QR (Quick Response) codes are popping up everywhere, from airport security lines to headstones even. Most popular in magazines, newspapers and product packaging, QR codes are now moving beyond retail store coupons and consumer reviews. These 2-dimensional codes store data that can be decoded by a mobile application on a smart phone, a great way to engage your mobile audience offline and move the traffic online. QR codes have the ability to store an assortment of data and a lot of it, unlike the traditional 1-dimensional UPC barcode we’re used to seeing on products. A variety of companies are realizing the opportunities QR codes enable and have designed campaigns optimizing the flexibility of this marketing tool to reach audiences in a less traditional manner.
Thetus has begun utilizing QR codes for the simplicity they offer users. In May of last year, we did an overhaul of our brand, creating a fresh logo and new marketing collateral; part of this brand update was the implementation of QR codes. We attend a handful of conferences throughout the year and wanted to stand out from other booths. We designed a data card with a QR code on it, once scanned this code takes users to our mobile site. Here they can download a digital version of our data card and our white paper to their mobile phone rather than pick up the physical sheet and add it to their pile of conference collateral. We also placed QR codes on our business cards. On the front of the card you can scan the code and open our mobile site. On the back of the card, you scan the code and receive contact information for that Thetus employee. Once scanned, you can immediately call or email us or save our contact information to your address book in your phone and not have to add yet another business card to your stack.
So why use a QR code? Here are the reasons we decided to use QR codes; 
- Save money on printing costs
- Become more eco-friendly
- Provide less materials for conference attendees to carry
- Differentiate from competitors at conferences
- Increase traffic to our mobile site
Last week, we attended the Department of Defense Intelligent Information Systems (DoDIIS) Worldwide Conference in Denver, Colorado. We had our data cards with QR codes, our business cards with QR codes and an invite to our upcoming webcast with a QR code leading to the registration page. The webcast for our multi-source analysis solution, Savanna, is tomorrow by the way – register here or scan the green QR code to the right. We saw about 50% more new visitors on our mobile site than we usually do, a higher number of downloads for our white paper that’s on our mobile site, as well as a spike in our webcast registration.
If you’d like to try it, keep in mind these common mistakes made when using QR codes;
- Not explaining how to download a scanner on a mobile phone and how to scan the code
- Not providing an incentive, like what happens when the code is scanned
- Not providing an alternative to scanning if they do not have a mobile phone, like listing a website link
There are plenty of free QR code generator websites and an array of free QR code scanner mobile apps.
This is the generator we usually use – http://keremerkan.net/qr-code-and-2d-code-generator/
Think QR codes are just a silly fad? comScore, Inc. did a study measuring the digital world and found that 14 million Americans scanned a QR code on their mobile phone in just the month of June. In 2010, mobile barcode scanning grew 1,600 percent.
Here is a list of some very cool QR campaigns (my favorites are the subway online shopping campaign by Tesco in South Korea and the World Park campaign trivia game in New York City) – http://www.awwwards.com/10-creative-uses-of-qr-codes.html
Is your company leveraging QR codes to connect with your offline audience and increase your online traffic? Let us know how in the comments section below.
If you’re looking to buy or sell software, you may want to take a look at this – Amazon Web Services Marketplace, an online store for commercial software that runs in the AWS cloud. The goal here is to simplify finding, buying and selling software. AWS Marketplace offers a 1-Click launch to run an application on your own EC2 server and offers a pay by the hour option. The interface is similar to the regular Amazon shopping sites; allowing you to read reviews of products, and giving you an area to view, manage and monitor your purchases. If you’d like to sell software, this seems like a great method to get your product in front of a large number of potential customers, and amazon does all the billing for you then sends along the money you’ve made. Check it out and let us know what you think.
