The 2010 Graph Expo had an excellent turn out this past week.  It was held at the McCormick Place South which was conveniently right in the heart of Chicago.  The entire event was filled with all of the top printing vendors as well as vendors who helped with every type of service acquainted with printing.

Grow Socially was one of those booths, and we were happy to receive a ton of attention from the QR Codes we incorporated into our display.  People were very impressed with the wide range of uses QR Codes provide in terms of integrating more interaction with your audience by simply placing a QR code on a printed material.

The Grow Socially booth used QR Codes in many different ways for this particular event.  One of our QR Codes was printed on a poster that linked people to an online survey.  The survey asked them which of our online marketing services they were interested in and when they would like to receive more information.  At the end of the survey, they were asked to enter their e-mail address, and then click “Submit”.  This resulted in them being entered into our “Win-A-Flipcam” contest as well as our marketing database.  Our second QR Code was placed on John Foley, Jr.’s business cards, which linked people to a YouTube video of him thanking the person for scanning the QR Code.  By placing the QR Code on his business card, he gave people the opportunity to remember who he was, what he looked like, and what he specialized in.  The third way we integrated QR Codes with our Graph Expo booth was by putting a QR Code on our Grow Socially brochures, which linked to our homepage.  The reasoning behind this was simply to make it easy for people to find us on the web and become acquainted with our site directly from their phone.

To learn how to use a QR Code, check out this blog post that includes a step-by-step guide and a QR Code that brings you to our new mobile-friendly website!

We were happy to promote QR Codes and explain to people how interactive, affordable and fun they were.  The QR Codes may have also received so much attention because our sister company, InterlinkONE, was awarded a “Must See-Em”, which highlighted their QReate & Track Web Application.

Besides the QR Codes, other interactive types of marketing were being promoted throughout the conference.  During a morning session for InfoTrends, Barbara Pellow, the Director of InfoTrends, went into great detail about how multi-channel and social media marketing were becoming new outlets for printers to promote their business.  It was interesting to hear her input on why she believed these techniques were essential for printers to take into consideration when it came to their future marketing campaigns.  She explained that multi-channel and social media marketing were fresh, innovative ways to capture your audience and nurture the relationship the business and its target audience.  You can follow Barbara’s Twitter tweets at @barbpellow.

Some personal highlights for me at the Graph Expo were seeing and meeting so many great people.  John and I were able to meet with one of our clients, the Rescigno’s, after they taped a video with WhatTheyThink.  I was also able to meet with Dan Tallarico, from Printing Industries of America.  Dan manages all of PIA’s social media and was eager to discuss ways to promote social media more to the printing industry.

More highlights of the trip were of course being able to dine in some of Chicago’s wonderful restaurants and window-shop at the famous Magnificent Mile.  All in all, it was a great trip, filled with a ton of great moments.  We look forward to attending our next upcoming event, which will be the Print Management Conference.  It will take place at the Newport Marriott in Newport, Rhode Island from October 16^th through 19^th.