Birmingham mail house Baker Godchild discuss the benefits of integrating Direct Mail and Near Field Communication (NFC)

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Baker Goodchild

Dec 12, 2014, 03:00 ET

Birmingham, West Midlands, UK (PRWEB UK) 12 December 2014 -- This relatively new technology allows businesses to effectively bridge the gap between the physical and digital worlds, providing a more seamless experience for prospective customers. With forecast growth in the NFC market, now is the time to get on board with this technology, which many believe has the potential to revolutionise the direct marketing sector.

How NFC works

NFC or Near Field Communication (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication) enables marketers to deliver content via an embedded chip. When a user’s smartphone or mobile device is in close proximity of the chip (typically 10cm or less), the two will wirelessly connect. From there, the NFC chip will automatically take the user to a specific webpage, social media page or sign up page, where they can carry out the intended actions, much like QR codes.

Although NFC has been around for as long as QR code technology, it hasn’t been as widely adopted. The main reason for this is that NFC chips previously had to be embedded in marketing materials, making it awkward and expensive. However more recently, the development of NFC-enabled papers and plastics has opened up fantastic new opportunities to direct mail marketers.

NFC drives prospects to a website from a direct mail campaign

By using NFC-enabled paper to create their direct mail correspondence, marketers can automatically drive prospects to their websites and provide them with additional content, in hope of making those all-important conversions. NFC chips can also be used within direct mail leaflets and brochures to provide prospects with unique discount codes and offers to incentivise them to buy a business’s products or service, either in-store or online.

The fact that NFC codes instantly connect end-users with brand’s online content, with no effort whatsoever, goes a long way in improving user experience and increasing conversions. A number of big brands and publishers have already found NFC technology to be extremely beneficial including the likes of Ladbrokes, Marie Claire and Pepsi Cola.

“Consumers are looking for convenience and it’s difficult to get more convenient than NFC,” says Lorraine Burnell, Managing Director of mail fulfilment company, Baker Goodchild. “Unlike QR codes, NFC codes don’t require any action on the consumers’ part making them even more favourable.”

Integrated NFC with traditional campaigns

Using NFC to integrate traditional printed campaigns with online campaigns will also allow Companies to benefit from measurability. By simply coding NFC chips to be tracked by a compatible web application, Companies will be able to log various different information, such as the number of hits a site receives, users’ location and the type of smartphone they’re using, all of which can be used to fine tune a campaign.

Other benefits of an NFC campaign

This can be taken a step further by creating unique codes for each direct mail recipient that give instant data regarding who has responded to the campaign and who hasn’t, making it easy to follow up leads and determine a ROI.

Using NFC also means that marketers can continue to use long URLs without any problems, as users won’t have to type them in. Using long URLs means they can be clearer as to the actual content of the page, which can have significant SEO benefits.

With NFC, the possibilities for direct mail marketers are endless. Not only can they use the technology to drive prospects to their websites, but also personalised pages. Creating personalised pages featuring unique messages, product recommendations and offers is great for engaging prospects and enticing them to complete the call to action.

Whilst still need to create interesting and engaging direct mail correspondence in order to captivate a target audience, using NFC technology will make it much easier to keep a hold of prospects and guide them to complete a call to action. The beauty of it is that because it is all web-based, marketers can update their content regularly, without any need to re-programme the codes or re-print their direct mail correspondence.

Integrating your direct mail campaigns with NFC technology will allow Companies to get ahead of the curve. Though if relatively new to NFC, Companies may want to consider working with experts in the technology and for that, there’s no better choice than Baker Goodchild.
For further information, the full range of Technology Integrated with Direct Mail infographics can be found here:

Technology Integrated with Direct Mail -
http://www.bakergoodchild.co.uk/infographics/details/26/technology-integration-with-direct-mail-in-2015
Direct Mail combined with QR and PURL Codes -
http://www.bakergoodchild.co.uk/infographics/details/23/direct-mail-combined-with-qr-and-purl-codes
Augmented Reality (AR) Technology integrated with Direct Mail -
http://www.bakergoodchild.co.uk/infographics/details/24/augmented-reality-ar-integrated-with-direct-mail
USB Web Keys integrated with Direct Mail -
http://www.bakergoodchild.co.uk/infographics/details/25/usb-web-keys-integrated-with-direct-mail
Direct Mail integrated with Google AdWords and Remarketing -
http://www.bakergoodchild.co.uk/infographics/details/22/direct-mail-integrated-with-google-adwords-and-remarketing
Near Field Communication (NFC) Integration with Direct Mail -
http://www.bakergoodchild.co.uk/infographics/details/21/near-field-communication-nfc-integration-with-direct-mail