(modern music)
- Hi there REtipster readers,
my name is Jordan Crawford, and I run cinemascout.com.
Now, today we're talking about QR codes,
specifically, as they relate to direct mail.
So I'm gonna talk to you about what a QR code is,
why it can benefit you,
and why it can benefit your end recipient
of a direct mail piece,
and how to use them and what's their purpose.
So, let's go over what a QR code is.
So this is a QR code.
You can see it's printed here on a postcard.
This QR code was generated
by service called QR Code Generator.
So it says scan to redeem,
now you might think, well,
what the heck am I supposed to do?
This is a good point right off the bat.
If you're gonna provide a QR code,
you definitely want to tell people what to do.
So with an iPhone, the QR code reader is built in
natively to camera application,
which means you can point your camera at any QR code,
and then you can instantly get access to that URL.
Now, with Android phones, you're gonna have to tell the user
to download an app to do that.
But I'm gonna show you what it looks like on an iPhone.
So I've got my camera app here,
and I'm just gonna point it at that QR code
and you can see how quickly it recognized.
It says, lead.me in Safari.
Now this is really important because the QR code
is gonna take me to this site here.
But it didn't take me directly there.
It took me through a URL redirect.
And all that means is it first went to one website
and then it went to another website.
Now the benefit to this particular marketer of doing that
is now they know that I have scanned the QR code.
Everyone goes to the same website,
but there's a unique forwarding URL, forwarding website
that is just for me.
So even though I haven't done anything on the website,
they know that I have visited it.
It's a great way for a marketer to understand
that something has happened.
Now, there are much more interesting uses of QR codes,
but before we get into that,
one of the most important things
when you're dealing with QR codes is you have to educate.
A lot of foreigners, especially in Asian countries,
they know how to use QR codes.
They're built into a lot of apps they use already.
Americans don't.
We don't see them, we don't have exposure to them.
So you have to educate on your card.
Now this card says scan to redeem.
That's not good enough.
You have to tell people, people your iPhone's camera
at this QR code or use an Android app
and download this particular app to scan the QR code.
It's really important to educate your audience.
Now, let's talk about interesting use cases for QR codes.
So I've generated a couple here,
and I'm gonna show you, that was a really simple use case.
It just went to a website.
It saved me maybe a second or two.
But there are other uses for a QR code.
So I'm gonna open my camera app again.
I've got an iPad here, and I'm just gonna scan QR code here.
If you can see this here, it says
compose a message in messages.
So if I tap that, it's gonna open the messaging app
and it's actually gonna pre-compose the message for me.
That means you can have a QR code
that is designed to text you with a specific text.
Now I still have to hit send
to actually get the text to me,
but now I've saved the end consumer
the difficulty of typing in my phone number,
composing a specific text, and then hitting send.
This is a perfect example of how QR codes
can be really, really useful.
And you can apply this to a bunch of different things.
As long as there's a URL or a web address,
you can generate a QR code,
and so that means if you wanna get Uber directions,
you can do that with a QR code.
If you want to create a v card,
so you want the prospect
to have your whole contact information
saved automatically to their contacts,
they can scan that QR code, your v card can come up
and they can hit save,
and they'll have all your details instantly.
They don't have to type everything in.
It's a huge savings for the end customer.
Scout will generate unique directions per postcard.
So you can scan a QR code and get directions
from where you are to a just listed home
or any address that you want, for example.
You can direct people to an app store link,
to like your page on Facebook, to a PDF.
Generally, the rule here is
if it's gonna take them more time to google
or to manually do the step,
that's a great example of when you should use a QR code.
If it's just a website,
sure, there's some benefit to you,
but unless you actually have a call to action
or some text that explains, this is a QR code
generated uniquely for you,
you can't get access to the discount if you google,
that's a really important thing to do.
So you definitely want to provide the consumer
some incentive about why they should scan the QR code.
What's the benefit of having to open my phone
and point it here and then tap
if I can just google your company,
it's gonna be much faster to do that.
So you'll definitely want to get creative
when you're using QR codes,
Scout has done a couple of things with QR codes,
but there's so much more to explore.
And you wanna think always about your customer
and what benefit do they get out of it?
You can google all of the things I've talked about today.
There's a website, QR Code Generator.
QR-code-generator.com.
They have a lot of examples of how to use QR codes,
when they're effective.
They can also pull up information about IP addresses,
and they can tell you if they're scanning from San Francisco
or San Diego, versus just generic Google traffic.
So, hopefully this is helpful,
when talking about QR codes,
you definitely want to work with a printer
that can print unique QR codes to every single postcard.
Scout does this in our platform natively,
but there are a ton of printers that can do variable images.
That's the question you wanna ask.
Do you support variable images?
And then if you work with a QR generator code online,
you can generate unique QR codes for every person.
But you don't have to get that fancy.
You can generate a free QR code online in a bunch of places
and do something cool like an SMS
or an email that's already pre-composed
with your email address, a subject line you choose,
and a body you choose, which is really great,
super easy way to get in contact.
Hopefully, this is helpful to you.
If you have any questions, I'm Jordan@cinemascout.com.