QR Codes: Don’t Just Direct, Inform
In a recent post entitled “The QR Code Decode – What are they and how do they work?”, I explained the basics of what QR codes are and how to use them from a customer perspective. In this post I will be discussing how business should use QR codes as in their marketing activities.
First, we need to consider what exactly we are asking of our intended audience when we use QR codes as part of our marketing plans. Firstly, they require a smartphone to download a QR code reader to read the code in the first place. Then we are expecting them to have the phone nearby whenever they encounter a QR code, and on top of that we have to give them the motivation to actually scan the QR code for its information.
This is quite a big ask really, so the way you approach the use of QR codes really does matter. Many companies are tempted to simply use a QR code in place of a standard web address on their advertisements and marketing materials, but to be quite honest this is a waste of the user’s time, and a waste of a perfectly good marketing opportunity.
Simply directing your intended audience to your website and hoping that they’ll be intrigued enough to browse the site is a futile effort. The key to getting the most of QR code marketing is to use them as a way for the end user to unlock information, rather than just sending them to a web destination and leaving them to find the rest.
So instead of just sending the user to your homepage, why not send them to a lead generation page where they can sign up for a free report or download your latest audio/video content? Or send them to a live forum where they can interact with both your company and other users to help generate discussion around yourself and the business.
Give them a reason to want to access the code in the first place, and give them exclusive access to valuable information they would otherwise not be able to have. Not only does this give the end user an incentive for accessing your code, but it also provides you with opportunities to capture new leads – which is such a better use of a QR code than simply sending them to your homepage and leaving them there!
The beauty of QR codes mean that you can put one on just about any kind of marketing material, and you can even update the information which is stored in a specific QR code so that you don’t have to keep reprinting them every time you want to create something new.
This gives you the opportunity to be really creative with the information you choose to store within your codes, and how you choose to distribute them – so consider what information is going to be most beneficial to both your intended audience and to your business in order to make the most of QR code marketing.
Happy marketing!
Sean
Sean McPheat
(Image by Stuart Miles)










