QR codes are another way businesses can connect to customers through their smartphones. You have probably seen these barcodes that look like mazes – perhaps on bus-stop posters, or on magazine ads, or in shop windows.
When you scan or read a QR code with your iPhone, Android or other camera-enabled Smartphone, you can link to digital content on the web; activate a number of phone functions including email, Instant Messaging and SMS; and connect the mobile device to a web browser. Mobile technology has become so sophisticated, that not only do consumers want to browse and purchase on the go, they want to do it fast. QR codes allow this to happen.
The ability of QR codes to connect people with each other and to multimedia digital content is very useful for businesses and consumers alike. However, we at Textlocal feel that businesses are missing out on a huge opportunity to form relationships long term through QR Codes.
Most businesses only use them to drive people to a website, a specific URL, which doesn’t capture any data. Then there is the issue where marketing agencies think “oh, I’ll add a QR code to some marketing material”… and then all it does is take the user to their normal desktop website which may not even optimised for mobile. Most QR codes that you see in the wild have no discernible call to action at all….they offer no reason for the end user to scan the code, other than novelty value.
Therefore, we believe the potential for QR codes has not yet been fully explored.
If you connect a QR code to an SMS text message, then a conversation can be automatically opened, and an exchange of data becomes possible. This is MUCH more powerful and effective, and means that when a user scans a QR Code, they can also send an automatic text message, giving businesses the opportunity to capture their mobile numbers for future marketing. This speeds up ‘opt-in’ mobile marketing, something that can also be done long hand via texting a word into a short code. QR codes linking with SMS can even go a stage further. After the QR Code has been scanned, and the SMS message has been automatically opened on the phone, businesses can also request that users enter an email address in the SMS message, and automatically reply with digital marketing collateral, for example, say a PDF brochure direct to the palms of their hands. We believe that QR Codes, working in harmony with SMS, opens up a whole world of opportunity for data capture that is being under-utilised.
Our services, which marry SMS with QR Codes, deliver to ALL brands the power to communicate with customers through highly cost-effective, rapid, and convenient mobile marketing methods.
