A QR Code® can either be the cherry or the sour grape on the top of your marketing sundae. When it comes to prospects interacting with your marketing materials, newsletter, or advertisement, they’re either going to swallow and smile or spit it out.
By including a QR Code, and a teaser foreshadowing where it will lead, you illicit engagement. Two companies engaged me this week by delivering the cherry on top by giving me something I didn’t expect or know. I like that.
A third company that ran an ad for migraine relief, used a QR Code that made me disengage rather than find relief for what ailed me.
AARP Gives Members the Banana Split of Information
AARP knows its audience. It knows seniors are still cutting corners in the challenging economy because of their income concerns. AARP addresses this key concern in its member magazine it published, “Can You Really Save $10,000 a Year?” The article summarizes eight steps excerpted from How to Retire the Cheapskate Way.
Obviously the article is a home-run content wise, and AARP takes it one step further by including an infographic that illustrates the eight steps in play. AARP takes it two steps further by including a QR Code with directions: SCAN THIS NOW. Below this call to action, AARP includes a TEASER: How Cheap Are You? See Jeff find some new uses for aluminum foil.
The QR Code takes readers to an entertaining and educational video about great re-uses of aluminum that seniors who like to squeeze every nickel out of products will love.
Infiniti Hands Prospect the Tiramisu Tutorial
In Infiniti’s advertisement for its backup collision intervention system, it includes a custom QR Code that leads to a YouTube video. I expected to see an accident being prevented by the technology, which I did. What I didn’t expect was to learn how advanced this technology is. The video demonstrates a lighting system on the sides of the interior of the car that would begin flashing on the side of the “threat.” It also demonstrates how the car automatically backs off the gas and applies the brakes.
I’m not trying to sell you an Infiniti, but to open your mind to how you can deliver more with your QR Codes and make that extra step the consumer is taking a worthwhile one. It does a great deal to enhance your organizational image with that consumer.
MyChronicMigraine’s QR Code is Vanilla in a Chocolate World
While MyChronicMigraine.com has an engaging visual on its advertisement (a woman asleep on a red couch on a beachfront), its QR Code leads the customer to a zip-code search page. There is no instruction above or below the QR Code and no “teaser” to make the reader want to scan.
If by chance they do engage and scan, it takes them to a screen to search for an office, which seems abrupt and non-helpful to someone seeking answers, research, solutions or justification they are among healers not spammers.
Because the ad talks about finding out if you have chronic migraines, it would seem a quiz or information packet link would be more appropriate in the sales funnel than trying to drive them into a franchisee’s office. Frankly, it seems pretty sales like and not helpful.
If you use a QR Code, be sure to take the extra step and do it right
If there is anything you gain from reading our QR Code reviews it is the hope that you understand that when using a QR Code in your marketing you make it a worthwhile experience for the consumer. Failing to do so, can mean more ill will than good vibrations.
QR Code is a registered trademark of Denso Wave.