5 Easy Mistakes To Avoid with QR Codes

Okay, you want to jump on the QR code bandwagon – good for you! As cool as this new marketing tactic is, there are tons of ways to screw it up.  With all the QR code campaigns you’ve seen out there… maybe 10% of them have avoided making some classic mistakes.  In this post we’ll look at some of the classic QR blunders to avoid for your next campaign. Let’s get started…

1)     QR Code Doesn’t Work

Not all QR scanner are created equally.  It’s unfortunate, but true.  Some smartphone QR code scanners are ill equipped to translate your long-winded QR code.  The solution? Keep your QR simple.  If you can, stick to a simple shortened link or something similar – this will ensure maximum exposure. Also consider the size of your QR code, and how your audience will be scanning.  Billboard QR codes need to be massive because your customer is scanning from many feet away, business card QR codes can be much smaller, but still need to be big enough to be read by the scanner as well.  Also consider print quality – a fuzzy QR code won’t scan.

2)     Medium Not Considered

The point of a QR code is to make a static medium more interactive.  TV is an interactive medium, and thus QR codes on TV are pretty useless. QR codes online, are equally useless.

3)     QR Destination Not Mobile Friendly

This is by far the most common mistake made by QR code marketers.  QR codes are designed to be scanned by mobile devices… thus, if your destination page isn’t mobile friendly, you’ve just failed the QR code marketing game.

4)     Wi-Fi or Network Unavailable

Depending on if you can control where your QR codes are being published, you may want to do your research to determine if a free Wi-Fi signal is available, or at a minimum a Network signal is available for data usage. Making your QR campaign a hit may be as simple as ensuring a signal is available.

5) Awful Content or Landing Page

The quickest way to lose your customers interest is to send them to a poorly designed, static landing page.  You have all but 5 seconds to keep their interest, if your landing page doesn’t do this… you’ve failed. Finally, to spread news of your campaign, you must make it easy to spread the news.  Encouraging sharing on your landing page is highly recommended to increase the awareness of your campaign.

We hope these common mistakes have helped you for your next QR campaign. As marketers we are responsible to consider the entire customer experience for a campaign.  Further to that, the more craptacular QR campaigns in the marketplace, the quicker this technology will just become useless background noise to consumers.  We have to use it correctly – so please take this tips into consideration.

Have any other mistakes you want to add to the list? Have we missed some?  We’ve love to hear your thoughts.  Share your feedback in the comments section below.