People’s phones are an essential part of their daily life, connecting them to their entire world of friends and information. Using recognition technologies to make virtually anything clickable lets you quickly take advantage of today’s phone-centric lifestyle and help you direct customers to the most relevant information about your brand. The Microsoft Tag marketing solution gives you and your customers the easy way to use a rich suite of recognition technologies, from QR Codes to the current Tag barcodes and beyond to the next generation in mobile, Near Field Communication (NFC). Depending on your choice, you can create a simple campaign delivering a line of text or a phone number, or go further and help people use your mobile site, see a video, download an app, get contact info, and much more. You don't have to worry about them typing in your URL or finding you online – using Tag instantly puts the relevant info at their fingertips.
QR codes and Microsoft Tags are optical technology. NFC lets a device receive data from a chip embedded in a nearby poster, for example, using close-range radio signals (from Mobile Tagging).
Microsoft Tag is providing support for the two commonly used 2D barcode formats (Tag and QR Codes) and for Near Field Communications (NFC) capabilities of Mobile Tagging. With this extension, brands have the freedom to choose the format most appropriate for their campaigns and give consumers the ease of one reader to use.
The Microsoft Tag team is continuously updating the list of supported devices, so if your device isn’t listed now, it may be in the future.
Heat Maps give you actionable info for refining your message, audience targeting, and campaign spending. Think of it as free market research that helps you plan media buys. You could run a movie promotion in national magazines before the film opens, then focus your opening-weekend advertising on the geographies that generated the most scans. Without geographical info, you’re making buys based on what you think will work.
With Tag and Heat Maps, you can make buys based on what you know will work. It’s hard to imagine a free marketing tool with greater savings power. The bigger and darker the circle, the hotter the Tag barcode, QR Code, or NFC touchpoint. Say you’re selling sunglasses and spending heaviest in sunny Las Vegas. A glance at the Heat Map shows you’re getting more action in Seattle. Turns out Seattleites so rarely need sunglasses that it’s easier to buy new ones than find the ones they bought last year. Time to go bigger in Seattle and possibly rethink Vegas.
You can create any of Tag's recognition technologies in about a minute – simply click a few links, choose a few options, decide if you want to use a Tag barcode, QR Code or NFC, then download your Tag image or URL. Take a few more minutes, and design a one-of-a-kind custom Tag.
Create, display, and scan Tags – all for free. You read right: There’s no fee to create or scan Tags or to view basic reports. This means that, as long as we run the Tag service, you will be able to: People scan your Tag barcode, QR Code, or NFC touchpoint on their smartphones using the freeTag app and instantly view the experience you've created.
References:
Service and Tag Creation API Agreement: http://tag.microsoft.com/tag-terms-of-use.aspx
Tag API: http://tag.microsoft.com/ws/tou.htm
Summary
Go beyond just telling how you hand-pick your ‘cukes and berries – give directions to the closest shop carrying your artisanal pickles and jams. You can also capture a unique Device ID of each mobile phone engaging with your content. That way, you can go a step further and serve up a different experience with each tap: Give a buy-one-get-one-free coupon with the first tap and a recipe for wild mountain blackberry thumbprint cookies with the next tap.
Microsoft Tag offers several APIs to make the management of your campaigns easier. If you are running a campaign that requires a large number of Tags to be used, the Tag Creation API allows you to batch create and manage your Tags from your desktop, laptop, server, or mobile device. And, the Tag Scan Data API (Mobile Tagging) is used to export your Tag scanning data, allowing you to import it into other campaign management tools to have a comprehensive view of your results.
