Today, both online and offline media are vital to your marketing campaigns. They both have wide reaches into different audiences, and one can cover where the other may not be easily visible. Although they are virtual vs physical in nature can make it difficult to run them together seamlessly. So can you even bridge your offline and online marketing together? Of course, you can, just use QR codes in marketing! Let us have a look at how!
- “Are QR codes dead?” we often hear being asked. On the contrary, the use of QR codes in marketing is the bridge between digital and physical media! Hence the term “phygital”.
QR codes in marketing: Connection between the worlds!
Are QR codes dead? This question seems to be a popular one… Well, QR codes in marketing are quite alive and kicking 😉 They have this important position of being the bridge between online and the offline. They are, the heralds of phygital marketing!
Since pretty much everybody has a smart device nowadays, they can scan and use the QR codes pretty easily. Just incentivize them, offer rewards for using the QR code to let them into your digital marketing funnel.
These codes can be printed on any media: flyers, coupons, billboards, bus stops, or even on digital signage… Where you will use QR codes is only limited by your imagination!
These codes allow you to link people from any offline media to any digital content, and, with use of the right platforms, also give you ability to retarget these users, and gain valuable information from them like where the best buyers come from, which campaign performs best, etc.
Now, yes, online and offline marketing campaigns are connected great! But what’s the benefit? How can I use QR codes to bridge online and offline marketing?
There are multiple things that you can do, let’s look at them one by one.
Do you have an app? Use offline ads and get them to download it!
Apps can be either the meta or a channel in a marketing campaign. Since smart devices are everywhere, apps are always with us, so they are a great marketing channel.
However, for an app to be profitable, you need many downloads. There are many ways to achieve this. ASO and SEO efforts being the first two that comes to mind.
However, you can get people to know of, and even directly download your app even when they aren’t browsing the internet or app stores.
Let’s say that you hand out promotional items, perhaps in an event. Brochures, or a nice, branded notebook. Feature your QR code link there with an offer for additional benefits to app users.
Someone who is already positively influenced with the experience in the gift item will be more likely to check out the offer of the app, and you can gain users easily like that.
By turning QR codes into Dynamic and Trackable QR codes, Smart Deep Links technology makes it easy for users to get onboard within the apps. These context-sensitive links provide the following benefits:
- They will take the user to their destination regardless of the platform they are using.
- Let’s say they don’t have your app and are using an iPhone, the link will take them to download the app from App Store.
- If they are using an Android device instead, the same link will take them to Play Store page of the app.
Handout coupons
Coupons and vouchers are a great way to build bridges with potential customers. It is even better if you get them to scan a QR code to enjoy the benefits. This way you will be able to track the success of your campaign, and even potentially build a database of users for later remarketing.
- Coupons and vouchers are a popular customer loyalty and marketing tool in many industries, such as retail market. When used together with smart QR codes, they are the incentivizes of the phygital marketing.
This is usually a great option for food and beverage venues for example. But it can be used in other services and products as well. The retail market would be one of those, for example.
Do you have a great landing page? Well, let people see it!
While a flyer or a billboard is great in their own right, a web page can feature so much rich media content that can not.
This way you can really get two types of media to mutually support each other. People can see a physical ad anywhere, in public transportation, in a cafe, just anywhere… You web content, on the other hand, can include many images, videos, text, and even interactive elements. These can help you convey the message of your product/service much more strongly.
Just put the link to your web content inside a QR code and feature this prominently on your offline ads, and reap the rewards.
Know what your ads are doing
Information is the greatest strength in marketing. You need to know many things to achieve the most successful campaigns. Who is the best audience to target? What do they want? Where are they? What time they are most likely to buy? Do they respond better to this or that kind of campaign? Marketing is hardly the cheapest thing when you don’t know what is working and what isn’t! Are you doing it right, or are you just losing money? Information is paramount in knowing this and adjusting accordingly.
However, collecting all this information may not always be the easiest thing to do. Well, at least it wasn’t always, but now marketing automation and analytics tools let you have this power at the tip your fingers!
Though, unless you integrate offline and online campaigns, their powers will only work in the digital realms.
This is where QR codes come to play! They can help with getting data from your offline campaigns too.
Retarget people who look at your offline marketing materials
Giving people an incentive to scan that cool little QR code on your ads will make it possible for automation platforms to retarget them later.
First off, you may ask the user to fill out a contact form to enjoy the benefit you offer. They may give an email or phone number.
Almost uniquely among the platforms, Appgain also enables you to get a database of interested users without even asking their contact information. As you may know, some users don’t quite like giving personal info to marketing campaigns. With our web push notification feature, they can just subscribe to your notifications and then you will be able to retarget them with notifications even if they are on a desktop system.
How can you use offline and online marketing together? How do you employ QR codes in marketing?
- QR codes will let your online marketing efforts work on physical media too, here you can see how it would work for a retail market case
Well of Course With Appgain! Appgain gives you the opportunity to make the best use of the QR code’s powers, and adds more to the pack! The answer to “are QR codes dead?” is a resounding no, and our platform is ready to provide you with all the benefits phygital marketing and more.
Retarget your customers on social platforms, with notifications, SMS or email. With Dynamic, Colorful and Branded QR codes, our offer is feature-rich, and besides, we offer not just a QR code platform, but a whole marketing solution!
Still, got questions? Do not hesitate to reach out and Contact Us! Request Demo now.
