QR code for the URL of the English Wikipedia Mobile main page
In the social media age a greater emphasis has been placed on interacting with customers as opposed to selling them on your products. One interesting way that people are doing this is with QR codes. If you’re not familiar with QR codes,which are also known as Quick Response Codes, they’re small postage stamp sized pieces of code which were initially developed in order to help track vehicles during the manufacturing process. But businesses outside the automotive industry have been using them for sometime now. They’ve become popular in the restaurant industry as a way to engage with customers, as restaurant pagers had before them. A recent Nation’s Restaurant News article provided five tips for getting the most out of QR codes.
The first tip is common sense, but easy to overlook. It’s always a good idea to use whatever service you’re offering your customers. There are plenty of different QR readers available in the form of free apps which you can install on your smart phone. See the types of things that interest you when you scan QR codes and try to replicate that for your customer base.
The next tip states that you should create a mobile friendly-site for your QR codes to point to. This is easier said than done, which is why 3PRIME provides free consultation on mobile websites. Incorporating QR codes is a great way to improve your mobile marketing, but it is all for naught if the page users are taken to aren’t optimized for mobile devices.
Tips number 3 and 4 both speak toward giving the customer somewhere worthwhile to land. Not only should the mobile site be well made but it should have unique content as well as a call to action. Something that rewards the customer for scanning the QR. The example given in the article was that scanning a QR code would grant diners in certain restaurants secret menu items and access to free wifi.
Lastly, the QR codes themselves have to be properly optimized. It is better to use shorter URLs with them for a tidier QR code. So, for instance, if you’re using a QR code to link to your Facebook it is a good idea to get enough followers to qualify for the much shorter vanity URL.
Social media can and should play a prominent role in your business and finding the tools to leverage it correctly can make all the difference.