Tracking Products In The Last Mile With QR Codes

What connects QR codes, Ugandan musicians, cinemas and mobile phones?

Our last webinar of course!

Co-hosted by Leah Newman, Director of Strategy & Innovation at Peripheral Vision Uganda (PVI) who use TaroWorks to track the distribution of their ‘Crowdpullerz’ DVDs to small businesses in Uganda. These DVDs are a blend of top local music videos, news and public service announcements. They are shown in salons, local cinemas, bars and buses – wherever they will reach the largest audience.

PVI’s work is focused on helping social change advocates to reach audiences that they otherwise have trouble reaching. Since 2011 they have worked with over 30 partners to generate content, distributing 45,000 DVDs to 25,000 screens all over Uganda.

Benefits

With so many discs, they wanted to create an effective database of businesses that hosted CrowdPullerz discs so they could measure the impact of their messaging. To understand impact, they need to know exactly where the discs are and for how long they are being shown to audiences. TaroWorks allowed PVI to track businesses as well as the discs themselves.

After a three month roll out, they have already discovered a number of benefits.

Distributions in some regions of #Uganda has increased by over 100% https://t.co/r2feCleRmR

— TaroWorks (@TaroWorksApp) May 19, 2015

Larger partners need proof of impact – without good, reliable data this is nearly impossible https://t.co/r2feCleRmR

— TaroWorks (@TaroWorksApp) May 19, 2015

This is something we’ve heard before – serious donors and investors require serious data, no matter where you work. As our CEO wrote in the Huffington Post, great data is no longer the remit of large Western companies – people working in the last mile can and should be using data to take their organisations to the next level.

The brand ambassadors who collect data for @PVIMedia MUCH prefer collecting on mobiles: it’s quicker & a new skill https://t.co/r2feCleRmR

— TaroWorks (@TaroWorksApp) May 19, 2015

You can read more about training your field staff on TaroWorks here and here.

Top tips

Nobody knows everything! At TaroWorks, we’re always learning from out customers. We really encourage our customers to learn from each other. Leah went through some of the things PVI have learned so far.

Learning: sequential QR codes aren’t common (and aren’t cheap). https://t.co/r2feCleRmR

— TaroWorks (@TaroWorksApp) May 19, 2015

Remember to test, test, test – different devices, different QR/barcodes etc https://t.co/r2feCleRmR — TaroWorks (@TaroWorksApp) May 19, 2015

So what next?

After dealing with some teething problems – particularly related to the QR stickers for businesses going missing – PVI are looking forward to expanding this approach. Tracking businesses is one thing but automating the linkage between content (i.e. the discs) and businesses is even better. That way, they can better target their content to specific businesses and areas depending on the needs of their partners.

Next step: put barcodes on the #Crowdpullerz DVD https://t.co/r2feCleRmR

— TaroWorks (@TaroWorksApp) May 19, 2015

Working in the last mile can present a lot of challenges. Using technology like Salesforce and TaroWorks can help you overcome those challenges. Learning from peers through events like Customer Sharing Sessions is perhaps even more important to everybody involved in the growing TaroWorks family – for our own team as much as any of our customers.

Keep your eyes peeled for announcements of new webinars from customers or our Support Team.