QR Codes and Mobile Email Marketing
Mobile marketing is now an essential component in any marketing campaign.
Nearly half (46 percent) of American adults — your customers — are smartphone owners. And, that number is growing exponentially. Therefore, it is necessary— more like critical— to utilize mobile-friendly marketing to bridge the gap between traditional marketing and online marketing. How do you do that? One way is through the use of QR codes or quick-response codes.
QR codes are the trademark for a type of martrix barcode that offers fast readability and increased storage capacity. The two-dimensional black-and-white code can store data such as contact information, URLs, email addresses, and more. They provide a direct link from offline to online, from print to mobile. QR codes are now being used on everything from plants at Lowe’s and homebuilder signage, to t-shirts, and race bibs. And, marketers are now starting to utilize QRs codes in email marketing too. These QR codes are powerful tools and email marketers can take advantage of them to leverage their campaigns.
According to Jericho’s GetSMART blog post, there are three top ways to use QR codes in email marketing.
Utilize QR Codes for Email Marketing
1. Offer QR Code sign-up via email. Encode an email message with the address of your campaign and a relevant subject line. When your recipient scans the code, their mobile email client opens, they consent to send the message, and they are now added to your campaign. Quick, easy, and effective.
2. Use the QR code for campaign follow-up. Create a campaign that is a dedicated follow-up series offering unique or beneficial content only available to users that sign-up using a QR code. Incorporate this into your multi-channel engagement strategy to provide additional incentives for recipients to become customers.
3. Link QR codes to exclusive content. Have your QR code drive traffic to product demos, case studies, tip sheets, blog posts, white papers, and more. This content should be valuable to your recipient to increase engagement, responses, and eventually sales. You can further improve response rates by segmenting your lists and offering content suitable for each demographic. You can also reward your best customers with a QR code. Promoting a “members-only” presentation, special sale, or exclusive discount accessible only by a distinct QR code can really increase your response rate.
Want some other ways to incorporate QR codes into your email marketing? Check these out.
How to Implement QR Codes for Email
1. Put the QR code into your email content. While it’s easy to click on an active link and instinctive at this point in time, users don’t always see that as something unique or special. Marketers should start putting a QR code into email campaign content in addition to linkable content! That QR code is intriguing to users, provokes them to act, and should link to a specific landing page offering new and trackable content for your user. Using your analytics, you can identify the exact response generated by the mobile device that read your code.
2. Add the QR code to your signatures. We all have links to our email, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts in our email signatures, but now’s the time to incorporate a QR code. This QR code should direct people to your promotions page, selling site, or special landing page. You can also include them in forums, blogs, and Q&A posts.
3. Use QR codes to “drip” mail a promotion, story, or campaign. Using a different QR code in each email of a campaign can lead your recipients through a promotion or story. This will increase their interaction with your brand and draw them into the promotion and your product.
QR code popularity is growing and its time to test it out. Remember though that QR codes aren’t for every campaign and they should be used where you can maximize the benefit. Always track! Also, don’t be afraid to get a little creative, like these clever QR codes for popular apps Instagram and Angry Birds.
Instagram and Angry Birds Utilizing QR Codes
Are you using QR codes in your campaigns? How has it impacted your marketing efforts?
Tagged in: Kissmetrics, Mobile, QR Codes