I’ve been experimenting with QR codes for marketing. They are the small 2D barcodes that are less than the size of a postage stamp that you can scan with your iPhone or Blackberry, and once scanned, the barcodes can take you to an email address; a website; a video; dial a phone; etc. Today, a shirt arrived in the mail with a giant QR code printed on the front of it. Scanning it with my phone, it brought me to the website of QReateandtrack.com – a service I signed up for last month that lets me create and track up to 5,000 codes per month.
One of my favorite sources for QR code marketing ideas is Michael Josefowicz, a retired printer who twitters under the handle @ToughLoveforX. I often get direct messages from him with links to cool websites that either are using QR codes or ideas for QR codes. His most recent tweet had a website that had periodic charts that could be printed out, taking advantage of the 47″ print length our press can produce. Imagine a periodic chart that used QR codes that linked to a video on each element – just point your iPhone at the code and within seconds a video would pop up on your phone with the information on that particular element.
There are some different formats for QR codes from Google, Microsoft and others. Some even allow you to put your logo inside the code, to personalize the look of the code. It would be simple enough to create a code, attach it to a marketing postcard, and track how many people on your mailing list scanned the code in on their phone. Or maybe even add it to your business card – the equivalent of a full-color brochure or video presentation when scanned. Take it one step further and make the code unique to that person only, and now you have a pURL with the answer to privacy concerns over dynamically generated websites that have your prospect’s name as part of the URL.
We’ll be experimenting with some QR code marketing in the next few weeks, and will likely show you a mailer we are creating that uses personalized codes. How savvy our prospect list is, and whether they’ll click on the codes, remains to be seen but as always, we’ll report the results.
Toolbox
QReate & Track: http://www.qreateandtrack.com – $19.95/month
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Hi,
I just wanted to say thank you very much for posting this article, as well as the picture of the QR Code t-shirt. I am actually rocking that same t-shirt today at the interlinkONE/QReate & Track offices.
Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you out.
Thanks,
Jason
This was a good article on QR Codes I will be looking forward to the next post about this
Thanks for the mention.
It points to why I think your experiment may be a game changer. The transparency and responsiveness of what you’re up to made it very easy for me to break through the noise to get a signal through. Your understanding of web etiquette encourages me to send along anything I think you might find interesting. The way I knew it was interesting is this post.
I think it’s not an accident that your production equipment is MGI. I’ve already seen that someone there understands the etiquette of the web.
It’s a breath of fresh air. ( And might be just the right combo to get at risk high school kids back in the loop) Short story is HRurls and QR on 1 to 1 homework books. With tear out sheets that would be handed in when due. The teacher could use their cell phone to “click” on the handed in assignment and data is stored and mom gets an SMS.
But I will tweet and send along links to share what I think I see.
Thanks, Jason. The shirt made my day, since I have been talking to everyone in the office about QR codes. They say I have a one track mind. Instead of wearing the shirt, though, I hung it up on the wall for all of our clients to see… A great conversation starter to get into marketing ideas with them.
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