Finally, a piece of travel marketing technology worthy of writing about: a piece of cold, hard, and decidedly undigital paper. Yes, paper!
How is this particular piece of paper going to change travel marketing forever, and what in the world makes it so special?
Well, it's Friday so perhaps we're particular excitable over here at the Tnooz news desk, and Swivelcard's current crowdfunding campaign has the creative juices flowing. It's basically paper USB, meaning that a business card can now also be a USB stick. This is absolutely amazing, and frankly, we're surprised that the crowdfunding campaign hasn't exploded.
Finally there's some way to take the analog business card and add a touch of digital sauce to make it a multi-functional piece of the modern day business experience.
The paper business card acts as an everyday business card - which can then be folded and inserted into a computer for more information. There's also a mini version with a sticky backing, meaning that artists, marketers and other guerrilla-minded folks can start dropping digital packages anywhere in the world.
Travel marketers, think of the potential: trade shows, on-site events, networking, and any event worldwide that requires media-sharing can now become an opportunity to share digital assets with consumers, colleagues and potential partners.
Goodbye brochures, sayonara clunky DVDs - this solution is a lifesaver for anyone dealing with a massive media burden when marketing travel offerings. It's also quite user friendly, as it doesn't require potential travelers (or, ahem, journalists) to tote around a heavy weight of paper brochures, CDs and a mess of relatively useless USB sticks.
Swivelcard also ingeniously allows the user to adjust what URL the specific card points to, which means that the use can be adapted accordingly. Travel agents can use the cards to point potential clients to their websites, destination marketers can put in the URL that promotes the destination's latest marketing campaign, CVBs can load up member lists, and more.
The ability to update the URL means that this can be a living, breathing business card that is not tied to one URL. No more having to reprint cards every time an URL has been updated or a new campaign has been launched.
Analytics are also available, meaning that the black abyss of exchanging business cards can now be tracked as far as engagement. Analytics also means that different URLs can be measured for engagement, so that business cards can be iterated similar to other online marketing efforts.
This is truly an exciting development that will allow for more flexibility and creativity in marketing, especially useful in a visually captivating space as travel. Innovation has never really emerged in this space, and this structure allows for a new way of thinking about a long-held tradition. And it's far better for the world as well, as the card is more environmentally sound than the aforementioned marketing options - a win all around.