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Four Keys to a Successful SmartLabel™ Implementation

by Erick Solis
SmartLabel™ was intelligently crafted to respond to consumer’s soaring demand for product transparency. Led by the Grocery Manufacturers Association and Food Marketing Institute, SmartLabel™ is an initiative that has already won the support of some of the world’s largest grocery groups including Hershey’s, General Mills, and many others. SmartLabel™ enabled products are quickly flooding supermarket shelves, with more than 30,000 products expected to be available by 2017. A whopping 80% of all packaged groceries are predicted to have SmartLabel™ in the next five years. While delivering detailed nutritional, ingredient, allergen, and other information to consumers is undoubtedly important to brands, implementing SmartLabel™ can be an overwhelming task for even the largest of companies. To help facilitate SmartLabel™ implementation, we’ve identified four keys to success. Scanbuy_SmartLabel1. Allocate Resources For Planning Deploying SmartLabel™ is no small task. Whether you have 10 products or 1000s of SKUs, SmartLabel™ rollouts shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s critical to involve regulatory, legal, information systems, packaging, print, marketing, and any other relevant stakeholders in the initiative, to ensure that responsibilities are aligned, processes efficiently crafted and goals achieved. 2. Make A Decision On Internal Capabilities After building your internal team leaders, you’re now ready to make some decisions. Analyzing what your company can handle internally versus what to outsource to a SmartLabel™ Knowledge Partner is an important step. In the simplest of forms, your company will need to analyze the following: • Does your company have the granular data to satisfy the mandatory SmartLabel™ product attributes? Optional product attributes should also be considered during this evaluation period. • Do you have programmable systems to dynamically generate and manage the SmartLabel™ mobile responsive pages that deliver the product data attributes for your planned SmartLabel™ products • Can you generate, manage and link print-ready IP protected QR Codes from your SmartLabel™ product packaging to SmartLabel™ pages? The answer to these is most likely “not sure”, “no”, or “we think we could handle some of these tasks,” but don’t worry about this just yet. These decisions are different for every company based on resources, the desired speed of implementation, and other factors. The good news is that we have answers to all of your SmartLabel™ questions. 3. Select Expert Knowledge Partners Now that you’re fully aware of your internal capabilities, you’re ready to explore SmartLabel™ Knowledge Partners. You should select partners with experience in product data management, web development, and the QR Code space. A partner that has already implemented SmartLabel™ with a brand is a wise choice.  You gain tremendous value from the experiences of first to market SmartLabel™ rollouts.  It’s important to note that the SmartLabel™ movement has resulted in the birth of many vendors claiming to be “SmartLabel™ experts.” Be sure to do your research and screen companies to ensure there is a true level of expertise. For example, Scanbuy’s mPackaging for SmartLabel™, is supporting the first to market SmartLabel™ brands in the United States, so we know a thing or two about delivering the SmartLabel™ experience. Below are some answers to potential hurdles you might face. We don’t have a single database with granular product information or a method to feed data into the SmartLabel™ pages. What do we do to avoid manual data entry? Scanbuy has teamed up with Label Insight to help brands deliver product data attributes with ease. Through their SmartSPEC technology they help companies digitize their product data directly from packaging artwork files. We don’t have the resources to build all our SmartLabel™ product pages. What can we do? Scanbuy offers SmartLabel™ landing page delivery and management if needed. All of our pages are mobile responsive, designed and organized to meet SmartLabel™ requirements, and accessible by scanning a QR Code on a product package or through a browser search. How do we generate print-ready IP protected QR Codes to include on our product packaging? Scanbuy is the global leader in the QR Code space and has been for many years. We hold over 19 patents and cross-licensing agreements that protect our QR Code clients from any patent trolls. Our platform is a proven cloud-based technology that generates QR Codes for some of the world’s largest brands. We produce QR Codes with branded URLs that meet all your printing needs. Our API services let your brand integrate this functionality into your existing programs to streamline the process. Scanbuy mPackaging for Smartlabel 4. Integrate Smartlabel™ Pages Into Your Marketing Strategy QR Codes on product packaging are a great way to drive traffic to SmartLabel™ pages. However, it is also important to integrate SmartLabel™ into your digital marketing strategy. Education plays a big part in this process. You want consumers to understand what SmartLabel™ offers them, position your product components in the best manner possible, and then ensure that it is the go-to location for detailed product information.  Give them a call to action. Share with consumers why they should care, and why it’s important.  Consumers most likely don’t yet know what SmartLabel™ means, why they should scan a SmartLabel™ QR Code, or click on the SmartLabel icon from a web page.  This messaging and education will require integration with your brand’s overall marketing presence. Ready to start delivering transparency to your consumers?  We’d love to help you get started, contact Scanbuy today to schedule a webinar viewing with one of our SmartLabel™ experts at smartlabel@scanbuy.com.

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