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QR Codes – Mobile Connection to Clients
By Matthew Davies
Every day we are seeing QR codes appearing in a large variety of places. In the airport, there are codes on big signs that let us download a free e-book or a crossword puzzle. In magazines, there are QR codes in the advertisements that take us right to the website of the advertiser, and sometimes the specific product. They are appearing on buses and buildings.
What is a QR Code?
A QR code is simply just another type of barcode, very much like the UPC barcodes on products or the barcodes printed on documents, such as airline boarding passes. However, they have a few significant advantages over other barcode formats. First, they are designed to be easy to scan. You can scan them from any angle, even upside down and they scan very quickly. The second is that they can hold an enormous amount of data – up to almost 4,300 alphanumeric characters. The third is that for the amount of data they hold, they can be printed at very small sizes – they can provide the same amount of data of a traditional barcode at 1/10th of the size. Finally, they can be scanned by free applications on smartphones, which puts the barcode readers in your client’s hands.
How They Work
QR codes work in a very simple way. There can be a lot of data encoded inside the code, and one of those elements is a URL for a website. Smart phone users download a free application (there are many available for each platform) and scan the barcode. The software decodes the URL from within the barcode and opens it up in a browser window. Other fields within the barcode store contact information and other data and can be used in custom QR code scanning applications.
Using QR Codes for Marketing
There are many ways to integrate QR codes into your marketing mix. One of the most powerful is to use them in conjunction with a Personalized URL campaign. We are capable of generating a unique QR code for every personalized URL in the campaign, and each user’s code will send them to their personalized website. This powerful tool helps keep your clients engaged through relevant personalization in yet another channel – mobile web.
Another powerful usage of QR codes is to put a QR code leading to information about a specific product or program’s web site on the marketing collateral or even the product itself in a retail environment. This allows a prospective client the ability to get information specific to the item they are looking at right now. This creates what is called context-sensitive marketing. You are able to further communicate to the individual when they are most interested in the product or service.
Still another big benefit is that the QR code can take a user from a flat paper or sign directly to a fully enriched multi-media experience. It allows you to provide video content about a product or service anywhere the user may be. Imagine being able to have a video product demonstration available on-demand for every offering, regardless of where the customer learns about it – mailing, magazine advertisement or on the store shelves.
QR codes can be customized in many ways to help integrate them into your branding and your campaigns. QR codes can be branded with a logo at the center. They can be made of all different colors to support your branding or your current campaign. They can be placed just about anywhere and only require a very small clear zone around them.
Are People Going to Get It?
There are several significant indicators that QR code usage will continue to grow and accelerate. First, according to Nielsen, 51% of all Americans will be carrying smartphones by 2011. There is no sign that smartphone adoption will slow down in the near future either. Google has already made QR codes readily accessible to business owners that have a place page on Google Places. The owners have the option to print out a sign that has a QR code for the business’ place page so that customers can scan it and add to their favorites. Perhaps an even bigger level of adoption will take place as Facebook has announced it is going to assign a QR code to every user profile. This represents 500 million people worldwide, including 100 million active users. This will bring amazing awareness to the code and ensure a large group of people will already have the scanning software downloaded to their phones.
How Do I Get Started?
That’s the easy part. Just give your account manager a quick call or email. They will get the ball rolling and schedule an appointment with you so we can discuss the best ways to implement QR codes within your existing marketing plan and suggest some new campaign ideas that leverage the best qualities of a successful QR code campaign.
Matthew Davies is a 20 year veteran of the printing and graphics arts industry. He has spent over 10 years specializing in digital printing and personalized digital communications. In addition to a freelance writer, he now works as a portrait photographer in Boulder, CO. You may contact him at matt@daviescreative.com.
