can be challenging, with entrepreneurs often required to operate with limited staff in the early days. Technology can help, but there are so many tech tools available that business owners can get confused. Here are 6 CRM tools that can serve as your small-business toolkit in managing clients.

REV Gamification is a popular trend in businesses today, proving very useful in motivating team members to perform. REV uses suggestive analytics to provide indepth, actionable insights into each team member’s decisions while turning the numbers into a scoring system that drives competition and performance. A

With the InfusionSoft sidebar for Outlook and Gmail, you can keep an eye on your leads, including your appointment history with each contact. In addition to seeing this information in your sidebar, you can also add notes and trigger follow-up activity.

Batchbook Batchbook lets you import contact information from a variety of sources, including spreadsheets and vCard files. Once imported, you can create robust profiles for each contact, regularly updating them with personalized notes that enhance your communications. You can note a contact’s birthday, children’s names, or favorite food for future reference.

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Batchbook lets you import contact information from a variety of sources, including spreadsheets and vCard files. Once imported, you can create robust profiles for each contact, regularly updating them with personalized notes that enhance your communications. You can note a contact’s birthday, children’s names, or favorite food for future reference.

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The software integrates with popular tools like Facebook, QuickBooks, MailChimp, and Eventbrite for easy import and export of contacts. The software comes with a free 30-day trial.

Punchh Punchh is designed for today’s mobile-driven consumer, gathering insights on customers when they do things they enjoy. Customers gain rewards for activities like sharing reviews, referring friends, playing games, responding to surveys, placing an order, and more. The software uses the information to tell a business a little more about each customer.

The app also works with iBeacons, which reach out to customers when they’re within a certain proximity to a business. This provides a great way for a business to win customers while also gathering information for its system.

Yesware As you try to build your business, you likely spend a great deal of effort on your email marketing campaigns. Yesware lets you know what happens after you hit send, delivering information on when the message was opened and whether it was opened on desktop or mobile. This information gives you indepth insight into how your customers respond to your messages, allowing you to craft more effective campaigns in the future.

Yesware connects to either Gmail or Outlook for seamless integration. Once connected, you can make calls directly from your inbox, with calls logged to Salesforce automatically.

With so many options, businesses can easily find the software that meets its own unique needs. Many of these tools provide product tours and free trials, allowing you to try the interface to make sure it’s the right option for your own unique needs. Once you have the right tools in place, you’ll be able to efficiently manage all of your clients and never miss the opportunity to follow up on a lead again.

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QR Code

How to Make a QR Code in 4 Quick Steps “Really? We’re talking about QR codes?”

Fair reaction. For a few years now, QR codes have been one of the technologies at the center of the popular “___ is dead” trope we marketers love to argue. We’ve even debated it ourselves on this blog. But if there’s one thing this back-andforth shows you, it’s that there sure isn’t a consensus -- just scroll down to the comments on that post and you’ll find the efficacy of QR codes

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still hotly contested. Do some more research on the data behind it, and you’ll find it can support either claim if you really want it to: QR codes are dead; long live the QR code.

So this post is to help marketers who are interested in experimenting with QR codes, anyway. Keep reading to learn how to create your own, and how you can increase the chance of consumers scanning them.

Basics ...

QR Codes, short for “quick response” codes, are little black and white squiggly barcodes that usually look something like this: (I say “usually” because they can be different colors and shapes, but you get the picture.) You’ll often find them on direct mail, signage, billboards, maybe even in commercials.

How Do QR Codes Work? The Originally designed in Japan for the automotive industry, marketers

adopted the barcodes because of their large storage capacity and ability to translate additional information to consumers beyond what creative and/or packaging could convey. If a consumer sees a QR code somewhere, they can take out their mobile device, open up a QR code scanner, and “scan” the barcode to gain access to additional information, like so:

Step 2: Insert the content (in this case, a URL).

QR Code Best Practices: Some Important Do’s and Don’ts

Step 3: Check out the preview, customize as desired, then download and/or embed where needed.

Now that you see how simple the QR code creation process can be, let’s talk about some best practices that’ll help increase the likelihood your QR code actually gets used.

So if you wanted to promote, say, a podcast series on an advertisement at a bus stop, you could create a QR code that sends scanners to your iTunes page. Make sense? Cool.

3) Test the QR code.

How to Create a QR Code The QR code creation process is pretty straightforward. Here’s how to get started.

1) Select a QR code generator.

There are tons of QR code generators out there, but a few of the post popular include Kaywa, GOQR.me, Visualead, and QR Stuff. Some things to look for when choosing a QR code generator are whether you can track and analyze performance, if it allows you to design a code that’s unique to your brand, and if it is compatible with common QR code readers.

2) Design and link it up.

The fun part of creating QR codes is customizing the design of the codes to your brand. Want your code to look like your logo? Go for it. Want it to reflect your website’s design scheme? Should be no problem.

To demonstrate how easy it is, let’s select one of the QR code generators above and do a walkthrough together.

I’ll select GOQR.me.

Step 1: Select what type of content you want your QR code to send the consumer to -- we’ll choose a URL for this example.

Quite simple, right? Of course, you can customize your QR code further -- adjusting the colors, adding a logo, creating social options, and more.

In all the excitement of creating your first QR code, don’t forget to check to see if the QR code “reads” correctly, and be sure to try more than just one reader. A good place to start is the free tool Google Goggles, which takes a picture and then tells you what link or item it “reads to.” Another great free tool is QR Code Reader, which automatically takes you to whatever it “reads.” Apple’s Passbook also offers a built-in QR code reader on iOS 7, so you should test to make sure your code is readable there, as well.

4) Track and analyze performance.

Just like any marketing campaign, you should follow up on any collateral or campaigns using QR codes to see whether they’re actually working. How much traffic comes from each specific code? Are people scanning your code but not redeeming their offer once they get to the landing page? Or are they not even compelled enough to scan your QR code? Knowing this will help you troubleshoot and adjust your poorly performing QR codes to more closely mirror those that work well.

I recommend you include a UTM tracking code on your URL so you can better measure performance -this is particularly important if you use closed-loop marketing analytics, and are used to more in-depth reporting on your campaigns.

QR Code Do’s 1) Do put QR codes in places where scanning is easy, and there’s enough time for the consumer to actually scan the code. While you may often see QR codes on billboards and TV commercials, they’re not exactly the most user-friendly locations.

Think of places and mediums where consumers have the time to scan the code, and, ideally, a Wi-Fi connection as well.

2) Do mobile-optimize the page to which you’re sending people.

Consumers will be on their phone when scanning the QR code, so they should be brought to a page with a positive mobile experience.

3) Do offer a call-to-action (CTA) with the code -- that is to say, tell people what they’re supposed to do when they see the code, and what they’ll receive if they do it. Not everyone knows exactly what a QR code is, and those that do won’t be motivated to scan it unless they’re sure there’s something worthwhile on the other side.

QR Code Don’ts 1) Don’t require a special QR code scanner. Your QR code should be app-agnostic so anyone can scan your code with any reader. A lower barrier to entry makes success more likely for you and the user.

2) Don’t use a QR code just for the sake of using one. For instance, it’s

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common for marketers to think, “How can I bridge the offline experience with the online experience? Uhhh ...

QR code!” That’s not wrong ... but it’s not always right, either. If you have content that makes sense to deliver to a mobile user, and you have an appropriate vehicle to do it (see #1 in the “Do” section above) it’s more likely your QR code will drive results.

For example, in South Korea, grocery store chain Tesco drove tremendous national business growth by using QR codes in subway stations (I guess they have mobile service in their subway stations) to let riders order their groceries while they wait. It’s a great example of using QR codes for the right end-goal, at the right place and time. This article from Search Engine Journal has some more examples of good times to use QR codes, as well.

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If after reading this you’re not convinced QR codes are the right move -- or you just want some additional ways you can connect the offline world to the online world -- consider also adding a short, memorable URL people can type in easily on their mobile phones in your creative.

The future of QR codes could also mean an evolution -- augmented reality apps certainly stem from the same concept, after all. Consider the AR News App, which lets readers augment a newspaper story into a child-friendly article by downloading an app and hovering over stories with a special marker (sounds pretty close to a QR scanner, doesn’t it?).

It may be that QR codes aren’t quite dead, but just the first step in a long evolution.

Do put QR codes in places where scanning is easy, and there’s enough time for the consumer to actually scan the code.

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greenazine newsletters reimagined

greenazine newsletters reimagined

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