Using QR Codes in Marketing


QR codes have been around for many years. It is only recently that entrepreneurs have found ways to implement them in marketing campaigns. This article will explain what they are and a few effective applications in marketing.


What are QR codes?


These are two dimensional codes designed to be unique identifiers for most products and services. The QR code causes a smartphone browser to direct users to a given website that contains more information about said product or service therefore increasing chances of sales.


Uses in online marketing


You can increase online sales using QR codes in the following ways:
Real estate: You can add QR codes in your property you want to sell, rent out or lease. A person that scans the QR code will be sent to a site where they can ask for clarifications, make payments or contact the owner. This can increase sales when you are away and also help in branding.


Book sales: You can add QR codes to a book that allow people to read a few chapters, reviews and get information about the author. This extra information increases sales from an online book store.


Increasing website traffic: You can prompt people to scan a QR code in order to get into an online contest. Interested people can them share the QR code in their social media networks. All this traffic can then be directed to a given website. This sudden influx of visitors can help jumpstart online sales or develop a loyal following.


Email marketing: You can use QR codes to get more email subscribers by including them (QR codes) in a compelling copy. Scanning the code will direct them to a page where they can put in their names and email addresses.


E-commerce: You have to attach your QR codes to URLs that populate a shopping cart, video reviews or to webpages that have more information about a given product or service. Having these codes prominently displayed will increase sales. You will also improve your site’s branding campaigns in the process.

Check this video out!  This guy is taking QR Codes to a whole different level.

Uses in offline marketing


The following are the ways you can use QR codes to increase offline sales and contacts:
Business cards: You can have a QR code instead of all your contact information. Interested people can scan them and get directed to online profiles that have details about your business, location, online video bio etc.


Labels: You can put them on meat products, dairy products, books, t-shirts etc. where people can get directed to websites that give details about ingredients, origin, manufacture and expiry dates, video descriptions etc. This will allow you to use space on the product for other things e.g. a better design. It is a good branding technique.


Shop front displays: You can put up QR codes on your shop’s door where customers can get information on opening and closing hours, discounts, special offers, giveaways, other branches etc. This information will allow your customers to enjoy greater convenience therefore increasing sales over time.


Restaurants: You can market your restaurant by having people read the menu, prices, special meals etc. upon scanning the QR code. They will thus get relevant information about your restaurant very easily which can cause them to consider your restaurant above all others.


TV ads: You can incorporate QR codes in television advertisements to allow people to get more information upon scanning. It is a good way to increase your ads’ effectiveness.


In a nutshell, QR codes have virtually unlimited applications in marketing. You just need to give people compelling reasons to scan them.

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Well, to use Facebook’s definition, “Facebook Platform uses the Open Graph protocol to enable integrations of your web pages into the social graph.” To turn your web pages into graph objects, you need to add basic metadata to your page. The initial version of the protocol is based upon RDFa which means that additional tags must be placed in your web page. The four required properties for every page are:

• og:title – The title of your object as it should appear within the graph, e.g., “GoalCrusher”.
• og:type – The type of your object, e.g., “movie”. Depending on the type you specify, other properties may also be required.
• og:image – An image URL which should represent your object within the graph.
• og:url – The canonical URL of your object that will be used as its permanent ID in the graph, e.g., “http://www.goalcrusher.com/title/tt0117500/”.

Hmmmm….

For those among us who “no sprechen” tech-speak, that basically means this: By using Open Graph tags, your webpage can be treated the same as a Facebook page and can be found in searches on Facebook. (That wasn’t so hard)

If you add the Facebook “Like” button to your webpages, when a user clicks “Like” a link is created between your page and the FB user. Your page will now be listed in the user’s “Likes and Interests” section of their page, in their News Feed, and you have the ability to publish updates to that user.

Why is any of this important for Social Media Marketing?

First of all, you may or may not know that Facebook has halted the development of the “Share” button, so the “Like” button is now the preferred way to distribute content from third party sites. When a user likes your page, not only is a News Feed item generated with a link back to your content, it also shows other connected friends.

Optimizing your webpages with open graph tags allows your content to be indexed for searches and it also allows you to determine things such as which thumbnail is associated with what content. For anyone who has ever posted an article and had some random or irrelevant image displayed with it, you will definitely appreciate this.

The value of “Like”

It is more important than ever to integrate the Facebook “Like” button into your web pages and blogs because search engines now use the number of Likes in its ranking criteria.
Besides SEO purposes, it offers users the opportunity to promote your brand to their sphere of influence on social media. A referential “like” can be exponentially more influential than other forms of content sharing. Remember, people believe people they believe to be like them, so if a friend likes your brand it lends it the credibility of their relationship.

According to HubSpot’s 2011 Facebook Update, “Facebook users who utilize a
Like button visit 5.3x more Web urls to engage with content and on average have 2.4x more Friends.”

The benefit to you is that more engaged users have greater influence over a broader audience of potential customers.

There are multiple options for the format of the “Like” button that you place on your site and you also have the ability to choose the verb “Recommend” rather than “Like” if you so choose.

• Standard (with or without faces enabled)
• Button Count
• Box Count

One important note is that recent reports note that sites that use the Standard option with faces enabled have a 2-3 times higher click through rate than those without faces enabled.

Enabling the Open Graph structure for your site and incorporating the “Like” button is a great way to tap into the power of Facebook’s user base and social graph. As with any aspect of your marketing, you should continue to test and monitor the results so you can make changes as required.

Getting people to like your content allows you to engage your current users, creates opportunity for conversation with new users, and drives traffic back to your content. Take advantage of these tools which are at your disposal to increase your brand awareness and grow your business. If you have seen results from using the “Like” button on your sites, please share your thoughts below in the comment section. If you are still a skeptic, post your questions below and we will address them in future posts.

Oh, and don’t forget to “Like” this post! ☺

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