QR Codes: The Right Way to Use Them in Your Marketing
QR codes are seemingly everywhere these days, and often for good reason due to the convenience they offer customers and how easy they are to track. Chances are that your company even has several of its own deployed across its different branded materials. However, these little square codes come with pros and cons, and there are still right and wrong applications for them in your company’s marketing efforts.
When to Use Them
Like I detailed more in a previous blog post, each advertising medium usually will fall into one of two different categories - for building brand awareness or for customer education. Depending on which category your advertising falls into should have an impact on whether or not you choose to deploy a QR code with it.
Building Brand Awareness
This is going to be advertising where people have little time, or even interest, to interact with the material. As odd as it sounds, the role of these materials isn’t to create an immediate sales conversion, but rather to simply help people remember your brand for the future. Think primarily of outdoor advertising, such as vehicle wraps, billboards, or yard signs.
Customer Education
The role of these materials is just the opposite. They have longer interaction times, and usually your audience has also expressed some level of interest or openness to learning more about your company. Think of things like brochures, business cards, a trade show banner, etc.
Often businesses make the mistake of applying a one-size-fits-all approach, rolling out QR codes in their advertising regardless of the role of the medium or how customers will interact with it. As you might be able to guess though, they are at their most effective when used on materials that are meant for customer education and creating more immediate conversions.
“So What About QR Codes on Vehicle Wraps?”
Vehicle wraps are much closer to something like a billboard than a brochure, and the content on them should usually be tailored with that in mind.
For that reason, QR codes present some challenges. People have only a matter of seconds to see a wrap on the road, scanning a code is a safety hazard on moving vehicles, and even when stationary at a stoplight, codes can be difficult to scan. Yes, scanning them is tricky at certain angles and distances, but also the reality is that many people are looking down at their phone while they wait for a traffic light to change rather than taking in the scenery around them.
Going back to the role of a wrap, everything included on them should be with the goal of building brand awareness. With a wrap, you shouldn’t be counting on making an immediate sale, or someone immediately following a call-to-action. Instead, you should be counting on the elements on the wrap to help people start to remember the brand for the future. Every additional piece of content you add can reduce the chance of this happening.
Even when it comes to something like a website URL, we still include them in vehicle wrap designs knowing that people are not going to physically type them in or write them down, usually. Instead, most people are just going to Google you, then call or visit your website from there. But the difference is that the text in a website URL, or even something like a vanity phone number, can actually reinforce the memorability of the brand, whereas a QR code will not.
Exceptions
While QR codes generally are better suited for other materials, not all company vehicles have the same role. The way people interact with something like a stationary food truck is radically different than that of a normal service van. This is a case where you do want to create an immediate sales conversion and a QR code could be a reasonable way for people to access something like a menu while they wait in line.
One upside to vehicles is that they usually do have the real estate to support a QR code though. In our experience, usually there will be an open area in a design towards the rear quarter panel of a truck or van that a code can neatly nest into. If you are stuck on the idea of a QR code, this is at least a great spot because it keeps them out of the way and appropriately sized.
Speaking of sizing, your QR code should never be large and competing with the other text elements higher up in the wrap design’s visual hierarchy. We must remember that, regardless of the size of the code, people will probably only scan them up close in very rare instances while parked.
Design Matters, Even for QR Codes
If we’re being honest, QR codes are pretty ugly. These big black and white squares stick out like a sore thumb and just slapping them on top of a design usually doesn’t look pleasing.
It might sound trivial, but I do recommend that any QR codes for your company need to be given brand and design considerations. A great thing about QR codes is that they are easily customizable, even if you aren’t a designer. Take advantage of that and make sure that your codes are using visual language that feels on-brand. The business cards we designed for Reel Comfort Heating & Cooling serve as a great example of how to do exactly this.
The first change we made was to ditch the standard black & white QR code colors for actual brand colors. Instead of a code made of the standard squares with hard pointed corners, we chose squares that have rounded corners, to better match the softer shape language that is across the Reel Comfort brand. We also incorporated the same rope border element from their logo as the border of the QR code. The result is something that looks like it belongs in the design rather than something that awkwardly is sitting on top of it.
Whatever way you decide to style your QR codes, just make sure the colors have enough contrast to be scannable, and to be consistent with their appearance. Don’t make one code made of squares and another made of circles. Don’t make some on-brand and some not. Like any other part of your brand, consistency builds trust and recognition over time.
Choose the Right Destination
So at this point we know what materials are best-suited for QR codes and how they should appear, but none of this matters if the code isn’t taking them to an optimal place. Again, this is another situation where one-size-fits-all won’t work for QR codes. Depending on what the call to action is will directly affect where I would recommend the link taking people.
A website homepage certainly is very common URL destination, but don’t be afraid to link to a specific page too. If your call to action is about getting someone to request an estimate, link them directly to that page on your website instead of making them find it themselves. Or in the case of Reel Comfort above, instead of taking them directly to the same website or phone number already listed on their business cards, we instead made a link that lets a customer save all of that information into a contact on their phone.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, QR codes should be deployed in service of your customers. Ask “does this code actually serve their needs and make sense for how they will interact with this type of advertising?” Let that be your guiding star. If you are answering honestly, it might be even mean you don’t need a QR code sometimes, and that’s okay too.
Every piece of advertising in your arsenal has a different job. Vehicle wraps are different than your website, which is different than your business cards, etc. Don’t be afraid to lean into the strengths of each medium, but also away from their respective weaknesses too.
Drive Your Brand Forward
If you want to take your company’s branding to the next level, you found the right team for the job. You can give either of our offices a call, or send us an email to start a conversation about your project.
Murrells Inlet: 843.651.6003
Charleston: 843.823.9274
Email: sales@wrapsink.com
