One of the ways a small business can market itself better both offline and online is by using QR codes. Although, currently quite new to business owners and customers, QR Code usage has been rising (see these QR code stats from back in April) and it’s wise for any small business owner to jump on board now before getting left behind by the competition. If you have no idea what QR Codes are about, then read on as we look at the basics.
What are QR Codes?
Quick response codes, commonly known as QR Codes are similar to the barcodes you find on physical products you buy at your supermarket such as your box of cereal or bottle of shampoo. While regular barcodes are scanned by barcode readers at the till, QR Codes can be scanned by mobile phones and most importantly direct the person scanning to an offline or online destination.
For example, you can scan a QR Code and be directed to a phone number, a SMS, a website, an online video on Youtube, a social media page on Twitter, Facebook or Foursquare, an image on Flickr etc. As you can probably imagine QR Codes give both business owners and their customers a wide and exciting range of experiences than just a regular bar code.
Business owners are provided with creative and high conversion marketing strategies, while customers get quick and easy interaction with brands and businesses through the convenience of their mobile phone.
How to get a QR Code?
One thing that stumps small business owners when it comes to QR Codes is that they often don’t know where to begin.
The first thing is to decide how QR Codes can fit into your existing marketing strategy and the best ways to integrate QR Codes into the kind of business you run. For example, a restaurant would have a more entertaining QR Code marketing campaign than a funeral parlor or a lawyer would.
One also needs to decide where to direct QR Code scanners in a manner that is appropriate to your business. So while a restaurant could direct customers to a coupon landing page, a lawyer would direct clients to his online resume or profile.
After setting up the destination page/video/image etc, you can generate a QR Code using our software or use one of the free online generators.
The final part is to place the QR Code in the most appropriate location that your current and potential clients are most likely to notice it. This could be on newspapers, magazines, business cards, promotional material, storefront windows etc.
Now that you know what QR Codes are and how to use them in your small business, you can now go out and create a mobile marketing campaign using QR Codes.
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