You’ve probably seen these codes popping up all over the place recently. They look like little black pixelated squares.
Here is an example of one we created for a customer. You’ll be surprised what you end up seeing. Imagine the possibilities of using this technology in your business.
These codes have been around for well over a decade and originated in Japan, but up until recently they were mainly used in factories and other industrial applications for tracking inventory.
The growth of the smartphone market changes that, however, because so many of these smartphones have built-in cameras. This means that people can scan these codes themselves, and take whatever action has been programmed into them.
Reach us anytime by phone, text or email to find out how we can get you setup with a fully customized QR code offer management system for your business today
And there are lots of things they can do:
• Redirect to a website
• Automatically create a text message
• Look up an address on Google Maps
• Be sent Coupons and Text messages
Redirecting to a website is the most common use for QR codes. You often see them in advertisements, on signs, on billboards and other places where people can easily scan them.
When you scan it with your phone, it will open the website in your phone’s browser automatically.
You can try it using the example image above. If you scan that with your phone it will you to a promotional video on YouTube that we created for a customer.
But keep in mind that you can redirect people to any page on your website. So you could have a sign by your cash register inviting people to sign up for your email list, for example.
Offer special discounts and other benefits when they subscribe to your list.
Then put a QR code on the sign that takes them to the sign up form on your website.
All they need to do is enter their name and email address to subscribe to your emails. This is much more effective than having a book where they write down their name and email address to get added to your email list, which is how a lot of small businesses still approach building a customer email list.
Another example of a business where QR codes could be used very effectively is real estate.
Realtors could put a QR code on their for sale sign that directs people to a web page with all the detail about the house they’re selling, including a video tour of the inside.
People just driving by could easily scan that code and check out all the details themselves, with no need for printed flyers or anything else they have to physically pick up.
An advantage to having Pepper Blue create your QR codes is that we have the technology to make them dynamic which means that once of the drawbacks of QR codes is that once they’re generated, they can’t be changed. They will always point to the same website when someone scans them.
Not ours. You can easily change the destination of our codes.
So for example, when a house sells, the realtor would simply change the redirect to point to another listing when they move the sign.
There are lots of different applications for these codes:
• Product signage – the sign could have a summary of the product’s specifications, with a QR code pointing to a more detailed listing on a web page
• Google Maps links – you could include a QR code on your website and in your ads that shows people how to find your business on a map
• Text messages – the QR code can automatically create a new text message, so you could make it easy to opt into your SMS marketing service by scanning the code
There’s really no end to how these codes can be used, you just need to think creatively. Anything that normally requires people to type a lot of data on their smartphone could potentially be simplified with a QR Code!
