Webinar Resources

Normandy, Missouri - June 20, 2011 - Webinar Resources is proud to announce the launch of a new web site, Sell66Stuff.com. The web site is designed to help businesses market their products along historic Route 66. Listings in the directory for retailers, wholesalers and event promoters who want to sell products on Route 66 are free of charge, and can include a photo and a link back to the business web site. Paid ad space is also available on Sell66Stuff.com.

Carolyn Hasenfratz, Creative Director of Webinar Resources and a fan of Route 66 for a dozen years now, thought of the idea for Sell66Stuff.com while exhibiting Route 66 themed rubber stamps at the 2010 International Route 66 Festival that took place in June of that year in Quawpaw, Oklahoma. "Another vendor asked me if I could recommend other upcoming events with opportunities for selling Route 66-related merchandise," says Carolyn. "I knew there were many calendars available online for events on Route 66, but none that were designed specifically to make it easy for vendors to find suitable exhibition opportunities that attract Route 66 enthusiasts and those who enjoy historic highways, Americana and car culture. On the drive home, I thought about creating such an events directory and adding to it a section for retailers and a section for wholesalers so that anyone trying to sell products on Route 66 can find the right outlets for their merchandise. Many retailers on Route 66 report that one-third to one-half of their customers are from outside the United States. That creates a great opportunity for business people in our country to expose their products to a wider audience."

Sell66Stuff.com is also designed to help stores find interesting merchandise to help diversify and differentiate their offerings. "I've been told that travelers on Route 66 have complained about seeing the same merchandise in the same several stores they initially encounter, and that causes them to stop less frequently as they proceed down the road. That is very unfortunate, because Route 66 is a magnet for creative people. There are entrepreneurs, artists and craftspeople busy creating unique merchandise that could find more buyers if it was available in the right places."

Because they often contain gift shops, lodging and dining establishments are encouraged to join the directory. The inclusion of restaurants opens up opportunities to those who sell food and drink, not just special Route 66 themed products, but any food and drink that restaurants need for the tourists who stop in. Also, "Even though they don't always sell "Stuff", I'm allowing performing artists to participate, because so many of the dining and drinking establishments that are good candidates for the directory also hire live entertainment," says Carolyn.

"Route 66 means a lot of different things to different people - one of the roles Route 66 has played from its birth is to be a road of commerce. In that tradition one of the goals of Sell66Stuff.com is to make a contribution to the overall economic health of the Route 66 corridor." An ardent preservationist, Carolyn hopes that leveraging the economic potential of Route 66 will ensure that more historic sites will remain for future tourists to enjoy. "One of the things that makes me saddest is waste," Carolyn says. "If preservation projects languish because of lack of money or are never started in the first place because people aren't aware of the potential a historic site has, that is a waste and a loss for all of us."

Have an iPad? Enjoy a mobile viewing experience during our webinar.  Learn more here.

Sell66Stuff is supported by Webinar Resources.
Customer Acquisition, Demand Generation and Mobile Solutions - Blending the Best to Build Your Business.

A "Share Your Story" Brainshark Blogpost posted through Compendium's Email to Post feature.

Learn more about Print and mobile.  Register for our June 22nd webinar at - http://mobex.me/wwreg.   Produced by Webinar Resources.

How do print media and QR Code mix?   Learn more at our upcoming webinar - "Blending Print and Mobile to Deliver Engaging Experiences"- Webinar Wednesdays June 22nd, 1:00 -2:00 pm Central.   Scan the QR code below our see our announcement below this blog.

Learn how to make your message stick with QR codes.   At Webinar Resources, we "make mobile media easy" ^SM

Another Webinar Wednesday event produced by Webinar Resources.  In our continuing effort to help you to reach out to new customers with effective lead generation tools.  Consider print and mobile as a new multi-channel mix to create engaging cross media applications.

From in-store displays to magazine ads to packages of organic spinach, these funny-looking squares are becoming more and more common in our environment. A QR ("quick response") Code or Tag is a square 2D barcode that you can scan with your smartphone's camera with the help of a QR Code Reader app to immediately launch mobile links to a variety of media on your mobile phone's web browser. Said another way, QR Codes are a simple way to connect the offline world with the online world.

At Webinar Resources we've been busy putting this technology to use for ourselves and our clients. For example, I recently included a QR code on a print ad that I designed for the Route 66 Association of Missouri. The association does not yet have any special mobile-optimized content, so for now the url points to the web site.  Most existing web sites are viewable on a smartphone, even if they are not optimized especially for mobile viewing. The url is designed so I can change the location and mobile media without changing the QR code, so if there is ever any mobile content in the future that we wish to link this ad to, it will not become obsolete. Shelf-life is an important consideration with printed materials, since they are not as easy, quick, or cheap to change as an electronic document.

QR Codes can make up another part of your multi-channel marketing strategy and can be effective lead generation tools.

Do you want to learn more about QR codes and download a reader for your mobile device? See our QR Code guide.

Produced by Webinar Resources

 

I opened my Flipboard app on my iPad Friday morning and was greeted with my most recent Facebook post, the iPad2 order announcement and a blog from our "best of blend" partners Brainshark and Compendium.   It was like opening my diary and reading about our recent multi-channel marketing activities.

Compendium featured Webinar Resources and our use of QR Codes and I posted a QR code to their blog on our Facebook site.   Our Mobile Replay on demand presentation made it to the semi-finals for this year's Brainshark Sharkie awards.  

It was also interesting to see the iPad2 announcement as we are researching how the front facing camera could be used to scan QR Codes.   Stay tuned for more information on how you can launch our optimized mobile-ready content on the iPad2.

Create and share your own stories with the social media community and they will come back to you when you least expect them.

A new survey of 20,000 adults by BIGresearch shows that 13.2% own a BlackBerry device, 11.3% own an iPhone, 9.3% own a device running Android and 5.2% own an iPad. Among other things, these devices enable consumers to browse the web, view multimedia content, scan bar codes and QR codes, compare prices at the point of sale, download coupons and share information with their social networks. These are all intriguing possibilities for a business to explore as part of the multi channel marketing mix. But are the number of users of smartphones and tablet computers large enough to make the effort to cater to them worthwhile? At first glance those don't sound like terribly high percentages of users.

There is other data in the survey to consider. Perhaps not surprisingly, mobile device users are more likely than the general population to shop online. They are more inclined to research products online before making a purchase. And according to Gary Drenik, president and CEO of BIGresearch, "...mobile device owners are more likely than average consumers to give and seek advice on products and services."

The findings of this research lead me to conclude that campaigns designed to woo mobile users are likely to have a very good return on investment, and therefore are very much worth the effort! For example I've recently made a mobile-optimized version of my design portfolio. At Webinar Resources, we are developing a line of mobile-ready applications to support lead generation, multimedia content delivery, personalization and cross-channel communication. Here are a couple of examples of our mobile mix Mobile Replay and url shortener and QR code generator. We invite you to keep in touch with us via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or our newsletter to stay updated about our latest mobile offerings.