The many sides of Social Media QR Codes

When starting any marketing campaign you need to look at your approach from many views and from every side.  You must ask yourself a few simple questions:

1. What is my intent?
2. Who is my audience?
3. What does success look like?
4. How will I measure the success of my campaign?

In the past advertisers would using a fishing pole approach… tossing out bait and trying to lure the customer to buy something.  Social media changed all that.  Social media is more about building relationships and getting OTHER PEOPLE TO TELL EVERYONE HOW GREAT YOU ARE!  This approach is more like herding cattle to a barn.  The problem is while most advertisers finally understand the concept and believe in “herding” philosophy, they are still using a fishing pole to try to accomplish the task.  See the problem?

QR Codes solve so many of these issues and are assisting the “old school” to cross over into the new world of marketing.

With a QR Code it is very easy to accomplish all of the above questions.  Once you have determined your intent you can now place your QR Code within your print and electronic media campaigns to get YOUR AUDIENCE to scan it.  Thus Social Media QR Codes!

Now it comes to the question of defining success and measuring it.

If you break the golden rule of QR Code Marketing and point the qr code at your website you are sure to fail as a website cannot be easily read and navigated on a Smartphone.  As well, your success objective should be much more than simply getting “hits” to your website.  (After all… it’s not 1995 anymore!)  You need to accomplish AT LEAST 1 of 3 critical objectives.

1. Acquire valuable customer data
2. Quickly showcase your product or service
3. Let the customer know why they should buy from you

A well-designed Smartphone enabled website (http://www.BuildYourownSmartSite.com) will accomplish all 3 objectives.  If you can get a facebook LIKE, a twitter FOLLOW or an email address from your visitor to your Smart Site you will be able to communicate with them for months or years into the future without tapping your marketing budget.  With a 60-90 second video you can showcase the benefits of your product/service and tell the WHY they should buy from you.

Your campaign should not be judged so much on revenue but more in terms of data acquisition.

If you follow these simple steps you will succeed with QR Codes.

Lance Reynolds is the owner and founder of Build Your Own Smart Site where you can create a smartphone enabled website with 5 simple steps in 5 minutes or less!

 

 

2 Responses

1. office chair reviews says:

   September 24, 2011 at 7:08 pm

   Much appreciated for the information and share!
   Nancy

   Reply
2. Best Office Chair says:

   December 1, 2011 at 7:40 am

   QR codes are definitely going to bring marketing to a whole new level. Exciting times we live in!

   Reply