QR Codes-Who Are You Kidding?
I had a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday who is in the business. He does print advertising for contractors and does really well with it. We were talking about a project he is looking to bring us in on and mentioned the client wanted to have a QR code in his ad.
I spent the next 15 minutes doing everything I could to talk my friend into talking his client out of using it.
Why? Because QR are codes are the Devil, here’s why.
Not one phone that I know of comes shipped with a QR reader baked into the software. So that means, if you go and use these useless marketing gimmicks, someone has to:
- Launch their respective store (Google Play or Apps for Apple)
- Download the software
- Configure it
- Figure out how it works
- Be in a place where they can point and click at your ad (I’ve seen them on buses)
- Get taken to the special link the QR code takes them to
- Read the content
- Perform whatever action the page asks; fill out a form, call, jump through a hoop, whatever.
- And if your prospect hasn’t killed themselves either voluntarily or involuntarily trying to read your dumb code, then MAYBE they act.
OR….
- You put a special landing page on your website
- Put that page address in your ad that tells people your or promotion
- They type that page into their browser
- They go to your page and perform your action with a lot less hassle and heartache
Point is…
You should always try and put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. So I ask you, whose shoes would you want to be in? And by the way, there is a message in that QR code above. 😉