With the public on board, it’s time you start implementing QR codes into your advertising campaigns. They are a great way to engage mobile consumers, drive conversions, and keep your brand relevant. Also, they are extremely flexible as you can use them for all types of purposes, which include directing users to a website, dialing a phone number, providing a coupon, or as a way for people to quickly store your business’ contact information.

However, if you’re just getting started with QR codes, it’s easy to overlook some simple strategies that can make your campaign much more efficient. To save yourself some frustration and possible wasted effort, follow these three tips:

1. For Tracking Purposes, Use Multiple QR Codes

Since QR codes are free, you can create as many as you like and not worry too much about the costs, which is incredibly helpful when it comes to tracking how your codes are being used. For example, if you put the same QR code on all your printed advertisments (signs, posters, flyers, business cards, car wraps, etc.) it becomes difficult to tell which method is getting the most interest. You can see how much traffic the whole QR code campaign is bringing to your site, but not what item consumers are actually scanning.

A better approach is to put a different QR code (all leading to the same landing page) on each type of printed advertisement. That way, you can track each code separately and take notice of which strategy is getting the best results. With this information, you can focus your energies on the medium that is most appealing to your audience.

2. Set Up a Separate Landing Page

Another way to get more out of your QR code campaign is by setting up a separate landing page within your website dedicated to QR users. This will provide you with much better analytic information since you know all traffic to that page is coming specifically from people scanning your codes, and you can easily track their on-page behavior.

Also, since QR codes are a mobile-based technology, make sure your landing page is mobile-friendly. This means, among other things, having a fast loading page, easy navigation, and not too much content.

3. Print Codes Separate from Signs

Since you never know how you might change your advertising campaign, it’s always a good option to print your QR codes separately, and then stick them to your signs later. This is especially useful for someone, such as a realtor, who needs a bunch of the same sign, but with each one having a different QR code (leading users to various home listings). It wouldn’t make financial sense to print individual signs to accommodate the different codes, and is much easier to add a removable QR code sticker on standard, reusable signs.

To truly get the most out of these three tips, it helps to have an experienced marketer and web designer on your team — someone who knows how to engage consumers with both printed ads and online marketing.

Has your business used QR codes in your advertisement? If so, how has it worked for you?

However, many are sabotaging their own mobile marketing campaigns through poor execution. If you want to see the best results from your efforts, avoid these 10 common mobile marketing pitfalls.

1. Thinking Mobile Marketing is Only for Consumers

Consumers aren’t the only ones leashed to their mobile devices. Business owners and executives use their smartphones and tablets to stay constantly up-to-date on happenings within their industry: managing contacts, making decisions, and buying and selling products. This is especially true for the younger members of the workforce (under 40 years old,) and this trend will only increase as time passes. 

It’s important to start making contacts on these channels now instead of playing catch-up later.

2.  Not Having a Mobile Site

No matter who the audience, having a mobile-friendly site is vital. However, it may be even more essential in B2B marketing where you are trying to interact with incredibly busy people who are at work, multitasking, and used to dismissing advertisements. These decision-makers simply have no time or interest in waiting around for a site to load or fumbling around with a difficult to navigate page.

3. Overlooking the Personal Nature of Mobile Marketing

Quite often, B2B loyalties are formed because of personal interactions. This principle is what drives professionals to meet on golf courses or over drinks – it’s about forming relationships. But, with mobile marketing, you can form such connections without ever leaving your home or office through the use of social media, text messages, discussion forums, location-based deals, mobile-sites, and more.

You’ll find you have the best results when you strike a balance between self-promotion (deals, calls to action, announcements) and socialization (joining conversations, asking questions, sharing information).

4. Not Modifying Your Static Campaign for Mobile Users

It’s important to keep in mind that mobile devices and their users behave quite differently than desktops and their users. Mobile devices have smaller screens (show less content), less bandwidth, keyboard and printer limitations, and are operated by people who are on-the-move in fast-paced environments.

Thus, it’s crucial to keep your messages and their required responses short, sweet, fast-loading, and easy to navigate. Unlike PC campaigns, you don’t have unlimited space and graphics to make your point, so make sure what you say packs a punch.

5. Failing to Learn About Your B2B Customers

You wouldn’t miss the chance at gathering data about your regular consumers, and you should have the same eagerness when dealing with your B2B customers. Keep your ear to the ground to learn about trends in their industry, and devise ways to take advantage of those developments.

Also, mobile devices are fantastic data collection tools as you can gather information via text-to-win contests, promotions, calls to action, and anything else that requires input from your customers. Use this knowledge to create custom campaigns specific to the needs of your clients.

6. Not Optimizing for All Mobile Devices

Just as there are major differences between desktops and mobile units, there are also variations between mobile devices themselves (i.e. there isn’t one “standard” format). Because they all have varying capabilities and respond differently to certain computer languages, content that displays great on one device may look like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo on a different unit.

Have your web designer ensure your mobile site appears properly on every type of platform so you can effectively reach all your customers all the time.

7. Underestimating Social Media

Businesses are flocking to social media not only to find consumers, but to make associations with other businesses and to create brand awareness. By using Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn (great for professional networking), Pinterest, and others you can reach far more people than you can through your website alone. Managing multiple social networks is a lot of work, but having so many free channels at your disposal is unprecedented in terms of marketing potential.

8. Keeping Your Static and Mobile Campaigns Separate

If your B2B customers are used to interacting with you through their desktops, let them know the benefits of connecting with you in the mobile world (and vice versa).  The idea is to create one, cohesive campaign that allows people to interact with your business in as many outlets as possible. This will keep your brand front and center in their minds and increase your opportunities for conversion.

9. Ignoring Exclusivity

Your B2B Clients are often senior executives that demand great service, and their high-profile positions mean they don’t want the same deals that you’re handing out to everyone else; they are special and want to be treated as such. So, make sure your promotions to these individuals have an air of exclusivity. Why should they spend their valuable time on your mobile site or engaging with you on social media? Give them a reason to pay attention and, if possible, attract followers from other people within their circles.

10. Forgetting the Functionalities of Mobile Devices

Besides the fact that smartphones and tablets offer mobile internet access, people like them because of their features and convenience. They have cameras, phones, calendars, touch screens, respond to motion, and have apps – you should be using these abilities! By not incorporating these elements you risk having a boring site and are missing out on the opportunity to more fully engage your viewers.

Overall, the mobile marketing strategies used for B2B clients are not that different than the ones used for regular consumers. The main influencer, as with anything in marketing, is understanding your audience. Pay attention to the needs of your customers, apply them to your mobile efforts, and use smart mobile-design for an effective mobile campaign.

However, this doesn’t have to be the case – QR codes really can help your business. By following these five practices you can utilize this technology to its fullest and truly see an impact on your conversions.

1. Have a Plan

Like any good marketing campaign, implementing QR codes requires a solid research-based plan. Don’t just slap a QR code on your ads or packaging without first considering their real purpose (i.e. what do you want your business to get out of them?)

No matter your ultimate goal (increasing Facebook fans, making a sale, growing your email list, etc.), if you want to see it happen you must first have a general understanding of your target audience. You can do this by answering these questions:

• What types of people are most interested in your product or service?
• What types of places do they go, and where should you place your codes so they are noticeable?
• Is your audience tech savvy, or do they need instructions about how to utilize the codes?

Once you understand the people who are in your audience, you must figure out a way to motivate them to use your QR codes. People are busy and, unfortunately, are used to getting little in return for taking the time to scan codes. Thus, you have to convince them your code is worth the effort. The best way to do this is by offering some sort of incentive and advertising that reward beside your code. What you offer is entirely up to you, so get creative. Here are some suggestions to get you thinking:

• Coupons
• Contest Entry
• Free newsletter or eBook
• Videos
• Free mp3
• Join a discount club
• Exclusive access
• Chat with a customer service agent

2. Use Quality Codes

One of the things which makes QR codes so great is they are free for everyone to produce; however, the downside to this is there are plenty of free QR code generators which simply don’t work. So, be careful when selecting a generating program, and then test and retest (using multiple devices) your code to ensure it works.

Users who encounter non-functioning QR codes will immediately form a negative impression of your brand and may never attempt to scan one of your codes again. Besides just testing your codes, you can improve their performance by following these tips:

• Make your links shorter through a link-shortening program.
• If using colors, make sure they have a distinct contrast.
• Bigger QR codes are better (make yours at least 1” x 1”).
• Have a neutral area around the code (no patterns or graphics).
• Place codes on non-reflective materials.
• Ensure internet and cellular services are available where your codes are located.

3. Connect Your QR Code to a Mobile-Optimized Site

One of the worst things you can do is use your QR codes to direct people to a website that doesn’t display properly on mobile devices. After all, if users can’t suitably view your message then what is the point?

Although making sure your site is mobile-friendly is the most basic thing you should do, you’ll find you have much better results if you create a dedicated, mobile-optimized website designed specifically for smartphones, tablets, and other on-the-go gadgets. With such a site you can include features like tap to call links, tap to email links, Google maps, social sharing, and links to YouTube. These elements encourage action and improve consumer engagement.

There are many other strategies for creating an effective mobile sites (that’s a topic for another post), but essentially it should conform to the user’s situation and environment (on the move, looking for quick info, facing many distractions) and take advantage of mobile technology.

4. Use a QR Code Management System

Many QR code generating programs allow you to track the number of scans your codes receive, but recently, more services are offering comprehensive code managements systems which let you analyze all types of data, including where and what time your code was scanned and what type of device was used.

You can use this information to see which variables produce the best results and then adjust your campaign accordingly. Most of these analytic programs are new and still developing, but they are still worth using since some insight into customer behavior is better than none at all.

5. Backup Your QR Codes with a Smart Campaign

Even though QR codes are cool (at least to tech people), you shouldn’t consider them the crux of your marketing campaign – they are simply a tool to make things easier or better. In other words, masking an otherwise poor marketing campaign with innovative QR codes will not improve your bottom line.

Research the needs and wants of your customers and then try to find a unique way to meet those demands. Once you have that in place, you can devise creative ways to integrate QR codes to enhance your overall mission.

What are some of the most creative ways you’ve seen QR codes used?

1. Ensure it is viewable in all mobile devices

Just because you optimize your website for an iPhone doesn’t mean it will translate the same to a Blackberry, a tablet, or some other mobile device. Keep in mind, mobile gadgets come in a wide variety of screen sizes and resolutions, and your design must configure properly for each one. Although this sounds like a chore, if you have a WordPress site it’s actually accomplished quite easily with a simple plugin.

2. Limit graphics

Mobile phones can’t handle the same amount of images and content as desktop computers, and having a mobile site with a ton of graphics can really slow down your load time. Plus, many pictures are hard to see on small phone screens and do little to enhance the user’s experience. In fact, having too many pictures will simply drive your visitors away as people just don’t have the patience to wait for your site to fully appear.

3. Limit content

When designing your mobile site, remember to keep things short and sweet. Try to make each word “pack a punch,” so you say as much as you can in as few words as possible. Following this suggestion is important because it makes your site load faster, provides quick information to on-the-go users, and cuts down on data fees for people who pay their mobile service providers based on data usage.

4. Avoid scrolling

Just face it, scrolling is annoying on both mobile and static sites. A little up and down scrolling is tolerable (as long as it’s not too much), but side to side scrolling is never acceptable. It forces consumers to put way too much effort into viewing your content and is a definite way to cause a spike in your bounce rate – not a good thing.

5. Smart, simple navigation

Always ensure your most important information is front and center on your main page, and then have clear links to any supporting content. Keep the navigation super-concise to prevent guests from getting lost in your pages and leaving out of frustration.  Generally, when people are using mobile devices they just want quick information (an answer to a question, product info, directions, etc.), so help out your customers by streamlining your navigation.

6. Play it safe and steer clear of Flash and Javascript

There are still plenty of mobile devices that are incompatible with Flash and Javascript, and having these elements on your pages can make your site appear “broken” in the eyes of many users. Also, while some devices technically support the technology, they require an extra step to see the content, which only makes your site more difficult to view.

7. Use the devices’ capabilities

Thinking of your mobile site as merely a shrunken down version of your regular website is overlooking a huge opportunity to include some neat functionalities into your pages. Remember, phones and tablets utilize much more human interaction than desktops (respond to motion, touching, pinch and zoom, etc.), and using these features can help engage your customers. You can also take advantage of mobile technologies such as click-to-call maps and location-based information.

New mobile innovations are coming out all the time, so pay attention to what’s new and modify your site accordingly. Staying on top of this trend will ensure you remain connected with your customers and provide them the ultimate mobile experience.

In a recent study, Google found that 79% of smartphone users rely on their phones when shopping or researching products, and 90% of mobile queries result in some type of action: making a purchase, physically going to the business, providing contact info, etc. What does all this mean for your company? If you don’t have a mobile landing page then you are not fully connecting with a huge segment of the consumer population. In other words, you’re missing out on sales.

Even so, just having a mobile page isn’t enough. Like anything on the web, if you want to provide a fantastic online experience, you need to optimize it properly. Here are ten tips for a mobile-friendly landing page.

1.  Simplicity is Key

Above all, ensure your mobile landing page is brief, quickly scannable, and viewable from arms length. Remember, mobile users are busy and won’t waste time trying to decipher a bunch of content crammed onto a small screen.

2. Do Not Include Anything Requiring Flash Player

Not all mobile devices (iPhones in particular) support Flash, and even on those that do, it doesn’t always work well. Frankly, consumers are sick of encountering Flash elements which are incompatible with their phones and simply abandon unworkable sites.

3. Place the Most Vital Content at the Top of the Page

This is practical advice for any type of website, but is especially important for mobile landing pages where users are trying to find information as quickly as possible. Streamline your navigation so people can find what they are looking for at a glance and remove any extraneous text or images.

4. Avoid the Scroll

Try to keep your landing page viewable in a single screen, but if you need more room, always give visitors the option to scroll down – never sideways.

5. Have a Clear Call to Action

Make your call to action clear, obvious, and positioned near the top of the page. You can lessen your guest’s frustration (bumbling fingers and small touchscreens aren’t always the best combination) by making your action button slightly larger and away from your other links.

6. Utilize the Technology

Mobile devices offer many more capabilities than desktop browsers, so try to incorporate this functionality into your landing page’s design. Many mobile devices respond to tilting, shaking, swiping, and other motions, so design ways you can creatively include those elements. Also, tools such as click-to-call, maps, and location targeted promotions are great marketing features.

7. Keep the Load Time Short

This is another useful tip for both static and mobile pages. By now, everyone should know that if your site is inconvenient or slow, most consumers simply won’t bother.

8. Have a Brief, Memorable URL

Even if you don’t get a conversion on a person’s first visit, they may decide to checkout your landing page in the future. However, a major hindrance would be if the individual needs to type in your URL but can’t remember it – keep it simple.

9. Have Short Titles

Generally, mobile browsers can only show about 40 characters (even less when bookmarked), so keeping your titles short will make it easier for guests to know the theme of your page.

10. Offer a Link to your Regular Webpage

Despite all these suggestions, there are still those who prefer to interact with the desktop version of your site (especially if they are very familiar with it), and providing a link to it will ensure you satisfy all your guests.

Gartner** expects that by 2012 mobile web browsers will become more popular than desktop browsers. This prediction suggests mobile consumers aren’t merely composed of the young and tech savvy – but people from all demographics. Having a well-optimized mobile landing page will keep your business on top of the current trends and at the fingertips of mobile users.

What’s Driving the Trend?

Worldwide mobile web use is up above 1 billion people* and the number is rising all the time. If your marketing strategy doesn’t include a mobile landing then you are not connecting effectively with a huge portion of the population. Smartphones have become so user-friendly that people of all ages are using them to find content not only when they are on the go, but also when they are at home. Their convenience is unmatched as users typically always have their phones with them and can just as easily get online access while sitting on the couch or walking around a store. Making your site viewable on these devices is sometimes the only way to connect with those who want information always at their fingertips.

How are They Used?

Even if you don’t have a mobile landing page, you can guarantee at least some of your competitors do. Don’t wrongly assume this isn’t a big deal or that a traditional website is enough. By not being mobile-friendly, you are effectively taking yourself out of the equation for many sales opportunities. For example, consider a consumer who is at a store and wants to compare several similar items. To learn more about each product, this person will likely use their smartphone for research. If they try to visit your website and find it un-viewable or difficult to navigate, chances are they will simply dismiss your product altogether. Why would they risk buying something they know nothing about when they can easily get product information from your competitors?

How to Optimize Your Site for Mobile Users?

There are many creative ways you can provide an enhanced mobile experience to your online visitors. But, one of the most basic things you can (and should) do is condense your pages down to a version more suitable for small screen viewing. The good news is that if you have a WordPress site you don’t have to worry about writing a bunch of complicated code and can simply install a mobile plugin.

A mobile plugin will automatically compress your site and turn it into an ideal mobile landing page. The plugin is able to summarize your content into a shortened version so people don’t have to worry about scrolling side to side or up and down to see your whole page. This type of layout makes your site faster loading and much easier for on-the-go consumer to quickly find what they need.

Although installing a mobile plugin isn’t the only thing you can do to optimize your site for smartphone users — it’s a start. Even this basic step will help to keep you relevant to the ever increasing mobile market and on par with your competition. 

Essentially, that’s all a QR code is – a hyperlink. Only instead of clicking, you use your smartphone to scan the object and retrieve the information. Theoretically, a QR code can appear on anything and serve as the means by which people get information when they are curious about something. With such integration between the tangible and the virtual, the dependency on the desktop computer will gradually decrease, which begs the question: is your business still operating solely in a desktop environment or have you embraced the mobile revolution?

Will QR Codes Really Become Mainstream?

Of course, it’s never easy to get people to change their behavior. It will take a while for consumers to adjust to simply pointing their phone at a code as opposed to picking up a flyer, typing in URL, or making a mental note to look up something when they get home. However, marketers are helping to drive the change by being among the first groups to start actively using QR codes.

And why wouldn’t advertisers want to embrace this technology? The codes are free to generate, they’re open-source, and can be seamlessly integrated into other aspects of a campaign (signs, websites, commercials, t-shirts, etc.). Not to mention, they make easy work of measuring quick-through rates and gathering demographic or geographic data.

Although QR codes are not entirely mainstream among all demographics, it’s rare to come across an individual who has never seen one (even if they weren’t sure what it was). The little black and white symbols are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, and as more and more people buy smartphones, they will naturally experiment with QR codes.

How to Make them Mainstream?

The experimentation process is when marketers can hook consumers on the technology or discourage them indefinitely. When someone takes the time to use a QR code and they find it doesn’t work properly or offers little reward, it may take quite a bit of coercing to get them to make the effort again. Businesses can help themselves and boost the overall interest in QR codes by utilizing these guidelines:

1. Make the Content Mobile Friendly

No matter where your code directs users, make sure it is optimized for a mobile device. Take into account that on-the-go people are operating under shorter attention spans and expect all messages to have a quick, efficient delivery. Also consider the functionality of the viewing device. For example, an iPhone is much more interactive than a desktop; use that to your advantage.

2. Offer an Incentive

Why should anyone take the time to bother with your code? Just to see an ad or go to your website – not likely. To get users’ interest you have to reward them with something. It can be a coupon, deal, exclusive content, or anything else of interest to your audience. Once they see you offer a real reward or convenience, they will come back for more.

3. Stick with It!

Don’t get discouraged if not as many people as you would like are taking advantage of your fantastic QR codes right from the get-go. Remember, it will take some time to familiarize consumers with the technology. However, you can take comfort in the fact that they are already well-known among the tech savvy and those in the 18-35 year-old demographic. And if Japan is any indication, the codes will soon become massively popular.

In the Meantime…

Instead of waiting to jump on the QR code bandwagon after everyone is doing it, you can put your business on the cutting edge by adopting the technology now. This will allow you to reach out to consumers who are already using the codes and will make your business an expert at this advertising medium before it becomes mainstream.

1. Mobile Web Use Rising Rapidly

 There are around 1.2 billion mobile web users worldwide and that number is increasing all the time. As more and more people commit to the technology, they expect to see mobile campaigns designed specifically for their device. Consumers have little patience for content which doesn’t work properly on their smartphone or tablet, and consequently, tend to ignore brands who can’t adapt to the multimedia environment.

2. Location-Based Advertising

 With this technology marketers can pinpoint consumers and provide them advertisements based on their location or specific demographic. Never before have businesses been able to provide such personalized communications with their customers. Now, consumers can instantly receive coupons based on prior purchases or inquiries, a deal for a store they just entered, or restaurant suggestions relevant to their position.

Smartphones are a remarkably personal tool, and location based advertising is able to tap into some of that and provide consumers with what they really want. With such targeted messages, businesses can enjoy a greater response rate and a higher ROI.

3. Real-Time Bidding

 Traditional advertising, which targets broad groups of people over large time spans, is rather hit or miss; sellers never know if they are truly reaching their target audience. Real-time bidding solves this problem by allowing businesses to pick and choose who receives their advertisements and how much they are willing to pay. When a consumer visits a webpage where real-time bidding is used, competing businesses will instantly analyze the possibility of making a sale based on the time of day, the person’s transaction history, the subject of the website, and a host of other variables. Thus, a business has a better idea of the value of a particular ad space before placing its bid.

Although it sounds complex, the whole process happens in less than a second. Not only is this method advantageous to sellers (through price and audience optimized messages), but consumers also benefit since they no longer have to endure irrelevant impressions.

4. Interactive Media

 The nature of mobile devices means your message can naturally engage consumers as they tap, swipe, tilt, and rotate your advertisement. Boring banners and content more suited to stationary computers have no place in the mobile world. As business owners utilize the functionality of smartphones and tablets through apps, games, mobile content, videos, and animations, they will find customers spend much more time interacting with their ad.

5. Mobile Private Exchange

 Publishers with high volumes of visitors have the opportunity to join a private exchange group. These groups are a branch of real time bidding, but provide more insight, customization, and price controls. This setup offers much more appeal to high-traffic sites that were previously turned off by the price degradation associated with other programmable markets.

This opens up the opportunity for advertisers to place their impressions on the highest-quality, most visited sites on the web. Many of these are from small publishers, owned by “real” people who consumers know and trust. Having your ad appear in such an environment garners much more respect and interest from web users.

Mobile advertising is still progressing, but despite the learning curve, the rapid growth in this market proves businesses can’t deny the opportunities it provides. Those who embrace the technology early will have a distinct advantage over their competitors as they utilize resources that simply aren’t available in any other form of marketing.

Treating it like a Static Medium

Many marketers design their mobile sites as mere replicas of what internet users can find via their stationary computers at home or in the office. This strategy, or lack thereof, ignores the fact that mobile advertising is its own entity. Do not think of it as merely another way to access your already existing content, but instead make it an extension or an enhancement of your overall campaign.

When devising how to use this medium, keep in mind what makes mobile use unique, and then capitalize on those differences. Some things to consider are:

• It connects with on-the-go consumers.  Mobile users face even more distractions than those accessing the web in stationary locations. Ensure your message makes an impact during the fleeting time you have with a potential customer.
• Provides continuous access with smartphones, tablets and the like, people can connect with your business any time they want – provide them some incentive to do so.
• Can use knowledge of location. Keep consumers engaged by providing them with information/perks related to where they are.
• Connection to social media. With social media always accessible, you have the ability to personally connect with individuals and nurture brand loyalty.

Not Tailoring Content to a Specific Device

Not only is it important to develop a strategy specifically for a mobile audience, but you must also take into account the various ways to connect people with your business. Whether you interact through text, SMS, smartphone, or tablet you need a differentiated approach.

Mobile users become frustrated when information doesn’t translate correctly on their specific device, so ensure you optimize your campaign for every medium. Also, consider how best to utilize each technology (as each provides certain benefits). For instance, smartphone web access can serve as a great platform for customers to quickly look up product details (when doing in-store comparisons) while text messages can be a nice tool for updating them about sales or other deals.

Having an Irrelevant or Unclear Message

To make your communication relevant, you must recognize your customers as individuals with different needs. In other words, your communication must match the audience.

When pinpointing what to convey, first answer these questions about the consumers:

• Where are they?
• What are they doing?
• What do they need?
• What benefit can I offer/how can I engage them in this particular circumstance?

As mentioned, those using mobile devices are generally on-the-go. Without effectively answering the questions above, you’ll never penetrate into their busy lives and standout among all the other digital noise. Additionally, what makes mobile advertising special is that it is interactive, and when done properly, people are motivated to DO something. But for this to work, you must have a distinct call to action – make it clear what you want your visitors to do and why they should do it.

Not Making the Interaction Worth Their Time

Why should a virtual user download your app, friend you on Facebook, read your text message, scan your QR code, or visit your mobile site? What is their incentive? Unfortunately, receiving a useless app, getting a link, or seeing your gorgeous, optimized landing page isn’t enough. Remember, in some way your message is interrupting their lives, so make it worthwhile.

If the relationship remains exclusively one-sided (you getting a willing advertising subject and they get nothing), then they will eventually end the communication and may lose faith in your brand. The rewards you can offer are only limited by your ingenuity. Some examples are: coupons, videos, convenience, recipes, extra information, contests, free downloads, etc.

When consumers feel as if interacting with you offers some sort of an advantage, and is not seen as an intrusion, you know you have struck a good balance.  

Quick response codes, commonly referred to as QR codes, are commonplace in Japan and are on the rise in the US. These little boxes seem to be showing up on everything, and whether you utilize them or not, they are becoming pretty hard to ignore.

What is a QR Code?

Similar to barcodes used for finding prices on groceries, a QR code is simply a scannable image used to acquire additional information about a product or service. Consumers are able to scan the image using a QR code reader app on their smartphones. QR codes are becoming a favorite tool for marketers since they quickly and easily direct people to additional product info, websites, coupons, and more.

What’s Driving the Increase?

Over the past year, QR use has gone up 4589% percent — but, what’s the reason for this massive growth? The biggest influencing factor is the popularity of smartphones. It is estimated over 53 million people in the United States use smartphones, and they are always on the lookout for apps that offer benefits and ways to simplify their lives. QR codes are free to read and generate, which makes utilizing this technology a no-brainer for both advertisers and consumers alike.

Also, more and more shoppers are realizing there are perks to being a QR code user. Those familiar with the technology are drawn to packaging or signs with the symbols because they expect to get a coupon or deal after scanning the code. Word of discounts tends to travel fast, which helps to further push the popularity of QR codes.

How to Take Advantage of this Trend?

With the rapid increase of QR usage, not utilizing this tool in your marketing strategy would be a massive oversight. It is one of the few offline ways to drive traffic to your website and generally brings more attention to your brand. However, consumers become frustrated with poorly executed codes. Follow these simple rules to ensure you use this technology effectively:

1. Make sure your website is optimized for mobile use – There is nothing quite as irritating as taking the time to scan a QR code only to be directed to a website that doesn’t display properly on a smartphone — a sure way to lose customers. Ensure your site is mobile friendly.
2. Offer a Reward – Most shoppers won’t take the time to scan your code if they don’t expect to get something out of it. Try providing some type of incentive to keep consumers engaged.
3. Understand Your Customers – For any marketing strategy to work, you must know what your customers want. Pinpoint what they hope to get out of using your QR code (coupon, recipe, instructions, etc.) and offer that reward.

Who Can Use Them?

QR codes work great for every type of business — big or small. You can display them on packaging, magazines, signs, posters, coupons, business cards, and even on TV and internet advertisements. Every day, marketers are coming up with creative ways to use this innovation, and consumers are recognizing that the codes are fun, easy, and worthwhile.

Don’t let your business get behind the curve. Instead, start using this cost-effective way to further connect with your customers.

QR Code Infographic