Have you noticed? QR codes are everywhere. These highly recognizable squares of coded blocks are designed to link physical products to digital content. They can be black-and-white or color. They can be plain or contain graphic images (such as company logos). They are popping up on everything from grocery store items to billboards to checkouts for mobile payments.
Among the many applications for QR codes are prime labels, durable labels, and business forms. In fact, the global market size for QR-coded labels alone is projected to reach $1268.1 million by 2026, up from $916.7 million in 2020.
How to Use QR Codes
How do you use QR codes? Open the camera on your mobile phone and point it at the QR code. This automatically launches your mobile browser and takes you to online content or launches some kind of action. Think of QR codes as marketing or business operations shortcuts.
Among the common uses for QR codes:
- Taking the viewer to a landing page.
- Launching a mobile video.
- Launching a pre-populated email.
- Dialing phone numbers.
- Adding events to the user’s calendar.
- Adding contact information to the user’s phone.
By adding QR codes to products such as prime labels, durable goods labels, and business forms, you give your clients the opportunity to better serve their customers and market their products.
Beyond the benefits to your customers, QR codes benefit you, too. By helping your clients improve their marketing, customer education and engagement, and business workflows, QR codes help you deepen your relationship with those customers and make that relationship more valuable.
QR Codes Gaining Momentum
QR codes are not new. They’ve been around for decades. In the United States, however, their adoption has been in fits and starts. For a long time, the percentage of Americans even aware of QR codes hovered around 25-30%, and the lack of understanding of what to put on the back end of those codes was even spottier. Some companies used QR codes to send customers to relevant, high-quality information. But others misunderstood the role and value of these tools and sent people to places irrelevant to the product or service being sold, such as to the company’s home page. This lack of clarity around the value of QR codes was key to slowing their adoption.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed all that. In a touchless world, QR codes became practical and crucial tools for contactless interactions, from ordering food at a restaurant to accessing digital menus and event information. With so much uncertainty and fear during the pandemic, businesses were incentivized to figure out how to use QR codes to keep their customers engaged while also making them feel safe.
As a result, one of the unintended consequences of the pandemic was to fuel greater familiarity and comfort with QR codes. Even as the lockdowns began to ease, there was an explosion in QR code use. One study found a 25x increase in the use in QR code use by restaurants, for example, and a 7x increase by hotels.
_________________________
Did you know that QR codes were invented in Japan in 1994 by Denso Wave, a subsidiary of Toyota, as a way to track car parts during manufacturing?
_________________________
What are some very practical ways that your customers can use QR codes on their products?
- Prime labels: Take shoppers to relevant information to the food being purchased. If your client is producing nut butters, for example, you might add a QR code to the label that takes them directly to recipes for no-bake cookies or protein-almond snack balls. If your client sells wine, you might add a QR code that leads them to a mobile video of a tour of the winery where the grapes were grown and the wine was made.
- Durable goods labels: Durable goods labels are meant to last for the life of the product, such as the label on a power tool or a piece of machinery. In addition to the information required by law, you could add a QR code linking the product to digital content such as manuals, instructional videos, and customer support.
- Business forms: Traditional printed forms, such as invoices and order forms, can also benefit from using QR codes. By including a QR code, your customers can take their customers directly to a payment portal, to a customer survey; or enable digital signatures that allow their customers to sign documents electronically and securely.
Other Uses for QR Codes
These are just a few ideas, but there are infinitely more. QR codes can lead to any type of digital content. They can also be used to provide other helpful services, such as providing Wi-fi passwords (great for window clings); automatically adding contact information (great for business cards), and automatically adding events to recipients’ calendars, dialing phone numbers, and prepopulating emails with the recipient’s address.
By bringing QR codes into your sales toolbox, you are doing more than selling products. You are helping your customers make their products more valuable to their customers. As you do, you are deepening and securing the relationship with them by positioning yourself as a trusted advisor that cannot be replaced by “the next guy” offering a better price.
‘Want to learn more about QR codes? Contact your RSM or Wise marketing at marketing@wbf.com.
Want to experience the value of QR codes yourself? Scan this QR code to automatically launch an email to Wise Marketing requesting a training call!
