Ideas for Utilizing QR Codes in Marketing and Advertising

While most of the world is gushing over the increasing popularity and varied usage of social media, another technology has silently emerged in the US, making people sit back and take notice. We are talking about Quick Response codes or QR Codes. These are basically bar codes created in 2-D format, and if you have a smart phone with a camera, then you can easily scan it and find out the information hidden inside it. From advertising and marketing perspective, you can use these codes to input a lot of information on your product and services. All that a customer has to do is to scan it to extract the information. These codes can be placed on products, papers, and places. Here are some tips that may assist you in using the codes more effectively.

Coding on Business Cards: Giving away business cards is a well known practice, and you can gain more if you insert the QR codes on the cards. This will serve you multiple purposes. Though many people provide email id and website address on the card, QR codes will free the card from getting cluttered. Moreover, you will be able to give a direct link to your site. Once the customer scans the card, he or she can easily go to the website and get more detailed information on your company, products, and services. Thus, you can market your website and all the important contents more directly.

Labeling with QR: As mentioned in the introduction, you can place these QR codes on the products itself. So, when the customer buys one or just browses one, he or she can easily scan it and get more information. This time, the information can be related to the said product and its benefit, or can also be the detailed information about your site. Now, if you wish, you can combine both of these, which will give you the optimum results. QR codes do not take up too much of space, but can provide the potential customers a lot of data, which cannot be achieved by advertising through any other media.

Promote the Brand: Like any other advertising method, QR codes can be used to promote the brand. One way to do so is to make the brand omnipresent. While you cannot put on a bill board at every place, you can practically place this code anywhere. This will make sure that the customers or almost anyone with a smart camera phone gets to know all about the brand.

Offers and Gifts: Use the QR code to let people know what exciting free gifts or special offers awaits them if they take a particular action. Thanks to the compactness of the code, you can place it on restaurants, road side stalls, posts, and, of course, on products. Customers scanning them will come to know about your offers and may prefer to avail them. Even if they don’t, chances are that they may like to refer it to their friends and family members, thus getting you some new customers in the process.

QR codes are the perfect advertising and marketing tool for attracting those who are always on the move. Even if the people miss out on a banner ad or a television commercial, you can still reach them anywhere. While you can use the QR codes on a local basis, you can also think of spreading the reach and utilize them to woo a global clientele.