Integrate Campaign Media with QR codes
QR codes may enhance the Campaign Message
Quick response (QR) codes are increasingly being used by marketers and public relations practitioners to integrate traditional and online media in a campaign. What is a campaign? A campaign’s goal can range from creating an awareness about a company, product, service, politician, political party or even a social issue or cause. A campaign can have an ending, just be for one event, or it can be continuous, for example an Aids awareness campaign (read my hub on what is a campaign for more information).
What is an QR code? An QR code is the trade name for a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) used to store a large amount of information which can be accessed online fast and in a comprehensible format. The code can be scanned with a smart phone (see the gettag.mobi website) or any bar-code scanning application providing access to a mobile webpage or other landing page which contains more information about a topic, which may include interactive features. Marketers and public relations practitioners have used various traditional and online techniques for their campaigns and have now added QR codes. It is, for example, now possible for the target audience of a campaign to read a printed magazine advertisement and then scan the QR code in the advertisement with their smart phones to access more rich and interactive data about the product or service. By bridging traditional and online media, the campaign message is reinforced even further.
Read my Related Articles
- What is a campaign: essential components for success
What is a campaign? A campaign is usually launched to achieve a specific goal. A campaign’s goal can range from creating an awareness about a company, product, service, politician, political party or even a social issue or cause.
How can QR codes be used in a campaign?
QR codes have much potential for marketers and public relations practitioners, but it is important to remember that the information should be interesting enough for the target audience to scan. Smart phones and bar-code-scanning applications are being adopted rapidly worldwide and QR codes thus offer much potential to campaigns in terms of adding to existing information and enhancing users' experiences.
Printed marketing material, for example advertisements, brochures, posters, flyers or bill boards can direct the target audience to a mobile web page containing more rich data and interactive features. Another example of how an QR code can be used is a campaign aimed at creating awareness about a social issue which could contain a QR code that links to an audio file with a campaign message, or a mobile webpage with more information about the social issue and how the user can contribute to the campaign.
When an QR code is scanned, various actions become available to the users on their devices such as viewing of a mobile webpage or other landing page, sending a text message or email, viewing a promotional message, downloading of information or seeing a particular social media profile.
The most important is to make it interesting and fun for the target audience to scan the information. They must know ahead of time that they will access valuable and entertaining information.
