In this Blog i'm going to share with you everything you ever wanted to know about qr code marketing i'm going to tell you what a qr code is why qr codes are important to your business and most importantly how you can use qr codes to grow your business no matter what kind of business you have from retail and e-commerce all the way through to using it in your advertising so let me show you how it's done.
A qr code marketing strategy could be for your business now before we get into any of the specifics and nitty gritty details of qr code marketing we first need to make sure we're all reading off the same page which means i've got to take just like 20 seconds or so to cover exactly what a qr code is anyway so what's a qr code first the technical definition a qr code is an abbreviation of quick response code and it's a type of barcode with a machine readable optical label that contains information about the item that it's placed on a qr code is usually made up of black squares arranged in a square grid on a white background and it can then be read by an imaging device like your phone's camera and the image can then be appropriately interpreted and the required data then extracted from the patterns that are present in both horizontal and vertical components of the qr code basically it's a fancy and far more powerful barcode that you can scan with a camera to get a whole lot of valuable information quickly easily and also quite environmentally friendly thanks to these features qr codes have been steadily growing in popularity.
They're already very common and popular in countries in asia and europe but we've also seen consistent growth in their usage in north america year after year as well in north america the most common placement for qr codes are on printed media like magazines and newspapers and product packaging but they can also be seen on websites posters business cards storefronts and tvs qr codes are most commonly used to provide more information but they're also commonly seen giving event information presenting special offers and redirecting people to an app download the important takeaway points here though are that qr codes are fast they're easy and they're an incredibly effective way to quickly deliver information to your clients and customers in a helpful non-intrusive way okay one more technical aspect we need to cover before i share some use cases with you and that's the difference between dynamic qr codes and static qr codes when it comes to qr codes they're really not that technical but there is one thing that's important to understand to really get the best results from your qr code marketing and that's how to differentiate between static and dynamic qr codes.
The main idea is that static qr codes embed permanent information what this means is that after it's been created whatever content is linked to it can no longer be changed on the other hand dynamic qr codes are much more versatile because even after being printed the
content embedded on them can be updated however you want anytime you want and
with anything you want to make things better real-time data tracking is also possible with dynamic qr codes which allows information like when and where the scans were made what kind of device was used to scan it and a whole lot more for example let me hop into my qr tiger
account now and show you how simple it is to create a qr code that links back to my website alright so here i am inside my qr tiger account i'm going to show you just how easy it is to quickly create a qr code for my business.
Now all i've done here is i've literally dragged and dropped copied and pasted my url for my website here i have the choice of a static or a dynamic qr code we are going to do static for this one nice and simple but of course we do have an option here for dynamic to do all kinds of future modifications and tracking and editing and all kinds of amazing features but literally we hit that we hit generate qr code and we're pretty much done now of course we do have some cool options here we can choose some of the different patterns that we wanted to show we can choose what we want the uh the corners to look like if we're really kind of going for that branded aspect that'll work with your brand and with how how you want it to sort of fit aesthetically with wherever you're placing it whether it's on a storefront or a package or on printed materials you have the option here to add your logo you can set colors however you like simply drag and drop we're going to talk later about the importance of contrast but for now let's go with a nice dark blue kind of like we had there against a white background might make it a little darker for ease of viewing we're going to leave white on the background i think we're set there i like that and that is literally it now all we need to do is we need to download either the svg file for print or the png if we want to keep it online so we're going to put png and just like that it's downloaded and ready to use now of course we don't have other options here we can use other kinds of vcards we can have qr codes for files if we want to give someone access to we have qr codes we could send to different social media platforms we have menus and h5s and multi urls and app stores we could send wi-fi information we can give people access to mp3s or facebook pages or youtube pages or instagram or whatever it is that we want or just straight up text if we want although your best plan is to send them somewhere where they're going to be able to get more of that interactive and engaged experience this is the reason that i like a web page or a landing page that has been optimized for whatever it is that you're selling making sure that it's mobile optimized of course again.
We're going to talk about that more in just a minute but again that simple we hit that we go generate qr code we make it look however we want it to look that matches with our brand and with our style and so on and then we download and we're set okay now let me cover a few different use cases including using qr codes in packaging retail stores e-commerce and advertising feel free to use the timestamps below the video to jump around or ahead to whatever area interests you most we'll start with packaging for starters the first thing that people evaluate when making a purchase isn't the product but the packaging itself second when people come to looking for more information about a product again they look at the package lastly product packaging is a free canvas you literally have all the freedom on how you want to present your qr code from size all the way to placement and design the only question is why wouldn't you after all qr codes only take up a small space and packaging pretty much always has some kind of room.
So there's no disadvantage to adding them to your products only benefits alright next let's talk about using qr codes in retail stores qr codes are a game changer for retail stores as they drive more sales and traffic and they provide a digital approach which helps compete against the growing ecommerce sector however implementing the technology in your store does take a little bit of planning there's a lot of ways and applications depending on what you need or what you want from the storefront to your hallways any free space is a canvas for a qr code placement but don't get too excited just yet remember that its purpose must correlate with its placement in other words you want to be strategic about where you're placing your qr codes and what you're trying to accomplish with each one the rule of thumb is that storefronts are for marketing and interactive materials hallways for specific information about services and products and checkouts should only be for something that doesn't distract or take away from the purchase so something like see you soon or you can also check us out online at this link here next up.
Let's talk about using qr codes in e-commerce there is no better business to apply qr codes to than e-commerce and fortunately doing this is about as straightforward as it can get basically all you need to do here is put the code on the packaging and you're pretty much done it then all boils down to how your qr code should function and they're really only two ways to go here information and services for information the qr code should lead customers to more information regarding the product as it's common for people to have questions whenever they purchase something and when they have the option to simply get more information with a scan of their phone well you take away all the time that they would have to spend searching online all on their own it's this kind of customer service that leads to customer loyalty for services on the other hand you want to take the opportunity to market the rest of your products and services from your company people are far more likely to come back to companies that they have a positive experience with and this makes it easy for them to know what else you have to offer and it's pretty much a guaranteed way to secure your market position.
Okay now let's talk qr codes in advertising while the purpose of qr codes are mainly for advertising it doesn't intend to replace printed mediums but instead further enhances their effectiveness and function by adding a qr code to your static medium you're giving a digital and interactive aspect to it making the printed material that much more effective the big thing with using qr codes in your advertising though is to try not to make your audience read too much remember you added a digital aspect to your printed media which opens up way more possibilities with your ad if you're going to send them to something like a lengthy article then you're really not making the best use of the platform.
Especially when you have the option to direct them to something more interactive like a video or a game remember the key word here is interactive if it doesn't spark immediate interest then you're doing it wrong okay now let me walk you through a three-step qr code marketing campaign strategy the first part of every successful qr code campaign is strategic placement if you don't know where to put them you aren't going to be able to make the most informed decisions for what comes next this is why step one is to always try to identify the best most logical and most relevant and useful placements for your qr codes next once you have the location of your qr code decided you're going to be better able to determine what kind of functionality is going to suit it best for example if you decided to place it on your storefront then you would use this for marketing and promotions on your products well for further information and services it's crucial for placement to coincide with purpose that is if you want to keep your audience interested engaged and taking action and speaking of action let's talk about point three the final step is to add a call to action or cta to spark interest and to get someone too well take action the key here is to keep your ctas clean and crystal clear just say what you want them to do for example you could try scan to learn more watch video or scan to win but don't be afraid to test different combinations and see what works best for you your cta may be the most important part of your entire qr code marketing campaign so make sure not to overlook it after all if they don't scan you don't sell and the statistics show that if you add a call to action in your artwork you'll get up to 60 more scans all right now let's talk about a few of the most common qr code marketing mistakes that you want to avoid at all costs the first mistake is sending people to non-mobile-friendly destinations the target market of qr codes are clearly mobile users unless you can imagine people scanning with their desktops or laptop computers it's a funny thought but it's not how it works so with that in mind make sure the content you're trying to deliver is mobile friendly or specifically catered and centered to be viewed on mobile devices.
A common mistake of most business owners is linking to their full website that doesn't scale down to phone screen size and aspect ratio or is too large to be run by mobile platforms remember when things get too hard and a little too challenging your customers won't even bother the next mistake is having long confusing or repetitive calls to action you want to try to keep your call to action as short as possible even a sentence is probably too long moreover it shouldn't be a reiteration of the entire purpose of the qr code if you're simply going to explain what's going to happen after scanning the image then you're kind of killing the curiosity aspect and makes it far less likely that someone's going to scan the next mistake is well just being boring or not really providing that much additional value the rule here is to make your audience's effort of scanning your qr code worth it let the experience be rewarding and don't just settle with bland content that isn't really going to help them next it's important to remember that qr codes scan best on a white background with a darker color pattern so think of a black or dark blue pattern against a white background this makes it easy to see and easy to scan a yellow or faded color pattern on a white background on the other hand is hard to see and hard to scan so make sure to avoid that so now that i've had the chance to cover.
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