Thanks to all of the 250ish attendees on the Documobi webinar Wed Jan 11th, and to the other 200 that registered but couldn’t make it! That is a pretty big response in webinar terms and it gives us some good street cred to bring more cool stuff to you as the year goes on!
So speaking of cool stuff… DOCUMOBI! – An app that allows for anything printed with an image, from any point in time, on any substrate, to be made interactive – was the topic and as the presentation moved along I was manning the chat and trying to answer as many questions I could. Some very good points were raised, as well as some concerns, but since the majority of questions were about pricing and licensing, it seems the sheer awesomeness of this tech was conveyed very well by our presenter Peter Lancaster, Co-Founder and COO of Documobi.
It’s obvious PMC and I support this tech, amongst many others, and have done our best to get this information to you, so I’m not attempting to “sell” you on it. I am going to recap what we learned, try and address some of the concerns that were raised as best I can, and hopefully when you make up your own mind, we are on the same page! Bottom line, if it’s good for Print and Marketing, it’s good for all of us…
So let’s actually start there…
Documobi wasnt adopted by print, it was created FOR Print and that alone gives it some unique space in the marketing tech world. As well, since the tech works without a marker, it allows you to go back into your sample closets, and portfolios, and agency pitch books, and warehoused materials, and the 600 biz cards you have left from last year, and give them an interactive rebirth.
With materials you are currently working on, you can still print even if you digital material isn’t ready since again a printed marker isn’t needed. When you have it, you just do a few clicks on the Documobi site and direct the images anywhere you want them to go, and change where they go anytime you want, as much as you want.
An image used in a campaign, or a logo for example, will go to that same directed content no matter what it is printed on (or embroidered, and even etched in some instances) how it was printed, and again when it was created. In the webinar Peter used the Coca Cola logo as an example (not affiliated with Documobi) since they are the largest brand in the world and it’s easy to picture how many places, and substrates, and times throughout your life, you have seen it, or will see from today on. The supermarket, the stadium, the corner store, the movie theater, your refrigerator, in ads, on displays, on posters, on promotions, on merchandise, on a delivery truck or uniform – doesn’t matter – it’s all connected and the interactive experience can all be managed, changed, updated and removed in a few clicks without having to do anything to the materials!
So lets try it… Get out your Android, iPhone or iPad and go to your app market. Search Documobi and download the free reader app – which is universal btw – ONE Creator App/ONE Reader App. Once installed, open it up and scan the cheeseburger, which is the “image” in this piece submitted by Christine Roy of RPI Printing when we did an open call for samples prior to the webinar. The content is a video created by Documobi to show what is possible once an image is scanned.
Pretty cool huh? Let’s take it one more step – the data! During the webinar, after we asked attendees to scan, Peter pulled up the Documobi site and went into this image file. In REAL TIME he showed how many people scanned, WHERE they scanned (he did it by GPS coordinates and then loaded those into Google maps and pulled up an attendees house – but it can be set up in many ways depending upon what your location needs are) and WHEN they scanned. We didn’t ask for email addresses or any personal information, but of course that is possible to know WHO had scanned as well. If you set it up that way, the APP can follow up with an email or a text message, and there might be more options but those were the only ones we discussed. As well, as you can see in the video, the content delivered can be tied into the where, when and who data – so in this instance if I scanned the cheeseburger and it’s lunchtime, the content could deliver the closest place I can find your clients or customers cheeseburger as well as a coupon for free fries or a drink!! All of this is can be personalized as well. How you apply the image/s and the delivered content for your business or for your clients is totally up to you! And don’t forget, you can go BACK to your already printed materials and use Documobi!
During the webinar, the chat area was buzzing with questions and comments and I did my best to keep up while Peter was presenting, but our participants were extremely active and interested – so it was hard! A few of the same questions were raised by many, and I’d like to take a stab and elaborating as best I can based upon when I learned about Documobi.
By far, the question asked most was “how are consumers/customers supposed to know the image is interactive without a marker?” It was probably asked most since that is a very important question! There are however many answers to it – and here are a few:
You could 100% use a marker if you so choose, but unlike a QR code, that marker can be ANYTHING you want and there are no size or contrast scanability requirements. Brands and companies for example can make their own! I made these to show you what I mean.
Now just having a marker or some indicator doesn’t mean people will get that the material is using iPR, as we certainly know from QR codes, so maybe for a bit you will want to include some info on downloading the app and scanning the image – up to you. The good news here is that the reader is UNIVERSAL – so there is only one choice. I believe with QR codes there are over 250 reader options and I also know from personal experience (let alone all the info out there) that all of them don’t work on all the codes. This is a self-contained process, so you create and read from the same system.
If you license Documobi, you also have many opportunities to communicate to your clients and customers through all of your channels and social media that EVERTHING is interactive and give them the info to download the reader. You can add a line on your materials and say something like “this ad is powered by iPR – visit our website for more info” and DRIVE traffic over there with something really cool. You can pre-empt the question for your current clients/customers by sending out a mailer announcing your Print has gone Digital – and providing an image for them to scan and reader info – and even tell them they can go back to ANY materials they have from you and they are interactive as well – but of course you have to apply iPR before you do that. In any case, this is a huge opportunity to SHOW people what is possible and get them engaged with you as well as wanting to use the tech in their materials! The idea is that people can now interact with your BRAND or your BUSINESS, not a code, and how you let them know is a strategy as well as a unique marketing and sales opportunity! You will be amongst the first in the world to do this – so it’s really a great position for you and your company to present something like this, even if you clients or customers don’t use it.
To our surprise, the second most asked question was about pricing. We purposely didn’t include costs in the webinar because it wasn’t meant to be a sales pitch. The purpose was to introduce you to, and provide you information for, what we believe at PMC is an amazing technology for Print. Peter did such a great job that even after the webinar the follow-ups, calls, emails, and posts – even to PMC – were people wanting to buy it. Because of that… and the awesome turnout and registration numbers, Documobi has provided us with a discount to share with you. The license costs $1995 – and you can save $300 using promo code PMC12 at checkout on documobi.com. There are other costs, so please contact info@documobi.com to discuss those; I am not their sales rep! Printers, Marketers, Ad Agencies, Designers – everyone who touches the creation and production of materials can apply this tech to their business, clients and customers. Oh, and Printers, this also works with Web 2 Print systems!
The third most asked question was in regard to creating the content after the scan. This is where the biggest issues have arisen with the whole scanning thing in general in my opinion. Documobi provides some pretty extensive tools to create mobile content and data capture, and has partnered with a company to create video as well. They have some links on their site and you can also use internal people or other companies out there to do your mobile content. Hopefully, what you create is value-added and optimized for mobile viewing, and you have careful thought behind it. If you need help with that part, there are literally 1000’s of people in my LinkedIn Group and who follow PMC that offer such marketing and consulting services. A great technology delivering poor content will just be a cool gimmick, and as professionals we all prefer results.
Speaking of marketing, another question raised by many was about the images themselves. What is to stop me for example from applying Documobi to the Coca Cola logo and sending everyone who scans it to PMC? The short answer is nothing. However, there are safeguards in place. First and foremost, ONLY a license holder can apply iPR to an image. It is usually hackers, not professionals, who ‘jack” things like QR codes where you can just put a sticker over printed materials. If, someone did lose their mind and decide to hijack the Coke logo, it would be traced back to the license holder in a few seconds as soon as it was discovered, and then you would have the fun time of dealing with their attorneys. It also makes no sense that we as marketers would hijack logos since after all we want people to get our information. But, something else came up during the webinar that I didn’t think of prior – what about stock images or images in the public domain – who can own those? And I still don’t know! I am going to need Peter to follow up on that one so I can follow up with you.
There were many more questions not answered during the webinar, and you might even have a bunch just from reading this – so please get in touch with info@documobi.com, join the Documobi LinkedIn Group, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and visit their site as well!
From a PMC standpoint, we couldn’t have been happier with the response from the Print & Integrated Marketing community and we are so happy with the way everything turned out. Our mission is to provide you with information and resources, and with this webinar our mission was certainly accomplished. I will have a link to the recorded version of the webinar soon to share, and hope you join our newsletter list as well as our social media channels to get updates on this product as well as all of our upcoming endeavors. If you want to share your products or information with our community, or work with us to host a webinar for you, please email me to discuss.
Thanks again to everyone for joining us, to Documobi, and especially to Skip Henk of Xplor International for stepping in and letting us use his webinar platform! Check out the Xplor Conference & Vendor Forum coming up in March in FL – and hope to see you there!
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