Last fall we wrote about the QR code and how businesses are starting to adopt the mobile scan able code to do all sorts of things. We showed you the back of one of our business cards that scanned with a smart phone would take you directly to our website. While the adoption of the QR (Quick Response) code certainly hasn’t been as meteoric as say facebook, you are starting to see it more and more in advertising, sales materials, and informational signs.

How many of you saw the QR codes embedded in the signs throughout Vision Expo in New York recently. Attached is a photo of one of the signs. The QR code went to the bus schedule between selected New York hotels and the show at the Javits Center. If you have downloaded a reader to your smart phone, you would have been taken directly to that schedule on your phone where you could look at the bus schedule at your convenience.

Here are some links for readers:

iPhone

Blackberry

Android

So, what can you embed in a QR code? The list is long.

  • text
  • a website URL
  • a telephone number
  • sms message
  • email address
  • email message
  • VRCard (contact details)
  • event
  • google map location
  • wifi login (android only)
  • paypal buy now link
  • social media links
  • itunes link
  • youtube video

You can see from the list there are a number of ways to integrate a QR code into your marketing. Is your practice hard to find? use a QR code to launch google maps on a smart phone. Want people to find your various social links? Let them scan it from your receipt or business card. Want to schedule an appointment? Send them a QR for the appointment in their email and let their phone sync the appointment in their calendar. Quite frankly, the uses of QR codes are only going to grow as we rely on our mobile devices for everything we do more and more.

Here is a great site to generate your QR codes. They even have a color feature. https://www.qrstuff.com/

How will you use a QR code for your business?