You’ve seen them. QR Codes (or Quick Response) are the ever-present, black-and-white square barcodes. They were created in 1994 by Denso Wave, a Japanese company and part of the Toyota Group. The QR codes were originally used to track and label automobile pieces in factories. Nowadays, retailers, grocery stores, and restaurants are some of the people that utilize QR codes. When people scan these codes with their devices, they receive pertinent information about the specific brand, products, or services.
Many companies use QR codes to expand upon how they reach out to clients (new and current). This allows the business to gather and analyze information while at the same time raising client interaction and engagement. Before the pandemic hit in 2020, QR codes were on the decline. However, with Covid, the use of QR codes increased exponentially and continues to grow in popularity today.
Business Cards
The simplest way to use QR Codes in your advertising and marketing strategy is to add one to your business card. You have the choice to either physically imprint a QR Code on the business card or send out a business card QR code through SMS, emails, and social media platforms to showcase your contact information.
Some businesses like the QR code to lead to a page on the company’s website that gives you relevant information and answers. This is where a CTA (Call to Action) can appear. What’s extremely handy is that marketing will be able to track who visits the website specifically from the business card’s QR code.
Aside from using QR codes to build your business, it’s important to use traditional advertising and promotional techniques as well. Besides business cards, QR codes can be used on magnets, decals, stickers, posters, drinkware, coasters, marketing material, and Custom Feather Flags. Use Custom Printed Feather Flags in front of your business. Custom Feather Flags can be personalized with your company name, logo, promotional messages, and company colors to attract new customers to your business. If you are in the market for Custom Feather Flags, consider Flagdom at: https://flagdom.com/feather-flags.
Customer Experience
The customer experience is vital to a thriving business. QR codes can increase the customer experience in a variety of ways. Certain attractions and museums use QR codes that link up to text, maps, video, audio files, and more. Engage people with interactive games to give them a fun, overall experience. It makes the customer in control of how they connect and interact with your business and brand as well.
Incentives
Who doesn’t like free stuff? Think about driving people to your company by offering coupons, giveaways, trial offers, and discounts. Link up a coupon with a QR code and track data from it to see if the offer was successful. The marketing team will have complete control if they need to change gears to a different strategy. New leads will happen if you create incentives for people. Customer reviews are an important element when it comes to feedback. You can try linking QR codes to review sites to encourage clients to talk about your business, especially after receiving some sort of incentive.
Creativity
The sky’s the limit when it comes to using QR codes. This is where a marketing team with fantastic imaginations will come in handy. Brainstorm about how to use QR codes to benefit your business. At first, restaurants used QR codes for their menu, but now you can join loyalty programs, follow them on social media, and even pay for your meal through these codes.
Overall Benefits
The benefits of QR codes are many. You can place QR codes on the product’s packaging with useful information. If it’s food, it can be the ingredients or nutritional value. It will only boost foot traffic to your business, and you can manage customer feedback through surveys linked to the QR code. Not to mention that QR codes let you have a business transaction without ever talking to someone in person. This saves money for the company, but also creates a safe business transaction for all involved.
Is there a downside to QR codes? The only constraint is being able to connect to the internet. So, if you want QR codes to be part of a certain location, make sure that the venue or place allows QR codes to be used. People will need access to the internet.
QR codes are very beneficial to many industries. A good marketing team will be able to make QR codes an advantageous tool in your marketing strategy. They save companies time, effort, and money while simultaneously being able to track and measure the success of a campaign utilizing QR codes .
In Conclusion
QR codes are a hot, tech trend right now and are expanding in popularity. It’s a great idea to try new things for marketing outreach and QR codes can connect your offline and online media. It’s an effective way to give people extra information that the brand wants to share with them. QR codes can be used in a variety of ways, and they share information with customers in a very cost-effective manner.
Every business is different. If you want to insert QR codes into your marketing and advertising strategy, make sure that it’s tailor-made for your brand and company. Make QR codes work for you and use them to obtain clients, accomplish goals, and most of all, succeed in this constantly evolving technological world.
