WITH THE RISE OF SMARTPHONES, MORE BUSINESSES ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE NFC TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE PRINT AND BRING THEIR MARKETING MATERIAL TO LIFE.

These days, businesses and marketers need to keep pushing the creative envelope if they want to stand out from the crowd. That means finding new and innovative ways to enhance their marketing materials — surprising and delighting audiences in the most impressive ways imaginable. 

Print will always have the advantage over digital when it comes to crafting something unique, tactile and memorable. But you can’t deny the dynamic nature of digital media and the many ways businesses can apply it to connect with their customers.

Of course, the sensible solution is to adopt both in your own marketing — bridging the gap between offline and online to create a more cohesive, more connected customer experience. Now, NFC technology is closing that gap even further.

What is NFC and how does it work?

To put it simply, NFC is technology that allows two devices within close range to exchange information. Hence the term Near Field Communication.

Whenever somebody walks onto the bridge on the Starship Enterprise and the doors automatically open — that’s NFC. 

Okay, bad example. Let’s try something a little more down to Earth. 

Ever used a contactless pay card? Well, the transition between the point-of-sale device and your card is done via NFC. This is achieved by the use of two NFC chips — one inside the card-reader, which is connected to a power source and is therefore capable of emitting a radio frequency signal, and the one inside your card.

Well, it’s the exact same principle when applied to print. An NFC chip embedded in a postcard, poster or piece of literature communicates directly with the NFC-enabled smartphone to display branded and promotional information relevant to the source material. 

The technology isn’t exactly brand new, we’ve been using it for decades for things like scanning items in supermarkets and luggage on bandage claims. But the ubiquity of smartphones is putting that same technology in the hands of billions of people across the planet, and marketers are now beginning to take advantage of this fact.

How NFC in print is being used to engage audiences

With the single tap of a smartphone, NFC brings printed materials to life in ways that were previously only seen in science fiction movies. You see, that Star Trek reference wasn’t entirely out of left field!

In fact, Lexus debuted one of the first NFC-enabled print ads as early as 2012. The ad was featured in Wired magazine, and linked users directly to a video demo of the vehicle’s dashboard media centre.

It was a truly revolutionary piece of marketing, showcasing what can be done creatively when print and digital platforms are brought together. But in other ways, its application was only just scratching the surface of what can be achieved with NFC.

Nowadays, marketers are using NFC technology to enhance not only the impact of printed materials, but the capabilities also. For example, businesses exhibiting at events can use NFC-enabled print to take visitors directly to the company website, or even specific service/product-information pages. 

If you have any further questions regarding the NFC process, contact our team today or visit our NFC for print marketing product page.

An alternative way to personalise how we interact with our customers! A simple TAP opens up a whole new range of possibilities. See how easy it could be for you, call us to discuss using NFC for your next print project.

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— Purely Digital (@purelytweeting) Apr 10, 2019