Your Offline Marketing Can Drive Customers Online with QR Codes

QR codes - quick response codes - can be looked at as "the latest thing" or they can be looked at as a useful tool which will be around for a while. Let us take a look at how QR codes can be used effectively.

The test always come down to usefulness - do they work? Do they perform a function which was not possible in the past, and do they aid in bringing in business? Testing can be essential to determine effectiveness in a marketing campaign. Never overlook the usefulness of understanding your customers.

The best way to look at it is this: they work now, and they perform a useful function. Perhaps they will evolve into something else, but that's true of every kind of business. So what do you do right now to use QR codes in your offline marketing to drive customers online?

The great thing about QR codes is that they can be placed on almost any "vehicle", whether it's a flyer, a postcard or - quite literally - a vehicle such as the side of a bus. And they hardly cost anything at all.

So the questions then become:

1) how many of the offline marketing tools available to you can you attach a QR code to?

2) What are you going to link your customer to using the QR code?

Question 1: What can you attach a QR code to? Pretty much anything that can be printed can get a QR code. So that gives you postcards, flyers, brochures, posters, catalogs. As large as a billboard and as small as a business card. They can be placed in a TV ad and the viewer scans the TV image into her smart phone.

Question 2: What do you link your QR code to? Here you have just as many options:

a) A product page. Let's say you are trying to introduce a new product. Send your contact to the page on your website which features this product.

b) An "About" page. Let's say you are trying to increase name recognition. Your informal survey shows you that less than one percent of respondents know anything about you. This is how you can increase their awareness.

c) A contact information page. Let's say your QR code is printed on an image which is sure to get attention. You expect a large response. Send your contact to a contact page and give them every possible way to get in touch.