QR Codes are quickly becoming an important part of a digital marketing toolkit. But where are those QR codes taking your customers? The information you provide a mobile user is important, but so is the way you deliver the information. Traditional websites are not the optimum choice, but with some tweaks to your web design or a QR Code-specific landing page, your QR Code marketing can be very effective.

QR codes are two dimensional bar codes that are frequently used in print advertising or product packaging to provide mobile users with more information about a product or service. A consumer scans the code with their smartphone using QR code reader software (included on most smart phones and available for free via download) and is able to view videos, a mobile website or special offers and/or coupons on their phone.

By now most American consumers have seen a QR code. You may already be familiar with QR codes and how to use them. You may be one of the estimated 70 million American smartphone owners who regularly scan these codes with your phone to get product details or special offers on the go.

Give Them a Place to Land

Whether you are putting QR codes on brochures, business cards or product manuals, its important provide users a source of information that is optimized for a mobile device. Here are some tips to prepare your website or other content for QR Code marketing:

Microsites or Landing Pages

Manufacturers of mobile devices market their ability to display full websites in a mobile browser. But with small screens and touch screen interfaces, these devices are better suited for optimized, mobile websites. Your microsite or landing page can be as simple as formatting the text and images on the page so that they are easily viewed on a mobile device. For example, use a larger font, bigger form fields for use with a touch interface and include email addresses and phone numbers so users can contact you directly from the phone. Optimize images so they load quickly over a 3G data connection.

Video

Video is a great way to communicate information to mobile users. While Flash is the defacto standard for web video, most mobile devices cannot view video encoded in Flash. One exception is videos that are uploaded to YouTube. YouTube saves videos in multiple formats so that mobile users can view them as well. If you are not using YouTube to share videos, make sure the video you share via QR Code is formatted in mobile-friendly way. Here are some technical encoding details to give your video provider:

• Dimensions: 640px x 360px
• Format: MPEG 4, H.264, simple profile
• Bitrate: 1 Mbps

Downloads

If you are going to share documents, presentations or other information for customers to download, make sure it's formatted for mobile devices. Not every mobile device can view Word or Powerpoint files, but they can all view PDF files. Convert your documents to PDF format and use the optimization tools in Acrobat, Preview or other PDF viewer to reduce the file size for online delivery. If you really want to make mobile users happy, reformat your documents so they are easily viewed on a small screen without having to zoom and scroll around the document.

No matter what you want to share as part of your QR code marketing, a little planning can ensure mobile users utilize, and appreciate, the information you provide. Contact us to learn more about QR code marketing and how to prepare your website for a QR Code campaign.

When it comes to printing, paper is a pretty significant part of the equation. Despite our best efforts at sustainability and conservation, however, paper still requires the elimination of forestry products and an enormous amount of water for its production. These are two resources that all of us are concerned about conserving. 

Surveys are a great marketing tool. They enable you to gather key marketing information from your customers or prospects, learn the channels by which your customers wish to communicate and help you provide better service.  I have blogged about the benefits of using a website to conduct surveys in the past, but how you conduct the survey is not nearly as important as the questions you ask.

Many organizations make the mistake of asking too many questions, thinking they have one chance to gather as much data as possible. No one wants to answer a hundred questions on a survey. Most people don't even want to answer 10. So what is the right number of questions to ask on a marketing survey? 

One.

That's right. One question is all you really need to ask. In the book, The Ultimate Question, Fred Reichheld presents the concept of a Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is quickly being adopted by organizations around the world to determine the quality of customer service and brand loyalty. The first step in determining your NPS is to ask a single survey question:

"How likely are you to refer our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?"

That really is the ultimate question, isn't it? For marketers, it succinctly captures all the other data you could possibly need to determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and the quality of your customer service.

Consider asking this question in a simple online survey posted on your website. Mail a postcard to your customers with this question or include it on your next e-mail newsletter. Whatever communication channel your customers prefer, make sure to ask them this question. 

To learn more about NPS and how to determine your Net Promoter Score based on the answers you get to the one question marketing survey, I highly recommend Fred Reichheld's book. Not much of a reader? Email me and I will walk you through it.