3 Super Easy Steps to Prevent #QRCode FAILURE

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QR Codes ( Quick Response Codes) are a cool way to give people quick access to an avenue to gain more information about a product, project or promotion. QR Codes allow quick scanning, using a previously downloaded QR Code App. However sometimes scanning a QR Code may not easily provide QUICK RESPONSE as it is supposed to. When this happens it is an indication that your QR Code Campaign is not effective and could in fact be moving toward failure.

One of the most important things about creating a QR Code Campaign is increasing the chances of success by making sure that the QR Code is scannable and that the QR code scans to a site that can be viewed properly. I would say that this is the single most important thing about venturing into QR Code Marketing. It is pretty simple, if the QR code can’t be scanned it’s ineffective. If, when the QR Code is scanned it opens to a site that cant be viewed properly, it’s ineffective. I will cover ways to avoid this HUGE QR Code blunders below.

The 1st thing you need to do is to make sure your QR Code scans to a mobile ready or mobile website. This, I would say is one of the most important things about creating and effective QR Code Campaign. If you have a traditional website and you create a QR Code campaign based on sending the person that scans your QR code to that site, your campaign could be an instant failure. Take a look at the image to the left to see how THIS website would look when viewed on a mobile phone. You can use Google Mobile Viewer to view how your traditional website would look on a mobile device. I have taken steps to prevent this by creating a mobile website and setting up mobile redirection to prevent this from happening. However, suppose I’d created a cool promotion using a QR Code, and it would have displayed as the image above? NOT GOOD! This is one of the primary reasons that people are so frustrated with the use of QR codes. So before even thinking of a QR Code campaign, consider where you’d like the people scanning to land, traditional website (not) or mobile website. With the exception of Vcards, QR Codes when scanned should land on Mobile Sites period.

Take a look at my QR Code driven mobile site. This mobile site drives all of my QR Code Campaigns AND when someone visits this site on a mobile device, they will see this mobile site. Mobile website detection and redirection is very important in general since so many people are using mobile devices to access the Internet from smartphones now.

The 2nd thing you need to do is test, Test and TEST your QR Code again, Again and AGAIN. Test it on an Android scanner, iPhone scanner AND browser based scanner. After you test it using all of those methods, test it AGAIN. I cannot stress the importance of testing QR Codes before you invest time, money and effort into creating a campaign.

The 3rd and final step is check out a few QR codes campaigns and companies that have had some success in implementing QR Codes into their marketing plans.

As usual, if you have any questions or comments, good, bad, ugly or indifferent I welcome them. So feel free to catch me on Twitter, leave a comment here or post directly to my Facebook or Google+ page. If you need specific advice on implementing your own QR Code and or Mobile Campaign, use the form to the right and I will get back to you ASAP.