3 Ideas To Use QR Codes For Business

Acceptance of quick-response (QR) codes--those square bar codes that connect consumers to a website, video or special offer--is increasing at a rapid clip. As the technology grows more popular--and websites such as Delivr.com, qrcode.kaywa.com and QRStuff.com make it easy for even small-business owners to get onboard by generating QR codes for free--placement and functionality of the technology is getting more creative.





These three businesses have found inventive new ways to utilize QR codes, and we’re betting you can find similarly creative ways of placing them in your next direct mail or print campaign. Make use of an online QR code generator and start watching your traffic zoom.

Berrge Tattoo’s QR Application
The award for most innovative use of the QR code goes to Turkish tattoo studio Berrge Tattoo. In their search for new artists, the business released a newspaper ad that requires applicants to first carefully, meticulously fill in a blank QR code with a pen. If you can get it just right, you can scan the code and, then and only then, be taken to the application form. Regardless of whether nobody would have the patience to scan this code, it’s some fantastic advertising.

QR-logo Mashup
With the release of each book, LJS&S Publishing in Orlando, Fla., plants QR codes on mugs, posters, yo-yos and T-shirts to help market the work. For the organization’s new science-fiction thriller, The Immune by Doc Lucky Meisenheimer, the company went above and beyond and inserted an image revised from the book's cover into the center of the QR code. The code became both a graphic illustration and a working connect to the book's site.

QR Code Alarm Clocks
For those of us who require a little push to get up in the morning, app developers have come up with a fail-proof way to make you really work for that snooze button. Using a QR code alarm clock on your smart phone, like Mobile Factory’s Alarm Clock Extreme, you should print off a code and place it somewhere hard to reach — like, in case if you’re really hard to wake up, the bathroom down the hall — and, when your alarm wakes you up, only scanning that code will turn it off. This might result in more smashed smart phones than fresh starts, but these apps are sure to get your feet on the floor and kick off your morning.

The stammering liftoff of QR-code marketing seems to have less to do with consumer disinterest and more to do with businesses not being innovative enough with them. These three examples are the tip of the iceberg; a quick Google search will show you countless new routes to make QR codes work for you. Next time you’re putting together a print campaign, ponder ways you can persuade your client that your QR code is worth the five seconds to scan — really razzle-dazzle them.