USPS Sweetens Mobile Barcode Push With SpyderLynk's SnapTags

The U.S. Postal Service is fighting for its life, and under government pressure to find new ways to decrease costs and create new business models that made delivery more efficient. Cue mobile. 

As part of the USPS 2012 mobile commerce and personalization promotion, it's offering a 2% discount on Standard Mail and First-Class Mail letters, flats and cards that include a 2D mobile barcode — not much, but it's a start. Now SpyderLynk is sweetening the deal by offering those same customers a 10% discount for using SnapTags as their 2D mobile barcode.

SpyderLynk’s SnapTags were this week approved by the U.S. Postal Service for use by direct marketers to receive a discount on mass mailings. The company’s two main products, SnapTags and Social SnapTags, are QR codes on steroids. Its Buy-it-Now Mobile Commerce SnapTag is a proprietary mobile barcode solution that when scanned activates a link to a mobile-optimized Web page that allows the mail recipient to purchase a product or service, or links to a mobile-optimized and customized Web page tailored to the mail recipient and accessible by a personalized URL.

SpyderLynk combines shopping templates, transaction processing, a mobile wallet function, social shopping tools and fulfillment capabilities beyond traditional QR code. Marketers can brand SnapTags with logos or use them as interactive marketing tools, more aesthetically pleasing and brand-centric than black box QR code, and consumers need only a camera phone to begin a mobile interactive dialogue, no app required.

“We’re delighted to offer our mobile shopping and commerce technology to direct mail marketers during the Postal Service’s summer promotion,” said Nicole Skogg, SpyderLynk Founder and CEO. “Buy-it-Now SnapTags provide a turnkey solution to engage consumers in a powerful and highly interactive way and convert those direct mail prospects into customers.  For direct marketers, mobile provides a new channel to add names to their databases, reduce acquisition costs, and increase ROI.”

The promotion period runs from July 1, 2012 through August 31, 2012. 

SpyderLynk CMO Jane McPherson identified the basic challenge with mobile marketing and advertising as how to click with consumers. "If everyone throws QR codes on everything without offering consumers value beyond a web connection, will it turn consumers off? Right now there’s still a novelty factor, but marketers are going to have think more carefully about the best times, places, and ways to use mobile activation codes.” 

Brands using SpyderLynk’s products include Coke Zero, Revlon, L’Oreal, MillerCoors, Warner Brothers, Toyota and Bud Light, and now the USPS. SpyderLynk has also been selected as a Finalist for Red Herring's Top 100 Americas award honoring the year’s most promising private technology ventures in North America.