Have you noticed this funny squared barcode appearing more and more often in your daily life? In the bus, in the supermarket, at a festival or even sometimes printed on the sidewalk, this pattern usually black and white allows you to get a lot of information by scanning it quickly with your smartphone! Eminence, your digital marketing agency in Geneva, explains how a QR code works and how to use it in your digital marketing strategy.
QR code: what is it?
This term means Quick Response Code. But why is that? Because by scanning this squared barcode with your phone you can get all the necessary information about a product, a company, a promotional code, or you will even be redirected to a video.
This famous code created in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso-Wave can contain a lot of information: 7089 numeric characters and 4296 alphanumeric characters compared to 10 to 13 characters for a normal barcode that you can typically find on the products of your supermarket.
How to scan a QR code?
It is extremely easy! You just need to have a smartphone and install a QR code reader application through your ITunes Store or Google Play Store. There are many free applications that work very well. When you find a flash code, open your application and point your smartphone’s camera at the code, the decoding will be instantaneous and will deliver all the information contained in the code J
Why use a QR code in your digital strategy?
Living in an increasingly digital world, where people check their phones more than fifty times a day in average, many companies have decided to take advantage of this situation by encouraging customers to go even further in the purchasing process. Indeed, by using a QR code, a seller can provide more detailed information about a product, data that can be essential in a consumer’s purchasing reflection.
In addition, using such a code can be very useful if the subject of your advertising is relatively abstract. In this case, you can generate curiosity in your target audience and encourage them to scan your code so they can learn more about your product or service.
To provide an optimal experience for your target audience and to be able to achieve your campaign objectives through the use of a flash code, you should:
- Establish a strategic plan:
Start by understanding who is your target audience: who are your users, what are they looking for, what are their knowledge of QR codes, will they be able to read the code easily?
Define specific objectives in advance! Before launching any advertising campaign it is essential to establish objectives that you want to achieve in order to be able to evaluate later whether the campaign has been successful or not. These objectives can be, for example, increase the number of likes on your Facebook page, expand your email list, encourage the installation of your mobile application, etc.
Find a way to get your target audience to scan your code! Your campaign will have no impact if you fail to engage your target audience to scan your code. Motivate your target through a contest game, a discounted offer, a video demonstration of a product or service, etc.
- Create a qualitative and original code:
There are many online sites where you can generate codes easily and of good quality, many of them allow you to customize it with colours and integrate your logo to distinguish yourself from your competitors.
To make it easier to read the code, avoid putting too much information in it because the more data it contains, the more points will be decoded in the code image, making it more difficult for the phone to read.
Last but not least, do not hesitate to test your code on several mobile devices and through different QR code scanner applications to ensure that your code will be readable by everyone.
- Measure the performance of your campaigns:
As mentioned above, before launching your campaign you need to establish a strategic plan. Similarly, once your campaign is complete, you need to analyse its performance to see if your objectives have been met. If not, you will need to check whether your audience has been well-defined, whether your objectives were achievable or impossible anyway, and whether your way of encouraging scanning is effective.
Example of customised and original codes!
In order to stand out from the crowd, more and more companies have decided to customise their code in order to increase their brand awareness and reach more individuals in their advertising campaign:
- Instagram:
In order to create a very creative and design ad, the famous social network Instagram, created a super attractive code to make people scan it. What happens if you decode this flash code? It will send you directly to your ITunes Store or Google Play Store to download the application.
- Taco Bell:
For several years now, the American fast food company selling Tex-Mex food has been using QR codes in its digital communication strategy. Indeed, since 2012, codes have been printed on takeaway packaging bags to increase consumer engagement. In a special campaign to promote a new menu, Taco Bell had even customised his code with lemons.
The team of our agency Eminence, specialist in digital marketing strategy, thanks you for your interest in its blog! Follow us directly on our social networks for more articles and information: Eminence Facebook, Eminence Instagram and Eminence Linkedin